No Time

Life was funny sometimes. Back when Eric had been going on blind dates. He'd had nothing but time to agonize over the dates that would be coming.

Unable to do anything but wait. Now that he actually needed the time to plan the fake date that he would be having with Evelyn. There was no time in sight available to him. 

After their meeting at the diner, where she'd had to rush off because she got word from a client. Their plan had been to meet up again as soon as possible in order to discuss things. But unfortunately it seemed that that would not be possible. One of the teachers, Mrs Aretas, had come down with a cold bad enough that she could barely get out of bed in the morning.

Given that it was that time of the year where all of the exams were piling up. Her students could not just be left to their own devices. So Eric, being one of only three math teachers in the school, had had to step up.

It was pretty difficult teaching another class. But luckily for him, Mrs Aretas was a very detail-oriented woman, so he'd had no problem following her schedule. However, unluckily for him, her students were a very spirited bunch, very difficult to deal with. They were at that phase in their lives where they just had to buck against authority. Trying to prove that they did not need to listen to anyone. 

So in addition to juggling his own workload. He was also having to deal with teenagers who had no idea who he was, and were trying their best to get under his skin. 

Such an atmosphere did not leave much room for him to try, and solve his own problems. So rather than meeting up with Evelyn to discuss their upcoming fake date. Eric was currently stuck at school long after everybody else had gone home, marking students' work. It would have been easier for him to pack it all up and go home.

But he did not want to do that. The chances of him just giving up, and falling asleep that night instead of finishing with the work, were pretty high if he left the school premises. So no matter how tired he was, he stayed put, his intention to not go anywhere until all of the papers were marked.

But at some point during the night, five minutes till ten, to be exact, he realized that he was not really doing anything productive. Deciding that a break was in order, Eric pulled out his phone and looked at it. Given his current friendless state.

There was no one to chat to. He had nothing to do but be online and watch videos. Somehow, his random internet searches ended with him watching a peacock spreading its tail feathers, and showing off. 

That reminded Eric of Evelyn, so much so that he decided to send a text to her. Not because he missed her, or wanted to talk to her, or anything.

Pfft...he barely knew her, that would be ridiculous. Ha!

The only reason he was reaching out was because he had just realized that he had forgotten to tell her that their meeting would not be happening any time soon. 'Hi,' He sent out. Then he had to fight the urge to bash his head against the table.

Seriously?! What was he? Twelve? In fact, scratch that. Even twelve year olds had better conversation openers than that. Luckily for him, Evelyn was obviously not too particular about people with bad conversation starters.

She immediately sent out a reply. 'I am glad to hear from you so soon. Do you have a day in mind for us to meet up?'

'Unfortunately, work is kind of hectic right now. Our meeting will not be as soon as we had hoped,' For some reason disappointing her, even though it was not his fault made him feel bad.

But Evelyn's reply made him feel better.

'Thank you, for letting me know. When are you going to be able to meet me?" After thinking on it for a bit, Eric typed out his message.

'Can you do this up coming Wednesday?'

Message sent, Eric waited, and the longer it took for her to reply. The more Eric worried. What if she had decided that he was not worth all of the effort? What if she felt that if he could not make the time to go to the meeting, then they should just give up their plan?

His downward spiral was cut off when his phone buzzed a few seconds later. Her reply was anything but negative. 

'Oh, good, I was actually racking my brains, trying to rearrange things so that the two of us could meet. You being unable to make it is a load off my shoulders. I believe that Wednesday is a good time. I should be done with my project as well by then,'

It was pretty sad that Eric, a grown man, was punching the air in his classroom at ten in the evening like he had just won something. Simply because a woman who was to be his fake date for a single night, had not decided to scrap their plans altogether.

But that was exactly the state that Eric was in, and he did not even feel a little bit ashamed for being so happy over that. He had taken a lot of losses over the years, so he would not be feeling bad for celebrating even the smallest of victories. 

'Great! So we're agreed then, Wednesday it is. Now all we have to do is think of a location to go to. Do you have any place in particular that you would like to visit? There was another long pause. And when Evelyn replied, her message was short. 

'Not really any place within town will do for me. So long as I can get there, I'm OK with it,' She told him.

'How about we meet at Chardays, not for the date, I've had enough dates there to last me a while. So how about we just meet up there to plan?'

Eric had to admit, he had not been thinking about Chardays at all. But it was actually a good idea. He had come to associate the place with bad dates, having a good experience there would definitely help to balance out all of the negativity.

'Chardays sounds good, let's meet there,'

That should have been the end of their talk. But he was pleasantly surprised when Evelyn sent him another text, clearly looking to prolong their talk.

'What are you doing still up at this hour? She asked, and Eric was quick to reply.

'Oh, I'm still at school. I have extra work since one of my co-worker is sick.

'What about you? Why aren't you asleep?' He asked, and her reply was instant. 'I am still finishing off the project that I was called about that day at the diner. I was really pushing since I thought that we had to meet up soon. But now I can afford to slow down a bit since we have extended our time limit'.

Eric actually felt good at her reply. It meant that he had made the right call in reaching out so early. He would not have been able to feel good about himself if he had kept quiet, only to find out that she had missed sleep for his sake. Trying to finish a project early so that she could give him her full attention when they met.

'All right then, I will let you get back to work. I need to finish off the papers as well before they start multiplying,' She sent back a laughing emoji, but Eric was being dead serious. Sometimes it felt like paperwork, if left for too long, decided to reproduce.

Surprisingly enough, when he resumed marking, his pace was faster. He chose to believe that it was because he'd had a bit of a break, not because talking to Evelyn had given him an instant energy boost.