Paint Me, Professor | Student-Professor Erotic Novel | 18+ | ✔️

93 - Distance

FIVE MONTHS LATER

Christopher
***

As I scribbled a few notes on the edges of Arnold Hauser's "The Philosophy of Art History", I received a text from Kent. The buzzing of my phone took me out of my flow state, making me lose my train of thought. I huffed, taking off my glasses and resting them on my desk. I rolled my eyes as I took in the content of the message, a joke about a player from Kent's least favorite NBA team.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost eight. On a December evening like this one, I was sure I was the only professor left in the building. I didn't mind though, I enjoyed the silence.

I tried going back to the paper, but when my stomach started rumbling I knew it was time to go. As I put on my jacket, I checked Whatsapp to see if Ali had texted me. This was our preferred way of communication now since we could send audios recordings and pictures and even have video calls. That is, when we had the time to do so, which was a rarity these days.

As expected, she hadn't sent me anything. I scrolled up, checking the last time we had spoken. It had been a week ago.

As I walked down the empty corridors of Evergreen, I couldn't help but reflect on the last months since Ali went to Paris. In the beginning, not a day went by where we didn't speak. I hid the fact that I missed her terribly by morphing it into excitement, asking her hundreds of questions. Even though her life was much more exciting than mine, she still wanted to know about my day as well. In a way, it seemed like nothing had changed, she seemed just as close as if she was in her rented apartment.

The weekends were another story. I made the conscious decision to occupy that time as much as I could so I wouldn't be fixated on the fact that Ali wasn't there. I convinced Kent to start working out with me at the gym. In turn, he convinced me to go out with him once in a while, go to his house when he threw parties, make the effort to befriend his alternative artist friends. We didn't have much in common, but at least those weekend parties put Ali in the back of my mind for a little while.

Since our time zones were so different, we didn't get the chance to fall asleep while video calling each other. Sometimes Ali would ask me if she could fall asleep with me on the phone while I was working and I always told her yes when I wasn't busy. While grading papers, I'd glance towards my phone and see her head resting on the pillow, the bedsheets up to her chin, her eyes closed peacefully. In those moments I wanted to reach out to her so bad that I put my pending work aside and made a quick search of airplane tickets to Paris.

However, whenever we brought up the subject of me flying to see her, timing just wasn't on our side. I had expected Ali to be busy at her internship, but not drowning in work like she was. She didn't complain though, saying that she loved every task she was given even if she stayed extra hours. She was given a position in the Editing department at Art Press, and even though she was starting out by doing minor work, she was slowly but surely given more and more responsibilities. I had no doubt it was because of how committed she was to her work.

She told me it didn't make sense not to give her all at this internship given the sacrifice we made. This mentality of overworking alarmed me since I knew how easily it was for her to get overwhelmed with work just to prove she was good enough, but she assured me she was loving every second of it.

Due to all this extra work, she only had Saturday and Sunday to rest, or rather, to build new friendships, to foster a connection with her extended family, to explore the city like a local, to have new experiences.