She is a little nervous when she curls her hand into a fist to knock on Professor Hickey's office door.
It may be his appointed office hours, so she isn't really imposing but he isn't exactly the most accommodating person that she knows. Though they may spend more time together than the average professor and student, it hasn't really made her feel any more comfortable around him. He is gruff and intimidating and just kind of a grouch, and while she knows that there is probably more lurking beneath his grumpy exterior, she doesn't particularly enjoy spending time him.
He also shares an office with Jeff, and for some reason, she doesn't really want to talk to Hickey with him in the room - which is ridiculous, of course, because she is only there to discuss an idea for her final project, not anything personal or embarrassing. But she can imagine Jeff interrupting, offering his two cents, even intervening on her behalf, and she isn't in the mood for that right now.
She knocks anyway, though, because she knows that it is silly to be anxious over this kind of stuff and she is a serious student with legitimate business to discuss with her professor.
As expected, Hickey doesn't exactly greet her warmly.
"What?" he demands when she pokes her head inside. He has a metal thermos, with steam rising from its opening, and a newspaper pulled apart in sections in front of him, so it doesn't seem like he is doing any particularly important. But he sighs and slumps in his seat like he is seriously put upon.
"Is this a bad time?" she asks brightly, trying to channel her most cheerful self.
"That depends. Are you here to get me to scrub the algae out of the swimming pool or separate the knot of jump ropes in the gym storage room?"
"No," she answers automatically. "This isn't official committee business."
He shrugs.
"Then I guess it's not the worst time. But make it quick - there's a crossword puzzle calling my name."
It may not be the most welcoming reception, but coming from Hickey, she'll take it.
"I just wanted to run an idea by you. For my final project."
He laughs and shakes his head.
"You know it's not due for another five weeks, right? I doubt the rest of the class has even read the syllabus in its entirety yet."
She smiles and lifts a shoulder almost apologetically.
"I hate waiting until the last minute."
"Yeah," he says, with a bob of his head. "I've noticed that about you." He pushes the rickety wooden chair beside his desk in her direction with his foot. "So what's your big idea?"
She takes the offered seat and pulls the folder with her notes out of her bag. In general, her idea isn't the most original – examining an old case and exploring the ways in which modern criminology and forensics might have helped to solve it is something that they've done several times over the semester – but instead of going with a really famous unsolved case, like Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia, or the Zodiac Killings, subjects that Hickey has probably read student papers every year for the past 15 years, she picks the Original Night Stalker because it's one that didn't even make their text book, that she only knows about because of an episode of Cold Case Files, so she should score some points for originality.
Hickey looks mostly bored while she is speaking, but that doesn't deter her because she knows that it's a good topic, and when she's done, the corner of his mouth lifts up in an almost smile, like he is somewhat impressed.
"That's not half bad," he says. "Actually, it's pretty good. So I probably won't hate reading it."
She smiles.
"Thanks. I'm really excited to get started on it." She pauses, tilting her head thoughtfully. "That sounds bad, I know. It's not like I'm excited to read about rape and murder. It's just that it's a fascinating case and you wonder how it could go unsolved all these years and what might—"
"Enough," Hickey says brusquely. "I get it."
She nods, hurrying to shove her folder back into her bag so she can get out of here before she makes a fool out of herself. At some point, while she's busy rearranging things in her bag, she feels Hickey's eyes on her. She doesn't know if she should look up and meet his gaze or just ignore it.
Curiosity gets the better of her, though, and she straightens up to find him watching her with an almost bemused expression.
"I didn't like you when we first met," he tells her bluntly. "Because you were one of those annoying know-it-all, go-getter types."
She frowns, caught a little off-guard.
"Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly crazy about you either."
"But now, I know you a little better, and I gotta say, I really don't understand what you're doing here." He pauses, shaking his head. "You know you're too good for this place, right? And you're not just here – you're pretty much single-handedly running a committee to keep this place afloat. It's nuts."
A nervous laugh bubbles out of her because of all the things that she might have expected Hickey to say, this certainly was not one of them.
