9
I couldn’t concentrate for shit. It was Monday evening, and Ofure and I were with our Atelier mates in the library, brushing up our portfolios before Studio tomorrow.
To my left, Taemin sat, looking cool as a cucumber as the South Korean always did, rectangular glasses perched high on his nose, his straight dark hair falling messily over his forehead.
Olivia—the only white, British member of our group—sat to Taemin’s left, and had her hands pressed to her pale cheeks, which were splotchy and red with stress, her light brown hair pulled up into a messy ponytail.
Next to her sat Katerina, Greece-born and with the amusing tendency—at least to the rest of us—to sound like she was cracking a joke when she spoke, no matter what she said.
She had headphones balanced on her mass of shoulder-length brunette curls, her head bobbing to music we couldn’t hear, freckled pale brown skin glowing slightly with sweat from the brief run she’d done earlier to get some snacks and drinks from the cafeteria downstairs.
And next to her, and to my immediate right, sat Ofure, who’d finally found her groove a few minutes earlier and was focused hard on her work.
I, on the other hand, for the life of me, could not pay attention to anything on earth but the woman sitting beside me. Since our date on Saturday, it felt like I had a singular obsession—like I was possessed by some Ofure-hungry demon.
We hadn’t been able to hang out at all yesterday; Ofure worked her events job on Wednesdays and Saturdays, while I worked my job at a local meat packing factory on Fridays and Saturdays.
Since we’d both taken Saturday off for our date, and after all the money I’d spent, I definitely had to make up all that time lost on Sunday.
I worked night shifts and Ofure worked during the day, so we hadn’t been able to see each other at all yesterday, spending the entire time texting and sending memes.
In hindsight, it felt slightly surreal. I’d literally had her tongue in my mouth, her ass in my hand, while she’d humped my leg like she was on fire, and I’d ground my hard dick against her hip like some mindless beast. Then we hadn’t addressed any of it while we’d texted, doing our usual shit of sending funny videos and talking about random nonsense, like our date had never happened.
When I’d seen her this morning—we had lectures, and we always walked to the lecture hall together—I hadn’t known what to do with my hands. With my body. She’d seemed just as awkward for a moment, her greeting smile slightly strained.
I’d wanted to kiss her. Hold her hand, but not in our usual platonic way. And for a moment, it seemed she’d wanted it, too, because we began moving toward each other with a single, obvious determination at the same time.
Then we’d both simultaneously seemed to remember our agreement about making sure this thing we were doing stayed private, and had ended up hugging stiffly instead.
Perhaps the hug had lingered a little longer than usual.
And maybe the scent of her fruity perfume—and the feel of her soft, thick body against mine—had made my dick plump slightly.
But if she’d been reacting to the hug the way I had, we’d both acted like nothing was amiss when it was over.
By the time we began walking and talking, the awkwardness had faded and everything felt normal again.
Even though I understood why we’d put that privacy rule in place, I suddenly, desperately wanted to discard it. Fuck everybody else and what they might think. Why couldn’t I kiss her and touch her the way I now wanted to, any time I wanted to?
Because she’s not really your girlfriend? A small insidious voice whispered. All of this is simply a means to an end. A build up to “that” moment, and then ...
And then ... what?
Anxiety tried to claw at me, and would you look at that, suddenly I found myself able to focus on my work. Why was I even thinking about her in the context of being my girlfriend, anyway? This was strictly about sex.
The way my heart had started jolting every time I looked at her, and my belly had started twisting in on itself every time she so much as smiled at me obviously had everything to do with this new, blazing sexual attraction and absolutely nothing else.
All I had to do was stick to the boundaries we’d set, and once this was said and done—once we’d given each other that “perfect” first time—we’d go back to the way we were and everything would be fine. Right? Right.
I forcefully focused on my portfolio, fiddling around with the design of my sheets until I managed to succeed in distracting myself, only looking up when I heard and felt Ofure’s phone buzzing on the table in front of us.
I spied the caller-ID before she picked it up.
Only the fact that I was so tuned to her every movement today made me notice the subtle way she stiffened when she glanced at the flashing screen.
