Bellamy liked teaching. He liked standing in the front of a room, speaking out about something he knew he was an expert on. He liked sparking the interest of his students. He liked showing them that history wasn't what they were taught, that it wasn't what was in the movies, that it was so much more. He liked bringing a bit of the past to them.
He liked it when his students argued with him. He liked it when he could tell that they thought he was full of crap, when they argued with him because he liked the fire in them. He wanted to light it, to tend it, to blow on it and make it bigger and bigger.
"You're such a nerd," his sister told him, when he tried explaining his first day. He'd been nervous—terrified actually. He'd never been in the front of a room, never been in command of a situation the way he was when he stood at the front of a classroom. He'd always been in the back, quietly paying his dues, working his way up. It was new and exciting, and nerve wracking and he loved it.
"I bet you put your students to sleep," Octavia teased.
"Hey," he protested. "Ancient Religions are fascinating, especially the way I teach them."
"Oh and how's that?" she asked.
"I'm very…" he wasn't sure what to say. Excited. Loud. Dorky. "Compelling."
He heard her laugh on the other end of the phone. "Uh huh. Sure, Bell. Let me guess, the front two rows of desks are all girls right?"
Bellamy rolled his eyes. "I don't like what you're insinuating, O" he said. "My students are there for purely academic reasons."
"Mhmm," Octavia had hummed, unconvinced. "Sure they, are big brother."
He'd made it habit to call Octavia after his last class every night. She teased him about it mercilessly—"why don't you make a few teacher friends, and go out for a drink with them? Then you can bore them with tales of your lectures instead of me?"—and he'd admit that she probably had a point. But every night, he'd pack up his bag, sling it over his shoulder, and make his way back to his tiny little apartment, grab a beer and a red pen, and call his sister.
She didn't always answer—Octavia's social life was actually existent, unlike his, so he'd usually leave a quick message about his day, and then pull some papers out for grading. It was a good system. It worked for him. Besides, it's not like he could afford to go out drinking with his colleagues every night anyway.
It might've been a bit lonely, but he had O, and his roommate Miller seemed like a decent guy, and they got along, so all in all it wasn't too bad.
He wasn't lying when he told Octavia that his students were great. They were the kind of kids he wished he'd had in his own classes when he was a student a few years earlier. They talked. They actually took notes. They had things to say.
Well. Most of them.
There was one girl, who hadn't said more than her name and her major (Clarke Griffin. Fine Arts) since the first class two and a half weeks ago. He couldn't understand why she'd even take the course if she didn't want to get anything out of it. It was a waste—a waste of her money, a waste of her time. A waste of his time—he wasn't going to spend an hour a day with students who didn't care. He'd look up at her hopefully every time he'd open the floor up for discussion, but she usually wasn't even paying attention, her nose was stuck in some other book. He tried not to prickle at the thought.
He was finishing up with his lecture when he glanced up at her.
She had her pen stuck between her teeth again. She was flipping through her notes, quickly, barely glancing at the words on the page. Her eyebrows were scrunched together and her foot was tapping wildly on the floor.
He felt himself trail off midsentence as he watched the pen bounce up and down and up and down between her lips. It tilted off to the side and be watched her tongue flick out to push it back before it slipped from her mouth completely, and he felt his own mouth run dry.
"Professor?" A young guy in the front row pulled him back to reality.
"Uh," he shook his head, clearing his thoughts—shaking her out of his thoughts. "Sorry. Lost my train of thought."
The girl had dropped her pen into her hand and was circling notes from the page she'd finally flipped to. She hadn't even glanced up. Every other day, she'd come to class, sit herself in the back row, and fix her eyes on her notebook, never even bothering to look up as he lectured. Sighing, he tore his gaze from her again and looked back toward the front row where another student was speaking.
"You were about to hand out the prompts for our first paper," she said.
He nodded his head, snapping his fingers before he turned to grab the stacks of papers from the desk behind him.
"Yes!" he said, smiling down at the girl who had redirected his thoughts. Back to where they should be, he reminded himself. "The dreaded moment has arrived."
He flipped through the papers, dividing them into two stacks, handing one pile to a student on each end of the row, to pass back.
"We've been focusing on origin stories for the past few weeks, as you all know. So for this first paper, it'll be your job to choose two—just two—out of the ones we've looked at so far, and write a comparative paper on them"
He glanced up at her. She had taken the essay prompt, scribbled a quick note on it, and had gone back to flipping through her other notes. He wished it didn't bother him that she hadn't looked up once—he'd been a student not too long ago, he knew plenty of people didn't pay attention in class—but it sent an unpleasant tickle crawling under the skin of his neck. Not once, in the whole lecture had she bothered to lift her head from her notebook.