When she was younger, she probably felt the same way. Back then, she – like Jeff - thought of herself as stuck at Greendale, as if she had been banished there to pay for all the mistakes that she'd made. She spent a lot of time trying to figure a way to get out. Now, it's different because she realizes that it is choice, that life is full of nothing but choices and she makes them every day through the things that she does and the things that she doesn't do. She can't pretend any more that she's just been swept along by something bigger than herself, held in place by the fates or the whims of the universe.
She is where she belongs because it's where she chooses to be.
It's as simple as that.
"My friends are here," she tells Hickey, as if she has to justify herself. "Actually, they're more like my family than my actual family so…"
He rolls his eyes.
"You're all a bunch of crazies. I guess that's why you get along."
Sometimes, she actually has to wonder if they really do get along or if it's just shared history that keeps them together at this point. No, she tells herself. There is always affection there, even when she dislikes them, even when they drive her up the wall. Because that's what all relationships are like – made up of shades of gray, not strictly black and white.
Messy and difficult, just like Jeff told her that night in the bar after her fight with Abed. But worth it too.
"You seem to fit in with us pretty well," she says, with a smile. "On the committee, I mean."
Hickey crosses his arms over his chest and glares at her.
"Then clearly, I'm not making my disdain obvious enough."
She laughs softly, shaking her head. For some reason, she finds herself glancing across the room then, toward Jeff's empty desk. His jacket is draped carefully over the chair and there is an open can of Coke Zero and a protein bar in a shiny purple foil wrapper sitting beside it. There is also a pile of three or four books in the right corner, and she narrows her eyes to try to read the titles from a distance to see if they actually have to do with his classes or if he's just rereading Charles Bukowski again.
"He has a class now," Hickey says, and she flushes, realizing that he's caught her staring at Jeff's desk. "He should be back in about 20 minutes. 30 if he stops for one of those stupid, fancy coffee drinks that cost an arm and a leg. You can wait if you want."
She shakes her head and stands abruptly, hauling her bag onto her shoulder.
"Oh, no. I'm not … I was just…"
Hickey chuckles humorlessly.
"You two even sound alike."
She has no idea what he means, and she isn't about to ask. Instead, she thanks him for his time and heads for the door.
"So I shouldn't tell Winger you were looking for him, huh?" Hickey calls after her.
It is easy to ignore him.
Someone on the Save Greendale Committee has had a bad day – or maybe everyone has.
They are all tense, sulky, on edge, so someone suggests that they head to a bar and get well and completely hammered.
Jeff becoming a faculty member has blurred the lines between student and professor for the group, not that they were ever clearly defined at Greendale in the first place. But now they find themselves hanging out with Duncan and Chang on a fairly regular basis. Hickey usually doesn't stick around any longer than his obligation to the committee requires, and Annie is grateful for that because he is actually teaching a class that she is in and it would be too strange to drink beer or sing karaoke with him.
She has other plans tonight, though, so it doesn't really matter whether Hickey tags along or not. She is supposed to meet Jason - it's been almost two months since she last saw him, since she last had sex, and maybe that's why she has been feeling so tense lately, right on the precipice of something dark and dangerous.
So while the group heads off to get drunk, she goes home to change. She's already slipped into her little black dress and strappy heels, and is doing up her eyes all smoky and sultry like the makeup artist from Sephora did when Jason texts to – very apologetically – cancel on her.
The strange thing is that she isn't really surprised. It's almost as if she knew that it wouldn't work out tonight, and she is disappointed, not because she wants to see Jason specifically, but because she just feels lonely. And she knows that it's wrong, that she is just using him (it doesn't even matter that he is using her too), so it only makes her feel guilty, greedy, and even more alone.
She could text Abed or Britta and find out where they are so she can join them, but it seems like too much of an effort at the moment. Instead, she goes into the kitchen in her dress and heels and pours herself a glass of wine. It's the cheap kind that comes in a box, but it warms her all the same.
