You were in the area and figured it might be nice to visit your old campus anyway; might as well check and see if there was anything of yours that had been lost in the fire and if so, if there was anything being done or anything you might need to do about it. Though you could assume the staff would have contacted you if that were the case, it never hurt to double check.

You'd quite literally bumped into him in your hurry to get to the admissions building to see if there was any info on who you needed to talk to, if anyone. The usual apologetic courtesies were exchanged, which definitely didn't line up with your memories of Mr. Durkett. You'd only seen him a handful of times, but the impression of a tall and rather imposing older man who looked and acted perpetually annoyed with life in general had stuck with you to this day.

He was still tall, though less imposing now. He didn't look annoyed so much as he looked defeated and absolutely dog-tired.

You figured it wouldn't hurt to ask the Dean of admissions himself where you needed to be. He'd sighed, and for a split second you'd fully expected a clipped, irritable response telling you where to go in as few words as possible to get you out of his hair (which now had a lot more grey in it than you remembered). But that was not how the conversation had gone.

Instead, he'd said you looked a little old to be a student - an easy assessment, since you were thirty-eight - and asked when you'd graduated. You'd told him it had been about six years ago, and he'd explained that if you hadn't been contacted somehow, there wasn't anything to worry about.

You'd thanked him, of course, but before you could turn to go back the way you'd come, he'd said he was going the same way and to your complete surprise, asked if you wanted to get coffee with him.

You couldn't think of any reason not to, and he looked like he could use the company, so you agreed.

You'd both paid for your coffee separately, and found a place to sit and chat. Things had started out with the usual; what's your name, what did you major in, how has life treated you since graduation. You'd been the one to broach the subject of family issues; there had been some drama around the death of a relative, which had resulted in a lot of petty legal bickering.

"I feel that," He'd sighed. "After the shitstorm last year, my wife left me and took the girls. She's remarried now, some guy twenty years younger than me and fuckin' loaded."

The way he'd almost spat out the last sentence, as if the words were tangibly bitter, had given you some insight as to why he looked so beaten and run down.

So when he'd said he had to get back and thanked you for the conversation, you'd quickly jotted down your number along with a note; call or text if you need to talk :)

You didn't quite know what to make of the look he'd given you in response...he'd looked from the note to you without moving his head, his left eyebrow cocked almost as if to ask what the hell is this? You genuinely couldn't tell for certain if he was curious, genuinely interested or possibly even mildly offended.