#taylor thread

The worst part of the apartment building wasn’t the mold or the piss-poor water pressure, it was running into his students. Taylor had picked the place because it was walking distance from campus-- which also meant that a lot of students picked it for the same reason. He didn’t really cared what people think but being stared at like he was Plato himself walking down the hall instead of a adjunct philosophy professor was a lot to handle. Walking into the laundry room with his basket of dirty clothes Taylor got a side-eye look from the student he’d given a C to last semester. Placing his basket atop a washer he saw he wasn’t the only person down in the basement. A woman, one he’d never seen in the building or on campus, intrigued him. “Sorry, do you have a quarter?” He asked before holding out his palm with three quarters in it. “Just realized I’m short one.” The extra coin burned in his back pocket. 

- a thread of swifties being proud of who they are-

Taylor plugged in his last grade of the semester-- yet somehow he didn’t feel the wave of relief he expected. It still felt like he was sitting on pins and needles, like some messed up acupuncture. He had his suspicions as to why, the senior student standing in his office like an elephant out of place. Technically the semester wasn’t over so technically she was still his student. So he should just wait a few days before contacting her, right? Then he didn’t have to hold back, they could just be too adults attracted to each other.

But the image of Mave crying in his office haunted him. It probably would for a while. Seeing people cry always left an impression on him, or more accurately a hot iron brand. Big displays of emotion were hard for him to process, crying being the worst of them. Still, he couldn’t just sit and wait, not knowing how Mave was fairing... He took out his phone and wrote a quick text: TXT: Hey TXT: We should get coffee He waited. And waited. Then finally looked at the time and saw it was four in the morning. Whoops. Either Mave would see what a hard worker he was when it came to his job... or she would think he was desperate. Taylor couldn’t let himself think about that. He left a mess of papers and his laptop on the table and went to bed, finally, turning the volume on his phone all the way up so hopefully it would wake him up when Mave texted him. Or when he got an angry email from one of his students about their grade. Whichever came first.

“Shit!” Taylor cursed before grabbing a stranger by the waist and pulling her towards him-- right as three students on skateboards rushed past them. It was around eight o’clock on Friday night. Taylor had just finished teaching his least favorite class, not that it was the students fault they’d scheduled a night class on Friday. Understandably, most people didn’t want to talk philosophy when they could be pre-gaming. No doubt that’s what the skaters had been doing. Taylor’s point was proven when he saw one of them continue straight into a bush while his friends laughed and continued down main street. “Morons,” he muttered before realizing he was still holding the woman’s waist. “Ah-- sorry,” he pulled his hand away and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, sorry...”