Office Hours
748 Words
The door clicked shut behind her, and Elena realized this was the first time she’d been alone in a room with him.
Dr. Cole’s office was smaller than it looked from the hallway. Floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with math textbooks, journals, and stacks of ungraded problem sets lined two walls. A whiteboard covered the third, filled with dense equations and half-erased proofs in black and blue marker. The air smelled like coffee, old paper, and something faintly like cedar.
“Sit,” he said, nodding to the chair across from his desk. He didn’t sit right away. He stayed by the window, arms crossed, watching her like she was a problem he hadn’t solved yet.
Elena set her notebook on his desk and opened it to the page marked with a red sticky note. Her hands were steady, but her pulse wasn’t.
“It’s the epsilon-delta proofs,” she said. “I can follow them when you do them on the board. But when I try on my own, I freeze. I know what I want to say, but I can’t make it rigorous.”
He pulled the chair closer and leaned over her work. His sleeve brushed her wrist. It wasn’t a big contact, but in a room this quiet it felt deliberate.
“Show me where you start,” he said. His voice was closer now, lower than it was in lecture.
She explained her process, pointing to the messy scratch work. He didn’t interrupt. When she finished, he took her pen and rewrote the first three lines in clean, precise handwriting. His handwriting was annoyingly perfect, even when he was moving fast.
“You’re overcomplicating it,” he said. “The key is in the definition. You’re trying to prove something you already know is true. Start with what you know, not what you think you should prove.”
His finger stayed on her page a second longer than necessary. When he pulled back, his eyes met hers. For a second, the room felt smaller.
“You’re good at this,” he said quietly. “Better than most of my grad students. You don’t give up when it gets messy. That matters more than raw talent.”
Praise from Dr. Cole felt like winning the lottery. She wasn’t used to professors noticing. Most of them just saw her ID number, her attendance record, and moved on.
“Thanks,” she said. “I just… I need this class, Dr. Cole. I can’t lose my scholarship. My brother’s counting on me to finish on time.”
His expression shifted. The distance in his eyes cracked for half a second.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve seen your file. Financial aid status, GPA, academic standing. It’s part of the job. I check before midterms.”
Of course he had. He knew everything about her life on paper. It made her feel exposed in a way she didn’t like and couldn’t explain.
The clock on the wall hit 6:00 PM. Office hours were officially over.
“You should go,” he said.
But neither of them moved.
“Dr. Cole,” she started, “about the midterm curve—”
“There is no curve,” he interrupted. “You don’t need one. You’re averaging 94%. You’re solid.”
He said it like it was a fact, not a compliment. Like he’d been watching her more closely than she realized.
Elena stood, gathering her things. At the door, she hesitated.
“Thank you. For not treating me like I’m dumb just because I’m asking questions.”
He didn’t answer right away. He just nodded once, and for the first time, something almost like a smile touched his mouth.
“See you next week, Ms. Rivera. And bring question three from problem set six. It’s the one everyone gets wrong.”
As she left, she heard him exhale, like he’d been holding his breath the whole time.
The hallway was empty. Most students had gone home for the day. The building felt quiet in a way that made her steps echo too loud.
Outside, it had started to rain. She didn’t run for cover. She stood under the awning for a minute, letting the cold hit her face, trying to make sense of why her hands were still shaking and why part of her wanted to turn around and go back inside.
She told herself it was because she still didn’t understand question three.
She didn’t believe it.
- Writer
