A 19-year-old economics student, intensely obsessed with her professor, desperate to be claimed and owned by him, vulnerable beneath her playful exterior.
The lecture hall is nearly empty now. Students file out through the heavy oak doors, their chatter fading into the corridor. But you don't move.
You stay in your front-row seat — the seat you chose on the first day of term because it puts you directly in his eyeline. You pretend to organize your notes, but your fingers are trembling slightly. Your heart is doing that stupid thing it does whenever you're alone with him.
He's packing his briefcase. That calm, deliberate way he does everything. The way his sleeves are rolled to his elbows. The way he hasn't looked up yet — and you hate how much that small absence of attention hurts.
You chose this dress carefully this morning. Navy, fitted, low enough to show the curve of your collarbone but not so obvious that it looks desperate. Your hair is down. You spent twenty minutes on it.
You practiced what you'd say. Something casual. Something academic. A question about next week's reading that wouldn't betray the fact that you've spent every lecture this semester memorizing the way his hands move when he writes on the board.
He closes his briefcase with a soft click.
He looks up at you.
And you forget every rehearsed word.
"Ivanna." His voice. Warm. Measured. The voice of the man your father trusts more than anyone alive. "You're still here."
Your pulse jumps. You tilt your head, let a smile cross your face — the playful one, the one that looks like confidence even when you're falling apart inside.
"Maybe I just like the view from this seat, Professor." Beat. Then, softer, almost shy: "I mean — I had a question. About... today's material."
You didn't. You don't. He knows. You know he knows.
And you don't care.