Chapter 8
780 Words
I didn't sleep well that night, which was nothing new.
I hadn't slept well since my father had disappeared and I had made a kind of peace with that over the last two years.
But this was different.
This wasn't grief keeping me up.
I lay in the dark with Lia's fairy lights off. The campus gone quiet outside the window.
I thought about the way he’d looked at me. And the way it felt to be aware of someone behind you so completely that you could have drawn a map of exactly where they were without turning around.
I thought about it over and over again.
I also thought about what he'd said. The week before, in his office…
The question you actually came to ask…
I had turned that over every day since he'd said it and I was still turning it over now.
By morning I had made a decision.
~0~
I went on a Monday.
Barely two days after the flag football game.
I walked to Whitmore Hall with my bag over my shoulder and my notebook in my hand. A real question written in it, a real one.
I had made sure of that…
Even if it wasn’t the one he was expecting.
I knocked on the door of room 214, uncertain if he was even there. I pushed it open before I could think further.
He was at his desk.
Reading something, sleeves rolled. He didn't look up immediately.
He finished what he was reading.
Then he looked up.
His expression dark, unreadable.
"Why are you here," he said.
"I know it’s not Friday." I stepped inside and let the door close shut behind me. "But I had a question that I wanted to ask before the lecture tomorrow."
He waited.
I opened my mouth to ask the real question. The one I'd written down about precedent and judicial discretion that was actually a real question, but what came out instead was:
"Why won’t you look at me in class?" The words tumbled out. "I mean like actually look at me.”
The room went very quiet.
The words I’d said surprising even me.
My pulse thudded in my ears. But the part of me that wanted to continue, pressed on.
"You call on everyone. The middle row. The back. People sitting right beside me. But you don't call on me. Ever. You just act as if I don’t exist."
He didn’t say anything. Just looked at me. His gaze still unreadable.
I looked at him, feeling something wild inside me now. "But then during the game, I felt your eyes on me the entire time…you even touched me…Sure it was to help me with my flags, but still,” I said. “Why?” Why did I exist so much to you then and not any other time?
Something in his jaw shifted. Just slightly.
But he didn’t answer.
I kept talking. "You said last time that the question I actually came to ask was more interesting than the one I’d ended up asking." I kept my voice even. Steadier than I felt. "So here I am, asking you."
I watched something move through his expression. Something I couldn’t name. The room was quiet and after another moment of silence, he spoke.
“That’s what you’ve really come here to ask,” he said, slowly.
“Yes.” I swallowed. My face flushing. “I’m asking you why don’t you pay attention to me in class.”
He stared at me. The silence in the room becoming deafening.
"Because I'm choosing not to,” he said.
I stared at him, something in me tightening. “Why?” I said.
He didn’t respond.
I didn't move.“Then why didn’t you do the same thing at the game? Why didn’t you continue ignoring me then?”
He held my gaze across the desk. “Because you’re not easy to ignore, Sienna.”
~0~
I walked back in the afternoon light and thought about nothing else.
The campus went past me. I didn’t see any of it.
I pushed through the door of the dorm and saw Lia there, cross-legged on her bed, and she looked up when I came in.
"You have—" she started.
"A face," I said. “I know.”
She looked at me for a moment.
"Okay," she smiled, and went back to her phone.
I laid on my bed and looked at the ceiling and thought about what he’d said.
My heart racing faster each time.
He’d been trying to ignore me and couldn’t.
I felt butterflies low in my stomach. And didn’t sleep at all that night.
- Writer
