Page 17 of Lessons In Grey

She blew him a kiss and headed for the door.

His eyes lifted right to mine as if he had felt them on him and I immediately hardened my own and turned back to my writing.

“Okay,” the Professor said as soon as the last person had left. “I’m going to write some quotes on the board. You are to copy them down just as they are.”

Quotes? That’s what we were analyzing today?

My eyes lifted, the glare gone as I tracked him towards the far left side of the whiteboard.

“Yes, you will rise from the ashes, but the burning comes first. For this part, darling, you must be brave.”

My brows furrowed as I poised my pen above the blank piece of paper. It wasn’t a ‘normal’ quote. It wasn’t something you’d see carved into stone or photoshopped in neon above some trees on someone’s Instagram page. That quote is one of the quiet ones. The ones you keep in your phone for years until you come across it during a photo purge and remember that sometimes life sucks and sometimes you just had to keep going.

“Toska,”he wrote.

I copied the word down, studying it. It was Russian, and, funny enough, I had read about it a long time ago, the meaning had stuck with me.

Toska was an immense ache for nothing and everything all atonce. An anguish from the bottom of the heart.

While that might not be the exact definition of that word, it had settled in my muscles like seeds taking root. I had showed it to Charlie when I had stumbled upon it, and she had asked me‘Is that how you feel?’

I had shrugged.‘Almost,’I had told her. It was as close as I could get to explaining how I felt at the moment in time.

Just…anguish.

The Professor walked a few more feet.“We’re all stories in the end, just make it a good one.”

I pressed my lips together with that one, but I did feel a little unsettled.

All three of those quotes I knew dearly. In fact, the last one was a direct quote from my favorite show. A show only Ash and Charlie knew how deeply it meant to me.

I wrote it down and leaned back in my chair, grazing my fingers over the left side of my jaw and I winced. It was still sore.

The Professor turned around and lifted his hands to either side. “If any one of you could name who wrote at least one of these, I’ll give you a free period.”

Glances were exchanged, mumbles erupted around me as people started rallying together, trying to figure out who wrote it.

There were no phones allowed in the class, so I wondered if anyone was trying to sneak a quick Google search in to get that free class.

I tapped my pen three times, slowly looking around the room before my eyes found him again.

He was staring right at me expectantly.

I forced my eyes to harden again, although it was difficult. I was so tired, part of me wondered how terrible it would be if I just let him see today.

I’d regret it for the rest of my days.

There was no possible way he had done this on purpose.Unless he was some criminal who had figured out how to hack into phones, I very much doubted this was anything other than coincidence.

“Tupac,” someone finally said.

I rose a brow at him, my eyes firmly locked on his chin. What more did he expect? Although, Tupac? That was a terrible, horrible guess, but at least the guy tried.

His own expression dried as he returned his attention to the class. “No.”

“Um…Picasso?”

“No.”