Maybe she'll watch a movie, one that she chooses herself, without checking to see if it meets Abed's standards. She's been wanting to watch 'Breakfast At Tiffany's again, ever since those chocolate commercials with Audrey Hepburn singing 'Moon River' have popped up. She remembers seeing it for the first time with her grandmother when she was just 12 years old, how she imagined that she would grow up to be as glamorous as Holly Golightly, move to Denver (in her young mind, it would be just as cosmopolitan as New York and close enough that she could still see her grandmother on weekends) and wear fabulous, elegant dresses, kiss handsome strangers, and break hearts everywhere she went.
Of course, she was so young that all she really saw was the romance of Holly's life. The sadness escaped her back then.
She is flipping through her DVDs to find the right one when there is a commotion in the hallway just outside the apartment. The couple who lives at the end of the hall is known for making big scenes – sometimes knock-down, drag-out fights that have Annie ready to dial 9-1-1 and other times moaning, thumping PDAs that force Annie throw in her ear buds and turn up Beyoncé really, really loud – so she tilts her head, trying to figure out what their deal is this time.
But the apartment door swings open then, and Abed spills in, Britta draped over his back in a sort of a piggyback position, the toes of her boots dragging along the floor. Duncan and Jeff shuffle in behind them, Chang propped up between them like he is nothing but dead weight.
They are all, to varying degrees, quite obviously drunk.
"What are you guys doing here?" she asks.
Britta raises a finger and opens her mouth to speak, but dissolves into a fit of laughter so hard that she sends Abed stumbling into the wall. She slides to the floor in a heap.
"Chang got us thrown out of the bar," Duncan says. "By starting a fight with a guy three times his height and five times his weight, whose mother and father were very likely first cousins."
"He was askin' for it," Chang slurs.
"Abed assured us that you have a vast selection of spirits," Duncan continues, ignoring Chang completely. "And we were within walking distance so naturally…"
He grins and waves his hand with a flourish. Annie looks over at Abed, who, while tipsy, isn't quite as far gone as the rest of them seem to be. He just shrugs.
"We have all the stuff that Troy got from Pierce's house," he says. "I don't think he expects it to still be here when he gets back."
Annie nods, smiling wanly. Truth be told, she finds the idea of Duncan and Chang inside her apartment unsettling – particularly when the former has no qualms about rooting around in their stuff, flinging open kitchen cabinets in search of something or another. Maybe, though, it is better not to be alone. Maybe misery really does love company.
"You have margarita mix," Duncan calls happily through the kitchen cutout. "Now where's the blender?"
She helps him find it and all the other fixings for margaritas, and supervises as he mixes up a batch. He is sloshing tequila and lime green mix all over the counter, dusting the floor with a layer of crunchy salt, and she has to curl her hands into fists to stop herself from cleaning up on the spot.
Later, she tells herself. She'll worry about it later.
Duncan gives her the first margarita from the batch in one of her Sleeping Beauty juice glasses and she takes it over to the futon. She suspects that Duncan didn't pay much attention to the instructions on the bottle because her first sip tastes almost like straight tequila, burning her throat and chest in a way that isn't entirely unpleasant. She crosses one leg over the other and watches her shoe dangle from her toes. She is all dressed up with no place to go, but at least she's with her friends – even if they're all sloppy drunk and barely coherent.
Without warning, Jeff collapses onto the futon beside her, splashing a little of the amber liquid in his half-filled glass on his wrist. The clumsy way that he licks it away and weary look in his eyes makes it clear that he has been hitting the sauce for a while, and she wonders if there is something in particular bothering him or if he's just feeling the same general malaise that she is.
"So…" he says, crossing his leg in the opposite direction as hers so his ridiculously large boot rests precariously above her tiny shoe. "Your plans with … what's his name? James? Josh? They fell through?"
"Jason," she corrects for no real reason. "Yes. His ex-girlfriend is in town for a layover and I guess she rates a little higher than I do."
He bobs his head slowly, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.
"You don't seem that upset."
She shrugs lazily.
"It's not a big deal. You know better than anyone how these things go - it's not like we owe each other anything or there are any feelings involved."
