My Professor's Secret

34|

But Kevin was a professional and catching him angry in front of customers was a rarity. Still, my eyes trail his every step until his attention is focused elsewhere. Though his words are stifled in a sea of chatter around him, his lips read: I'll be back. Take over.
He doesn't say anything else, just gestures ahead in the direction of his office and out of my sight.

"Trevor! I needed that burger two minutes ago!" One of the new hires says, sending a jolt of surprise through my body.

I remember specifically during training one evening reciting the cardinal rules of working the stove and grill. Never take your eyes off the stove. Outcome—critical. At all times while working either stove or grill, your eyes are never to leave the surface if there is food still cooking. Bouts of fire tend to shoot up from its surface and my lack of discipline for those rules seemed to have reaped their consequences on the sleeve of my shirt as I've trained my eyes back towards the stove.

"Shit!" "I holler, attempting to shake the fire away. It only matures into a larger blaze.

Luckily Josh is beside me in less than a few seconds with a towel drenched in water. For a while, I'm glued in place—horrifyingly witnessing the flames devouring the left sleeve of my new shirt. The pain is excruciating but slightly subsides as the wet towel smothers the life of the fire from my sleeve. Josh leads me in the direction of the lounge, and immediately pulls his phone from his pocket to dial 911. A dispatcher guides him through the first-aid procedure after he's pulled the kit from a drawer beneath the microwave.

He proceeds to follows the instructions coming from the phone, although it all begins to sound of distant chatter to me. All I could focus on was hoping the commotion went unnoticed, especially with the boss here, but Josh barely has enough time to begin dressing the wound before Kevin barges into the lounge.

"What the hell happened?" He says, using a hand to mask the smell of charred flesh and blood dampening the air.

"We've got to get him to the health center. Immediately. These could be third-degree. This towel won't provide much relief soon," Josh replies, somehow handling his composure with ease, before passing the phone to Kevin.

He isn't wrong. The pain had gotten so intense my arm no longer throbbed, but was numb.

I'm reluctant to glance in Kevin's direction again, fearing what his response will be, though I fight through the unpleasantness and shift my attention towards him anyways. Yet he isn't the person my eyes find first. They're hers.

She eyes me before they dart to my injury and back to me. Her face no longer possessed the richness it had the last time we saw each other. Instead she looked dull—droopy-eyed, and full of despair. It's her that breaks our contact as she walks towards her cubby to remove her winter attire.

There's so much to be said, yet it all vanishes from my mind in her presence.

Alex lingers in the lounge for a moment—making  sure our eyes wouldn't meet again, but it wasn't as easy for me to pull my eyes away. I silently prayed that she would come over to check if I were okay, though I knew the possibility of that happening in our current predicament was slim to none.

Our eyes do meet once more but it's only for a second before she signals to Kevin towards the bathroom with her Valentine's Day shirt in hand. He quickly dismisses her with a nod, leaving me to bear the queasiness in my stomach alone. Why did I feel this way? Why was the pain of her leaving the lounge more brutal than the burn on my arm?