Twin Flames, Two Souls Journey Through Time – The Professor - Chapter 3

                  As her head shot up from the pillow, Amelia thought of the previous day in class, and the biggest smile came to her face.  Every class she attended she found herself growing more and more attracted to Daniel.  This was not a feeling she wanted; it was seriously wrong.  But was it, really?  I mean she was forty-three and he was thirty-six.  She was older than him, he may be her teacher for now, but he didn’t hold any power over her.  She was certainly not a young impressionable schoolgirl with a silly crush on her professor.  She was a fully formed adult with strong opinions who knew what she wanted, and he would never be able to unduly influence her into a decision.  The same was true when she was sixteen.  Her sister Lucy had been speaking with their religion’s “spiritual leaders,” not because she wanted to, (but oh how men do love to tell women what they should be doing), but to guilt trip her for dating someone not of their faith.  These “Elders,” as they were called, accused her of setting a negative example for Amelia.  Lucy laughed right in their faces and said, “you clearly do not know Amelia, because Amelia doesn’t do ANYTHING, that Amelia doesn’t want to do.”  Apparently, Amelia was born stubborn and opinionated.  The way Daniel’s eyes would light up whenever they would verbally spar told Amelia that he seemed to enjoy that about her. 

                  When thinking of the previous day’s events she couldn’t help but laugh.  They were going over different graphs, and Daniel made the fatal mistake of asking if it was increasing or decreasing, and Amelia under her breath said, “that’s what she said.”  The way that Daniel stopped dead in his tracks, turned to face her and said, “I hate you,” causing her to gasp and say, “oh my god, you heard that?”  He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, trying to stifle a laugh, he turned bright red and said, “I can’t believe I walked right into the one,” “You sure did” she replied, “It’s OK it was funny, but I still hate you.”  “No, you don’t, and I know it was funny.”  She could see him trying very hard to stop smiling and return to the lesson.  Amelia wasn’t sure if any of the other students heard what she had said, she didn’t even mean for Daniel to hear.  It was just one of those expressions that pops out of her mouth, without warning.  “That’s what she said,” it was an expression she used all the time, the perpetual thirteen year old that lives rent free in her brain couldn’t help herself.  It made her feel a certain way whenever she could make Daniel smile or lose his train of thought.  Loath as she was to admit it, Leah and Lucy had been correct, she DID have a crush on her professor, though she would categorize this as more than a crush.  He was all that she ever talked about.  And the fact that she had literally stopped him dead in his tracks made her heart smile.

                  Amelia had had crushes before, that wasn’t new, but there was something very different about Daniel.  Their every interaction had a subtext to it.  It was as though they could read each other’s minds. Amelia was not known for her subtlety, people would often say that if she liked you, you would know, and if she didn’t like you, boy did you know.  Her ex told her that her eyes give absolutely everything away.  She had hoped that the rest of the class didn’t see right through her, but she assumed that they were all thinking the same thing, “get a room already.”  Amelia may have felt like she and Daniel were the only two people in the room, but they were decidedly NOT.  Amelia couldn’t help it, she wasn’t trying to flirt with Daniel, she didn’t want to be attracted to him, but she couldn’t quite figure out what exactly was happening between them.  It was as if they had known each other for years.  There was a comfortability with him that she had never had with another person, and every day the feeling grew stronger. 

                  As Daniel walked to his car that evening, the events of the day came flooding back into his mind.  How did Amelia turn a lesson about exponential graphs into something so delightfully dirty?  He had to admit that he completely walked right into that one.  What was it about her that made him so easily flustered?  He had been around eighteen year olds for twenty years, you think he would have heard it all before.  She is so deliciously naughty without even trying.  He could tell by the way she said, “that’s what she said,” that she wasn’t trying to be funny, it literally tumbled out of her mouth without a thought.  She was naturally funny and clearly had a wicked sense of humor.  “I can’t believe I told her that I hated her, and how she immediately responded with, ‘no you don’t.’  How does she know me so well after only a few weeks in class?”  The way her eyes pierce through to his soul is utterly unnerving, and the way they sparkle with delight when she knows that she has bested him.  It was as though they were playing a game of tennis, and Ms. Jenkins was up 45-love.  “I really should have better self-control,” he couldn’t help but wonder if the other students noticed their interactions.  He does try to keep these moments to a minimum, but sometimes Amelia’s incredibly smart mouth was impossible to ignore and today was one of them.  As she said her usual “have a nice day, Daniel” as she left, the only words he could muster to say was, “you too” in response.  She had left him tongue tied that day, and god help him, he couldn’t stop thinking about her tongue.  He shook his head in disgust at his inability to stop thinking about her mouth, her very smart mouth, and all the ways in which he would like to keep her quiet.  He could feel his skin tingling at the thought, it is like his temperature rose a couple of degrees whenever she happened to cross his mind.  He was thankful that she was an overachiever when it came to school and grades, he didn’t have to worry that people would think she was getting some sort of special treatment.  Ms. Jenkins was a perfectionist, he could only wonder if that zest for perfection was limited to only school and grades, or if it also filtered into other areas of her life?  He was pretty sure that it was the latter, which made his body shiver at the thought.  The things he wanted her to do with her smart mouth.  It may still be winter, but Daniel decided that he was going to definitely need a cold shower tonight.