Part of her wants to shock him, show him how mature and adult she can be. Another part of her just wants to make him jealous, let him know how sexually liberated she is these days so he has a little something to think about tonight when he's alone in bed.
But he just sips from his glass and nudges her elbow.
"Maybe you'll still get lucky tonight," he jokes. "Look at all the eligible bachelors in this room."
He gestures across the room where Chang and Duncan have lined up a series of glasses to see who can chug them the fastest and Abed is attempting to play the harmonica. She looks back at Jeff with a frown, refusing to dwell on the fact that he didn't include himself as someone who might help change her luck.
"Can I be honest with you for a minute?" he says, his voice a little softer and more serious. He doesn't wait for her to respond before charging ahead. "The whole thing with you and this guy, it seems really weird to me."
She sits up straight, bristling instantly.
"I would point out for the 100th time that I'm not a child anymore, but no one seems to hear me so what's the point?" she grits out. "But I'm an adult, Jeff. I'm well aware that you don't have to be head over heels for a guy to have sex with him. I'm just not like you – I don't want to go trolling around bars, looking for a different guy each week. This is easier."
He blinks at her, looking a little bleary-eyed.
"No, that's not… I just think it's weird. That this guy doesn't want more."
"Why is that weird? Wouldn't most guys jump at the chance for no-strings attached sex? You do it all the time."
He is quiet for a long, torturous moment, and she begins to wonder if maybe he's fallen asleep. But when she glances over at him, he is staring back with a look so intent and intense that she gets an uncomfortably tight, burning sensation in her chest that the tequila can't compete with.
"Not with you," he finally says.
A shaky breath stutters out of her almost against her will, but she refuses to react otherwise, staying as still as possible. She is angry at Jason all of a sudden – if he hadn't cancelled on her, she wouldn't be here, she wouldn't be having this awkward conversation with Jeff. He shifts next to her, resting his elbow on the top of the futon behind her head and leaning in a little closer.
"You're just not the kind of girl who-"
"I'm not a girl," she snaps, surprising herself with just how angry she is. "I understand that sex doesn't equal love, Jeff. In fact, love, or anything close to it, just makes everything so much more difficult."
The corner of his mouth quirks up, making him look almost amused.
"When did you become so cynical?" he asks. "Jaded?"
"I'm not," she insists. "Jason isn't the right guy for me, but that doesn't mean I have to be celibate until I find someone who is. And I still have hope that there's a guy out there who I'll actually like spending time with and who'll be honest with me and not jerk me around and …"
She stops herself from saying anything else, especially when she sees the entertained way Jeff is smiling at her.
"Who'll take you to Disneyland?" he teases.
She glares at him, eyes narrowed, and that seems to sober him up a little. He clears his throat and shakes his head.
"I don't really know if there's a guy like that out there, Annie."
"You are welcome to wallow in your cynicism – men are evil monsters, only after sex, blah blah blah," she says, pushing herself up. "But I'm not in the mood to hear it so…"
His hand curls around her elbow, and he gently tugs her back down.
"I didn't mean it like that," he whispers. "I just meant, you're special, Annie. I can't imagine there's a guy out there who could really deserve you."
That has always been part of their problem, she thinks. He has her up on some ridiculous pedestal, protected by glass like she is some breakable china doll.
She is sick of it.
"That's so stupid," she tells him. "How could you possibly determine who deserves who? We both know I'm far from perfect, so I don't need a perfect guy. All I want is someone who is willing to try."
Jeff bobs his head.
"You deserve at least that much."
She nods too, and then she feels his thumb rubbing almost imperceptibly against the back of her head. He slides even closer on the futon, so his warm thigh is pressed against hers, and he is looking at her mouth and she has the sudden, startling realization that he is going to kiss her. She wants him to do it with an intensity that terrifies her and leaves her shaking just a bit, but she also knows that it is probably a mistake to do it here, like this. He licks at his lower lip as he leans in, and she hates herself for what she's about to do because every cell in her body wants her tongue to blaze the same path.
