12
1445 Words
Jasmine
I was exhausted. Every few seconds, I found myself fighting the urge to rest my head on the desk and go to sleep. Davin’s voice carried through the lecture hall as he explained metabolic pathways, but concentrating was nearly impossible.
Not because the lecture was boring.
Because Mia and her friend wouldn’t shut up.
Their constant giggling drifted across the room, pulling my attention away every few minutes.
I clenched my jaw and tried to ignore it. And failed miserably.
With a frustrated groan, I turned around sharply. “Can you both just shut it?” I gritted out.
A few heads turned.
Mia looked up from her phone and smiled. The kind that made me want to throw something.
“Aw,” she said sweetly. “Someone’s cranky.”
I turned away before I said something that would get me into trouble and forced my attention back to the front of the class.
Davin continued his lecture as though nothing was happening. His voice was calm and steady, carrying easily through the hall.
For a few seconds, I managed to focus.
Then the whispering started again.
Except it wasn’t really whispering. Mia was talking loudly enough for me to hear every word.
Jason this.
Jason that.
How he’d called her. How he’d texted her.
How obsessed he supposedly was.
Normally, every word would have hit a nerve. Today, it didn’t. Maybe I was too tired to care. Or maybe I was finally getting over him. Whatever the reason, I found myself paying more attention to the lecture than to anything coming out of Mia’s mouth.
With a sigh, I lowered my forehead onto my desk for a second, trying to gather what little energy I had left.
“Miss Jasmine.”
My head snapped up immediately.
Every eye in the room seemed to be on me. Including his.
I straightened so fast my chair nearly scraped across the floor. “Yes, sir?”
Professor Jackson stood near the board, looking entirely too composed for a man responsible for half my sleep deprivation.
“Can you explain what happens to pyruvate after glycolysis under aerobic conditions?”
He could have picked anyone else, but he picked me. How convenient.
A knot formed in my stomach as dozens of students waited for me to answer. I hated being put on the spot. Still, there was no way I was embarrassing myself in front of him.
I took a slow breath and forced my brain to wake up.
Then I answered.
The words came slowly at first, but once I found my footing, the explanation flowed more easily. By the time I finished, the nervous tension in my chest had eased.
The room fell quiet.
Professor Jackson studied me for a moment. Then he gave a small nod.
“Correct.”
One word.
Yet something flashed briefly in his eyes before he looked away and continued the lecture. A thing so small that no one else should have noticed it.
Unfortunately, Ari noticed everything. She leaned toward me the second he turned his back.
“Is it just me,” she whispered, “or did our hot professor just give you the eye?”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Trust Ari. Out of an entire lecture, that was what she focused on.
“I wish,” I muttered.
She frowned. “Oh, come on. You saw that.”
I shook my head and opened my notebook. “With that face?” I said. “That man looks like he could eat me for lunch.”
Ari followed my gaze to the front of the room, where Davin was writing across the board.
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy for him?” She pressed a hand to her chest dramatically. “Absolutely.”
Bella rolled her eyes. “It’s never going to happen anyway.”
“Why?” Ari asked.
Bella gave her a look. “Because that man gave up on love years ago.”
That caught my attention.
I turned toward her. “What are you talking about?”
Bella blinked. “Wait… you don’t know?”
I shook my head.
She leaned closer. “Apparently, he was engaged. Three years, maybe more. Then his fiancée betrayed him somehow. Nobody knows the full story, but the rumors say it was bad enough to destroy his career.”
My brows pulled together. “What?”
Bella nodded. “Seriously. From what I’ve heard, he lost almost everything. His reputation, his job… all of it. The dean was the one who brought him here despite the scandal.”
I stared at her. “Where did you even hear all this?”
Bella shrugged. “It’s been all over the internet for years.”
I frowned.
How had I never heard any of it?
Then again, I had never been one to associate with or even gossip with my peers.
My gaze drifted back to the front of the room.
He was explaining something on the board, calm and composed as always. Not a trace of emotion crossed his face.
You would never guess there was a story behind that expression or even guess that anything could touch him at all.
The lecture ended a few minutes later, and the room instantly filled with the scrape of chairs and low chatter as students exited the classroom.
Bella stretched like she hadn’t moved in hours.
“I’m going home,” she said, shoving her notebook into her bag. “Mehn, I’m starving like hell. I need actual food before I collapse.”
Ari snorted. “You’re always starving, Bella. It’s crazy how you never get fat.”
Bella chuckled. “It’s a secret.”
“Oh, please. Well, as for me,” Ari said, “I need to return a book to the library. Then I’m heading home too.”
They both turned to look at me.
“What about you, Jasmine?”
“I’m heading to the library as well,” I responded as I slid my textbook into my bag. “I want to read for a bit before I head home.”
They groaned in unison.
“Of course you do,” Bella said.
I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“Jasmine.” Ari shook her head, fighting a smile. “That library is basically your second home.”
“She practically pays rent there,” Bella muttered.
I rolled my eyes. “It would be yours too if your schooling depended on it, trust me,” I muttered as I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Okay, I’m ready to go now.”
The three of us walked out together. Bella headed for the campus exit just like she’d said, while Ari and I headed to the library.
By the time we reached the library, the afternoon sun was pouring through the tall windows, washing the reading tables in soft gold. Ari peeled off toward the front desk to return her book.
I moved through the stacks until I found the book I’d left half-finished earlier that week, then carried it to an empty table near the back.
It was quiet there. Peaceful. Exactly what I needed.
I opened the book and checked the time.
Just under two hours before my session—plenty, if I actually used it.
That was the plan, anyway.
I read the first sentence. Then the second. Then I realized I hadn’t taken in a single word of either.
I rubbed my forehead and tried again.
It didn’t work. My thoughts kept sliding back to what Bella had said earlier about Davin and a scandal that shattered his reputation.
I forced my eyes back to the page. Read the same paragraph three times. And again, I understood none of it.
My gaze drifted toward my phone, sitting face down beside the book.
No, I told myself. I didn’t need to know. Whatever happened before I met him wasn’t my business.
I looked back at the page.
Three seconds later, my eyes were back on the phone.
I groaned under my breath.
Curiosity really was a disease, and apparently, I was a carrier.
After another minute of pretending to read, I gave up the act entirely. I picked up the phone, unlocked it, and opened the browser.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment before I typed it out.
‘Davin Jackson scandal.’
The results loaded almost instantly, far more than I expected.
My stomach tightened.
There were articles… headlines, pages and pages of them.
Frowning, I clicked the first link.
- Writer
