Everly had her life all planned out. She was going to marry Brad, her best friend since second grade, her high school sweetheart, and soulmate. He was a baseball prodigy and planned to play for the New York Yankees one day, which was perfect because...
'How many times can I embarrass myself in front of this guy in one day?' she thought, wanting to face palm herself for being so cringy.
A professor walked up to the podium at the front of the room and cleared his throat. He was in his mid 40's, tall and lanky with very short, neatly trimmed brown hair, a cheap suit and thick black glasses. He looked like he was the kind of guy who thought chess games were exciting.
"Hello. Everyone," he said but the class continued talking. "Please listen up!" he shouted and everyone got quiet. "That's better. I am Professor Collins and this is English Literature 101."
He paced back and forth with his hands clasped behind him, looking at the students with a judgemental glare.
He straightened his tie and said, "I know it's unheard of and a bit weird to have assigned seats in college but this is my lecture hall and I decide the rules. I like order and structure and my OCD feels a lot better if everyone is in their correct seat and in the same seat every day. This is not up for discussion so don't even bother arguing about it. You won't win."
He called off names and pointed at seats as people got up and sat where he instructed. Everly was used to being towards the front so she was disappointed when she had to get up and give her front middle seat to someone else.
He called her name a few rows back in the center. After her name, he called out 'Keaton Ashcroft' and the handsome, English guy sat down next to her. Everly couldn't believe her luck!
"So your name is Keaton then? I'm Everly," she said smiling. "I couldn't help but notice your accent. You're from England, right? I've never been to England, but I hear it's beautiful. Is this your first time in New York?"
Keaton started up his laptop and looked over at her with a somewhat annoyed look on his face.
"Yes I'm Keaton. I'm from London. No it's not beautiful and no this is not my first time to New York. Anything else you would like to know? My shoe size perhaps or how large my cock is?"
Everly was stunned by his rudeness and realized she was sitting there with her mouth hanging open in shock.
"Are all Americans this nosy or are you just special?" he asked sarcastically in his thick British accent.
She scrunched her eyebrows and said defensively, "Well excuse me! Where I'm from, people are friendly and ask questions to get to know each other."
Being raised in the Midwest, she was taught to be friendly and to strike up conversations with total strangers. Apparently they weren't the same way in London.
Keaton crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, looking over at her.
"Well, where I'm from people pretty much keep to themselves and mind their own fucking business. You should try it sometime. It's lovely," he said with a snarky tone.
She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Wow," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Are all Londoners this rude or are you just special?"
Everly realized the class had gotten quiet and she looked up to see the professor looking at them with crossed arms, tapping his foot and waiting for them to be quiet.
"Sorry," she said awkwardly, sliding down in her seat with her face flushing from embarrassment.
She decided to pay attention to the professor and try to ignore Keaton for the rest of the class. She had had enough humiliation for one day.
"Ok, these will be your assigned seats for the rest of the semester. If you're not in your assigned seat you don't get credit for attending the class and with the way I grade that's important. Also, starting from this side look to your right and that will be your thinking partner for the entire semester. Your reports and assignments will be done together, so make friends fast."
"Bloody hell. You've got to be fucking kidding me," Keaton groaned as he looked over at Everly, his new thinking partner.
She gave him a fake smile, narrowing her eyes at him and then started typing notes on her laptop.
"The assignment you and your partner will work on before we meet again is 'What is love really and what have the great English novels taught us about love?" the professor instructed. "Go ahead and spend the rest of today's lecture working on the assignment and make plans to meet up and finish it up sometime before our next class."
Everly looked over at Keaton, who didn't seem thrilled at all by this assignment. In fact, he didn't seem too thrilled by anything. She wondered if he was always this grumpy.
"I'll go ahead and do the typing since I've already got a blank page pulled up on my laptop," Everly told him. "So what do you think love really is?"
Keaton sunk down in his chair and exhaled deeply, obviously irritated with the assignment or his thinking partner or both.
"What people call love is really just an infatuation with the way a person looks, their height, their money, their job, their talent or their social status. That's what women are after. If you have none of those things you're doomed to be alone. It's all so fucking superficial. IF pure true love even exists at all it's extremely rare," he stated.
"Ugh, you're such a cynic," Everly said, furrowing her brows at him. She looked down at her notes and let out a sigh. "You may think I'm just a sappy, hopeless romantic, but I know for a fact true love is real." Then she added quietly, "Even if I haven't found it myself yet."
He scoffed. "Well, you can believe in your fairy tales while I choose to live in the real world."
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