                  As Amelia was falling to sleep that night a familiar image was filtered into her brain.  It’s a woman standing next to a man, who has his arm around her waist, and they are both staring down into a basinet.  Based upon what they were wearing, it looks to be Regency Era, London, and they seem to have money, perhaps even titled, they were certainly very much upper class.  This same image is being shown to her over and over and over again.  She wished she could say it was a dream, but she was still awake.  She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it looked and felt very real and very familiar.  What was her subconscious trying to tell her? 

                  Amelia sat in the computer lab going over her homework with her study group.  They were doing practice tests for the midterm.  True to form her computer was doing weird things, but of course only hers, everyone else’s seemed to be working fine.  “Why is this being so weird?” she asked to no one in particular. Just as she said that Daniel walked by and sarcastically replied, “I know I’m weird,” without even a thought in her brain and with the kindest most sincere smile she replied, “yes you are, but you’re wonderfully weird.”  He was left temporarily speechless, and he could only reply “thank you,” after his brain started working again.  They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, but it wasn’t more than a second or two, and then Daniel proceeded to help her with her computer.  She had never been more honest in her life, he was wonderfully weird, perhaps she shouldn’t have said it in front of her study group, though all of them had the decency not to say anything.  As he walked away, she felt herself exhale, she wasn’t even aware that she was holding her breath until he walked away.  She continued taking the practice test, but every single inch of her skin felt as though it was on fire, “what the fuck just happened?”  Her mind was going a mile a minute and for the first time, probably ever, she couldn’t care less about a midterm.  She couldn’t care less if she passed, let alone got an “A” on it.  The class could not end any sooner, thank god it was only an hour today, she didn’t think she could stand to be in the same city as him at this moment, let alone the same room.  It was subtle, but that comment felt like a serious shift in how she felt about him.  He already occupied her every thought, each night she went to bed thinking about him, imagining how his hands would feel on her, his mouth, she wanted to feel his body pressed against hers, how she yearned to feel his weight on her. 

That image flashed again in her mind of a man having his arm wrapped around a women’s waist while staring down into a basinet.  Her brain was trying desperately to tell her something, it felt so very familiar.  The realization came sweeping over her, this was no dream, this was a memory.  It felt real because it was real. She was the woman in the vision.  Was Daniel the man, was the baby they were staring at theirs?  Did that explain the feeling of familiarity they had with each other?  Amelia was practical, empirical even, she stopped believing in things she didn’t see.  Being raised in a religious cult, where you were never allowed to question anything, made her want to question everything.  She wanted to know why, but it wasn’t just a want, it was a need.  She needed to understand things, and this was something that defied explanation.  It can’t be real, It must be a dream, only she KNEW she wasn’t dreaming, she was wide awake, and the idea that this could be a memory made her feel as though she was crazy.  Had you mentioned that you believed in past lives to her six months earlier, (hell three months earlier), she would have smiled and said, “that’s cool,” whilst in her mind she would have been thinking, “OK crazy, whatever you say.”  Was she crazy?  Why did this feel so very real?  She could feel his arm around her waist, she could feel the love they shared swelling up in her heart.  She tossed and turned in her bed, hoping for sleep to find her.  This had just gone from an innocent attraction to something far more serious, and she had no clue how to feel about it, nor how she was going to go into class tomorrow and act like nothing had changed, when everything had changed.   The way the earth spins on its axis seemed forever altered.  It was as if she entered an episode of the Twilight Zone, and no one else knew it but her.  Even the air smelled different, colors were brighter, she could feel her skin tingling again, like it was on fire, and Daniel was the only thing that would be able to extinguish it.  She decided at that point that she had to build up the courage to say something to him.  She knew it would have to wait till after the class was over, she had worked very hard for her 4.0, and she would be damned if someone would say that she had earned her “A” through dubious methods.  That gave her roughly two months to figure out exactly what and how she would tell him.  Amelia knew that regrets are a natural consequence of life.  We all make choices every day, some seemingly innocuous, but wind up altering your life’s trajectory.  She knew that she would inevitably have regrets when she was at the end of her life, the fact that she allowed Matt to treat her so detestably for so long, was one of her biggest regrets.  She couldn’t go back and change anything she did, what was done was done.  She had learned from the mistake that was Matthew Timmons, and she would have to learn to live with it.  She knew from somewhere deep inside her soul that Daniel Hillard could not be one of hers.  She would rather know than not know, not knowing would drive her insane.  He may say no, he probably will say no, the optics wouldn’t be great.  She would need to muster up all the courage she had and then some in order to ever say anything to him, she couldn’t control his response, but she knew what had to be done. 