It just bothered him.
Huffing a bit indignantly to himself, he carried on. "See?" he said a bit louder, waving a leftover prompt sheet in front of him. "Only three to five pages. Nothing terrible." He checked his watch and saw that there were only about five minutes left in his allotted class time, and decided he didn't feel like cramming in any extra material in the final few minutes.
"I think we'll end it there for the day. Feel free to come up after class, or email me about your paper ideas."
A collective sigh of relief filled the classroom, soon replaced by the shuffling of papers and notebooks and backpacks. He went back to his own desk to gather up his papers and notes before his next class, ready for the final hour of his day to be over so he could go home, grab a beer and give his sister a call.
He looked up when the noise died down to see that all—well almost all—of the students had cleared out of the room. The only one left was the blonde girl in the back of the class.
He pulled his bag over his shoulder and wove his way through the desks, stopping at hers before seeing himself out. He tapped a finger on her desk a few times, startling her.
"I think Professor Kane has this classroom next," he said pulling her out of whatever she'd been reading.
"Oh," she said, scrambling to gather her materials, and shoved them in her bag. "Right, sorry. Must have zoned out for a moment."
He couldn't help but scoff.
"Something funny," she raised an eyebrow at him. Then she seemed to remember exactly who she was speaking to. "Professor?"
Bellamy leaned back against the desk across from her, crossing his ankles in front of him. "Miss Griffin," he said, noting the way she scrunched her nose up at the formality. "I'm not sure if you're aware, seeing how little attention you pay in my class, but participation is twenty percent of your grade. It would probably be in your best interest to add a thought or two to the class discussion now and again."
She looked as if she was about to argue with him, her eyebrows pulled tight together, and her jaw dipping open. But she snapped her mouth closed and settled with a nod.
He pushed himself off the desk and walked over to the door.
"See you Wednesday, Miss Griffin," he called over his shoulder. "I look forward to hearing what you have to say."
Her hand was up in the air before he even finished his question. Rolling his head to the side, he let out a huff of breath, hoping it would hide the smile he could feel itching to spread wide across his face. She caught his eye and waggled her fingers in the air.
"Miss Griffin, don't you think you should let someone else have a turn?" he sighed.
She shrugged, smiling. "Just trying to make up for lost time, Professor," she said cheerily, but lowed her hand. He watched her for a moment longer, catching how she slipped her pen between her teeth to stop a laugh from tumbling out.
The worst part was that he wanted to call on her. He wanted to hear what she had to say. She'd been brilliant so far—he hardly believed she was an art major. If her work so far in his class was anything to go by, she was a natural born history student.
Her eyes lit up every time she had something to say—and she'd had plenty to say in the past week. She had an answer to every question, a comment at the end of every lecture. Any time there was a lull in class, there was her hand, fingers waggling at him from above her head.
He tried to ignore it. The way her eyes widened in excitement every time he nodded in her direction, every time he asked her to speak up, to say what was on her mind. Every time he nodded back, pointing at her, nodding, biting his lip and trying to think of something brilliant to say back to her.
The way her voice was low and gravely, but loud and excited at the same time. It washed over him as she went on and on, ignoring the eye rolling of her classmates, ignoring the way the stuck up kid in the front row glared at him every time he'd point to her instead of him. It rang in his head after class, louder and louder with each day that passed.
He tried, he wanted to push it out of his head. It was ridiculous, it was stupid. She was just his student, he was her teacher. That's all. Her smile wasn't at him and it wasn't about him, it was just a smile, that's all it was.
"Professor?"
He was startled out of his thoughts. He looked up from his desk, to see an empty classroom. Empty except for a pair of paint stained jeans and a baggy sweater standing in front of him. He looked up.
"Miss Griffin, sorry, must have dazed off for a moment," he shook his head. "How can I help you?"
She glanced down at her feet, and he could have sworn he saw the faintest hint of a blush creeping up her neck.
"Uh, just wanted to let you know that I, uh," she started, looking back up at him. She opened and shut her mouth once. "I just really enjoyed you lecture today. Uh. Professor."
"Oh," he said. "Thanks, Mi—"
"Clarke," she interrupted. "The whole 'Miss Griffin' thing always seemed kind of weird." She waited for him to say something but he just smiled up at her and nodded. "Okay, then," she continued. "See you on Monday then, Professor."
She shouldered her bag, and stepped backward a few steps, watching him, before she turned and walked out of the door.
"See you Monday," he muttered to himself. He slapped his notebook closed, and shoved it into his bag. The papers sitting in his folder, needing to be graded, could wait until after a drink.