They Don't Know About Us (BWWM)

Chapter 5

The next few psychology classes were uneventful for Ava, but they were still intense. No matter where she sat in the large lecture hall, Gavin's eyes met hers. Then, he would smirk a little to himself, make a cryptic comment, and then flow right back into his casual and friendly self toward other people. It drove Ava a little bit crazy, but at least there was a good amount of physical distance between them. Luckily, she could do her assignments and exams online without ever having to directly interact with Gavin, and she figured the rest of the semester would be an easy one as long as she didn't happen to run into him outside of class.

Ava still felt like there was an element of danger to Gavin, and that still made her anxious despite how genuinely sweet he came off to be. She knew that she needed to remain wary of him just in case. If she let her guard down, she could put herself in more trouble than she almost already put herself in. Her steps had to be careful and mindful. One slip up could mean the end of her cautious tiptoeing around him, and that slip up came in the form of a bad grade on a class paper.

Ava stared at her laptop in disbelief at the C she had received on her psychology paper about the birth order theory. She explored the effects of being a first born child, figuring she could relate her findings to her own experience. She thought it had been a really good paper, but Gavin evidently didn't share her same thoughts. She looked up from her laptop as she sat on her bed with it on her lap, her eyes darting over to her phone to check the time. It just happened to be time for his office hours. She packed her laptop into her backpack and made the trek all the way from her dorm to the psychology building, moving up the stairs to the third floor where all of the professors' offices were located at. She stopped at 302 and knocked firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. Besides her mother, the only thing that got her up in arms was unfair grades. She had worked hard on that paper, had exposed some pieces of her life, and she still received only a C for her efforts and thought.

The door swung open a moment later, Gavin stepping into the open space, an unexpected smile crossing his lips. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" He murmured, tilting his head at her curiously.

"I would like to discuss my grade on my last paper," Ava told him, attempting to still come off as polite. She didn't feel the need to be as proper around him like she was around other professors. She had seen too much to treat him as such.

"Ah, yes. Come in," Gavin replied with a small nod, leading her inside of his small and dimly lit office. The stark white light from the hallway poured into the room through the open door, clashing with the soft yellow light flooding from his desk lamp. He sat in a cushioned chair behind his neatly made desk, his eyes trailing her as she sat down in a black chair across from him. "I could've emailed you my notes. You didn't have to make the trip over here," he commented, his eyebrow cocking up at her like he was intrigued on why she had come all the way to see him.

Ava hadn't even thought of that approach, but it was too late. She was already there in front of him, and it would be easier to argue her cause when she was there with him in person. However, it would not be easy to face his bold and charming nature. It still intimidated her. It wasn't like her parents allowed her to get used to boys, especially not when it came to men. "I just want to know why it deserved a C. I cited all of my sources. I provided a lot of examples. I just don't understand," Ava told him, opting to ignore his previous point. She refused to let him get under her skin just because he felt like he had something over her. Granted, he did, which was the ability to do what he did to that man to her, but she hated feeling so anxious all the time around him. College was supposed to be relaxing outside of the general workload and adult responsibilities.

Gavin reached into his file cabinet next to his desk, shuffling through a few folders and papers until he pulled out a printed copy of her paper. He placed it on the desk in front of her, various red and black marks adorning the paragraphs. "Your paper was great, but I want more. I know that there's more. Your personal experiences were ... shy. You left out necessary details to explain how you did or did not fit in with the birth order theory's claims regarding first born children."