                  Daniel was not one who was ever for a loss of words, but when Amelia told him he was wonderfully weird, after he made a self-deprecating joke, he stared into her eyes and the only thing he could muster was a “thank you.”  He thought long and hard, and he couldn’t remember being given a nicer or more genuine complement in his entire life.  “I am weird,” that is no secret.  He’s a math professor for crying out loud, of course he is weird.  He couldn’t stop thinking about her lovely face, and how she smiled so sweetly when she told him that he was wonderfully weird.  He knew that they had stared at each other in silent contemplation for what seemed like hours, but it was probably less than three seconds.  Thankfully his brain snapped him back to reality, he helped her and moved on to the next person whose hand was raised.  He was quiet that entire day, his fellow professors asking him if he was OK, he always had something to say, but not this day.  All he could focus on was how full his heart felt.  As though it was ten times its normal size, like it might explode from pure joy.  He couldn’t talk to ANYONE about it, his best friend was a professor, his dad was a teacher, he had no siblings, absolutely no one would be able to tell him anything he didn’t already know.  She’s a student, it’s not worth losing your credibility or your career over.  Perhaps they were right, but this feeling welling up inside of him, made him rethink those sentiments.  He wanted to say something to her, he just couldn’t, especially during the semester. 

                  That night in bed as he stared up at the ceiling, those same feelings came rushing back to him.  When he closed his eyes, he could see her eyes shining at him as though her very life depended on it.  He had never met anyone in his life that made him feel more alive than her.  She might as well have been oxygen, because he simply couldn’t breathe when she wasn’t around.  Whenever he could look into her lovely green eyes it was as if the rest of the world disappeared.  “Wonderfully weird…wonderfully weird…wonderfully weird,” the words just echoed in his brain like a beacon calling to his heart.  How can two little words carry so much import, so much meaning, so much hope?  He thought that his ex, Rachel, had squashed every last bit of hope he would or could ever have, yet here was this woman, who had opened his heart up to the possibility of more.  He had thought that he had locked it up and thrown the key down to middle earth, never to be seen again.  Amelia Jenkins had somehow forged a new key, one that was impervious to the rust that had been forming around his heart.  He didn’t think he would ever need to worry about it anymore.  His heart was in so many pieces, the idea of someone being able to put it back together again seemed like a fruitless endeavor to take on.  He realized that he didn’t need to find someone who could fix his broken heart, what he needed was someone whose broken pieces matched his own, and together they would make a whole heart.  Was Amelia’s heart the one that would complete him, make him whole again?  He couldn’t stop thinking about her, he couldn’t stop dreaming about her, and not just about her lips, or any of the myriad of things she could do with those lips.  Not just how much pleasure he would take in filling her smart mouth with the erection he was trying to currently suppress.  He wasn’t thinking of the thousands of deliciously wicked and vile things he wanted to do to her, but rather about her.  The way she would snort if he really made her laugh, the way a “V’ would form between her eyebrows when she was trying to figure something out.  The coy smile she would get anytime she mocked him, or how high pitched and squeaky her voice got whenever he called her out for saying something inappropriate, which was quite often.  The way she bit the tip of her pencil when she was thinking, and how he had to remain seated because of it.  How she couldn’t help but turn every shade and hue from pink to red every time she got embarrassed.  At the time he had a migraine, and she offered to show him a pressure point to use, since she also suffered from them, and asked if she could touch him, and how he had just placed his hands up and rolled away from her.  Her desperate pleas of, “that’s not what I meant, that’s not what I meant,” and another student laughing at her and saying, “Jesus Christ Amelia, did you hear what you just said.”  He had seen her blush, but that made her turn positively purple in embarrassment.  Daniel wondered if she was part chameleon with all the various shades she could turn. 

                  That night he had the strangest dream, he was dressed in clothes that looked like they were from the early 1800’s, he had his arm wrapped around a woman’s waist, he was assuming it was his wife, and they were staring down into a bassinet.  He couldn’t’ see their faces, but something told him he didn’t need to see the faces, he knew who it was.  All he felt was love and a sense of peace wash over him.