Chapter 291: Yep, I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

By the time I stepped out of the lecture hall, I had completely forgotten how to walk.

My feet were moving, sort of...and I guess that had to count for something, but my mind was back in that classroom, fixated on Damien Lockwood.

The necklace between us felt like some kind of emotional disaster zone. I made it halfway down the hallway before it hit me that I was still clutching my bag against my chest like it was some sort of security blanket, my fingers starting to ache from the tight grip.

When I finally loosened up, I almost let the whole bag slip through my fingers. You’d think that nearly four years of adulting would have equipped me to handle running away from my ex-boyfriend after he found out I still held onto the necklace he once gave me.

Just fan-fucking-tastic!

I kept moving until I found an empty bathroom around the corner. Pushing the door open, I headed straight for the nearest mirror.

Those fluorescent lights were cruel, making me question every life choice that led me there. Still, at least they confirmed I looked somewhat human.

My hair was a bit of a mess, cheeks still flushed, and the top buttons of my shirt were undone.

I stared at those buttons, then at my reflection and back at the buttons again.

"Oh, for the love of God."

I was so gone at that moment, I didn’t actually button my shirt.

I hurriedly fastened them, though it did nothing to wipe away the memory of Damien standing way too close in that empty classroom, his voice low and careful when he asked to see the necklace.

And even less to erase the look on his face when he discovered I had kept it.

He gazed at that little piece of metal like it held all the years we’d spent apart, and when his eyes filled with tears, something in my chest twisted painfully, urging me to bolt before he could notice.

Which, unfortunately, was exactly what I did.

I leaned against the sink, hands gripping its edge, lowering my head as I took a few slow breaths, trying to convince my heart it wasn’t being chased by a pack of wild animals.

It was hard not to be angry...with him, with myself, but mostly about the necklace.

I should’ve removed it ages ago.

That would’ve been the rational thing to do. Normal people break up, accept that the relationship is over, box up mementos, and either toss them or shove them into some forgotten corner of a drawer.

They don’t wear the same necklace for almost four years and then act surprised when the person who gave it to them fucking notices!

Apparently, I had missed the normal-people handbook altogether.

Oh shit, how embarrassing!

I reached under my shirt and touched the chain. The pendant felt warm against my skin.

For a heartbeat, I almost pulled it over my head. My fingers tightened around it, and I genuinely started lifting it before stopping myself. I looked back at my reflection, feeling utterly ridiculous.

"What are you doing?" I muttered.

My reflection, unhelpfully, looked just as perplexed.

I let the necklace drop back beneath my shirt and straightened up.

Taking it off now would be even worse. It would feel like giving Damien a win, like admitting he got into my head.

That was the story I told myself, anyway.

When I finally left the bathroom, I managed to put on my professional face again.

It wasn’t super convincing, but after years of pretending I knew what I was doing in front of students, I’d gotten pretty good at it.

The rest of the workday was a blur. I taught my afternoon lecture but couldn’t remember half of what I said.

I explained something to my students, answered questions, scribbled notes on the board, and even cracked a joke that got a few laughs.

Apparently, I had developed a knack for faking normalcy while my brain was off somewhere else.

At one point, a student raised his hand with a question about the reading.

I stared at her a second too long.

"Sorry," I said, blinking. "Could you repeat that?"

He asked his question again.

I somehow answered it correctly.

He smiled and nodded, then went back to her notes while I stood there thinking I should get some extra credit for making it through my lecture without spilling my emotional drama to a roomful of thirty students.

Later, one of my colleagues spotted me outside the department office.

"You look tired, Prof." she said.

"I am tired."

"You’ve been staring at that same paper for five minutes."

I glanced down at the paperwork in my hand.

She was right. I had been holding one of my student’s assignments upside down.

I quietly flipped it around.

"I was testing it."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Testing what?"

"Whether students can write upside down."

She laughed, clearly thinking I was joking.

I smiled.

"Exactly."

She shook her head and walked away.

Once she was gone, I looked down at the paper again.

This was going just wonderfully.

My phone buzzed in my pocket as I walked back toward my office.

I pulled it out, expecting an email from the department or maybe a message from Dad asking if I’d be home for dinner.

Instead, the screen lit up with a message from Maya.

Maya 💅🏾: You disappeared very quickly on Joey’s wedding.

I stared at it.

Another message popped up.

Maya💅🏾: Like, suspiciously quickly. Then you’ve mia on the groupchat since.

I typed back, I’m fine. Then deleted it.

Typed, Busy. But ended up deleting that too, finally, I settled on:

Me: I had work.

Her response came almost instantly.

Maya💅🏾: Oliver.

I sighed.

Me: Maya.

There was a pause.

Maya💅🏾: What happened?

I stared at the screen for several seconds before locking my phone.

I could practically hear her voice in my head. Maya always had this annoying talent for knowing when I was lying, and that was apparently worse now that she was pregnant.

It was like she had developed some supernatural ability to sniff out emotional nonsense like a mom already.

My phone buzzed again.

Maya💅🏾: Was it is inviting Damien? We’re still very sorry about that.

I stopped in my tracks.

Of course it was Damien. Everything somehow revolved around him.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and kept walking toward my office without replying.

A few minutes later, another vibration.

I ignored it and then another one.

I finally pulled the phone out, intending to tell Maya to leave me alone and I’m doing very well...thank you very much, only to see the new message wasn’t from her.

It was from Damien.

I stared at his name until the screen dimmed, for a ridiculous second, my heart jumped.

I unlocked it.

The message was painfully simple.

Damien: You ran away from me again.

Damien: I’m sorry if I overstepped today.

I read them twice, then three times, as if they might somehow become more complex if I stared at them hard enough.

They didn’t.

I locked my phone and I turned it face down on my desk.

Then I picked it up again about thirty seconds later.

The message was still there. Obviously.

I dropped the phone back onto the desk and rubbed my hands over my face.

"This is pathetic."

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince myself Damien’s message meant nothing. He was just being polite. That’s all it was.

A decent human might check on someone after an emotional confrontation, especially if that person had just bolted from the room like he’d seen a ghost.

And Damien had every right to check.

That didn’t mean anything.

It definitely didn’t mean I wanted it to mean something.

By the time I had packed my things, the campus had quieted down. Students drifted towards the gates in small groups, professors disappeared into their offices, and the late afternoon sunlight cast long shadows across the walkways.

I walked to my car with my bag slung over one shoulder, savoring the few moments of the day where nobody needed anything from me.

Then I heard someone call my name. "Oliver?"

I turned.

Connor was standing a few feet away, one hand casually tucked into his jacket pocket and the other holding his phone.

He smiled when we made eye contact, and there was something so uncomplicated about his expression that I felt guilty for having spent the whole day focused on someone else.

"Hey," I said, wondering how the hell he managed to find me.

He walked over, looking relaxed in a way that felt strangely comforting.

"I hope I’m not bothering you, Maya said you’d be here."

"No. I’m just heading home."

"I was actually hoping to catch you before you left."

I frowned slightly. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." His smile widened. "I wanted to ask you something."

That immediately made me suspicious.

"What?"

Connor hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me."

I blinked, oh right...Connor is interested in me. I had forgotten all about that due to the whole Damien fiasco. "Oh."

Probably not the smartest response I could’ve given, but my brain seemed to decide that one syllable was all it could handle.