Still, she reaches up and presses a hand to his chest to push him back.
"Jeff," she whispers regretfully. "I don't think—"
"I'm sorry," he mutters, and immediately shifts away, as far from her as he can get without falling off the futon. "I've been drinking and I'm not …"
She drains the rest of her tequila-heavy margarita, wondering how long politeness dictates that she sit here before she heads to the kitchen for another drink. She feels awful and awkward and exhausted, and she wants to crawl in bed and pull the blankets over head for the entire weekend.
But Jeff makes it easy on her.
He shoots her a tight smile and holds up his empty glass.
"I'm gonna go…"
He points toward the kitchen, heaving himself off the futon and across the room in what seems like two steps.
She lets him walk away without saying a word.
A week of committee meetings later, and Jeff is still studiously avoiding her gaze, speaking to her only when absolutely necessary.
As he has a knack for doing, he makes her feels as if she's done something wrong, like she should feel foolish or guilty or ashamed, and she hates him for it.
She is tempted to put him in charge of the worst of the committee's tasks for the week – like picking all the broken shards of glass from the track or removing the poison oak from the courtyard behind the library. But that would be an abuse of power, and she has principles, values that she won't compromise just to get a little revenge on someone who probably feels as badly as she does about what happened – or what didn't happen.
Sometimes, she thinks that it would be better if they hadn't kissed before.
If they'd never kissed, then now, if it happened, they could chalk it up to satisfying a longstanding curiosity. They could use the excuse to ease their way into it, without thinking about what it means and what to do next. It would be simple.
But because they've kissed and have spent the last four years not kissing, it has become this thing so loaded with meaning and significance that it can't be done without consequences. They can't just kiss to test the waters and see what happens. They are so far beyond that now that she is starting to wonder if they missed their moment, if it's too late for whatever it is between them to ever really see the light of day.
It might help if they could come to definitive conclusion about whatever it is between them in the first place.
Most days, she is fairly certain that she isn't in love with him.
She can't be – because she is old enough to understand that for all the little quirks of his personality that she understands like second nature, for all the little trivial details of his life that she could recite from memory alone, she doesn't know him well enough for that.
Or maybe, more precisely, she doesn't know him well enough in the right ways to really be in love with him.
But she is also old enough to realize that she feels something for him that she has never felt for anyone else, and it doesn't seem to go way if she ignores it or ignores him or he ignores her or they barely see each other for an entire year.
He coughs just as the meeting wraps up, and even that seems to jolt something in inside her.
She is so distracted while she packs up her belongings that her bag skitters to the ground and all its contents, her car keys, pens, notepad, wallet, breath mints, hand sanitizer, tampons, lipstick, brush and compact, scatter on the battered carpeting at her feet. She curses under her breath, crouching to retrieve all the stupid crap that she carries with her on a daily basis.
And then, Jeff is kneeling beside her, helping gather her things, and she tries not to flinch away from him, the way his shoulder brushes against hers as he stretches to corral a wayward pen.
"Thanks," she mumbles, barely looking him in the eye.
She feels rather than sees him shrug.
"You know me. I can't resist a damsel in distress."
It is pretty clumsy as far as apologies go, but she knows what he is trying to say and she is willing to meet him halfway. They finish collecting her things and awkwardly get to their feet, the silence stretching around them oppressively. She shifts her bag higher on her shoulder and straightens her back.
"Jeff, maybe we should -"
"Annie. It's kind of late. Let's not get into a whole thing, okay?"
She frowns, lowering her head so her hair hides her face. He exhales heavily, and she sees his feet shift closer to her. When he rests his hand on her shoulder, she can't help but look up at him, his expression soft and almost sad.
"I'm sorry," he practically whispers.
She nods, though she tilts her head back slightly in a stubborn effort to keep any renegade tears from slipping free.
"I just want us to be okay," she tells him. "Are we going to be okay?"
He smiles, his soft, tender, just-for-her smile, and bobs his head.
"Yeah. We'll be okay."
When he says it, she actually believes it.