Her voice sounded normal when she answered the call, and I had a moment of doubt. She began to stand, giving me a little smile and wave, mouthing that it was her dad. I nodded, watching her as she left the table for some privacy.
Then I frowned. Even though she’d smiled just now, I noticed it hadn’t reached her eyes.
And her movements as she walked toward the ceiling-high windows seemed a little too relaxed to be normal, her shoulders tense.
I turned back to my laptop if only to keep her from catching me watching her, just in case something was wrong.
If she noticed that I’d caught on to something, she’d probably clam up.
I still had half my eye on her as she paced back and forth along the windows, before she made her way back to the table. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, and felt my stomach drop.
She didn’t look good. In fact, she looked like she was going to be ill.
She glanced up and my stomach dropped further as she caught the open panic and concern on my face. She shook her head subtly, and I exhaled a little bit in relief. She wasn’t clamming up; she was going to talk to me when we were alone.
Our study date couldn’t end soon enough.
The five of us looked through each other’s portfolios when we called it a day, even though we currently weren’t working on a group project.
Technically, we’d been given the same site to work on, and since we were in the same Atelier, we all had to focus on our Atelier’s overall vision and make sure each of our portfolios followed the general theme.
But that was the joy of being an artist; literally none of our ideas nor how we put them down to paper were the same.
“Have a lovely evening, everyone,” Olivia said after we’d exited the library. “Let’s hope Bonnie and Harper don’t decide we should do a surprise presentation tomorrow,” she added grimly.
“I will literally throw up right now at the thought alone,” Ofure muttered, making us all laugh.
With a wave and well wishes, we separated.
I gave Ofure some space as we walked, knowing she’d talk when she was ready.
This time, I didn’t hesitate to take her hand, wanting her to know, no matter what, whether she told me whatever was bothering her or not, I had her back.
She glanced gratefully at me, giving my hand a squeeze.
I squeezed back, my chest hurting with love for her.
We were halfway home when she finally spoke.
“Uzi,” she began, her voice a little shaky.
My grip tightened helplessly around hers. “Yes, Fure?”
I glanced at her to see her lips twitch, before she turned serious.
“Remember when I asked you about if you—if you felt like you were just doing things because they were expected of you, and not because it’s actually something you want to do?”
“Yeah ...” I said tentatively. She’d wanted to tell me something then, I remembered, though I wondered what that conversation had to do with the call with her father.
Impossibly, her grip tightened even more. “I don’t think I want to be an architect.”
For a moment, I was sure I’d misheard her.
“I know,” she continued hurriedly, like she was subconsciously expecting me to berate her.
I would never do that, but I still held my tongue.
Her gaze was focused resolutely forward.
“I know what you’re going to say; I know, I know, I know.
We’re weeks away from our final submissions; a mere handful of months away from graduating; how could I decide now, suddenly, that I don’t want to be an architect anymore? How does that make sense, right?”
“I wasn’t going to say any of that, but okay.”
She laughed, but the sound held no mirth. Then, to my shock and horror, she began to cry.
I immediately stopped walking, tugging her to the corner of the pavement so we weren’t blocking other pedestrians.
“Fure, baby,” I whispered, pain tearing through my chest at her sobs. I pulled her into my arms, hugging her tightly. She buried her face in my chest, shoulders and chest heaving. Fuck. She must’ve been holding this in for longer than I’d thought.
She didn’t want to be an architect? I’d be lying if I said this hadn’t come out of left field.
Not to brag or anything, but Ofure and I were amongst the top students in our year.
She might struggle with her concentration and, thanks to her social anxiety, often perform poorly when she had to present, but that—at least to our tutors—didn’t detract from the outstanding quality of her work.
I felt selfish, suddenly, of all the dreams I’d had of us taking over our fathers’ firms together; how many times had I excitedly brought it up—showed her how much I couldn’t wait for us to get to that moment?
I pulled back a little, cupping her soft round cheeks and using my thumbs to smooth away her tears.
“Is it me?” I whispered. “Have I been pressuring you?”