Chapter 4 My favorite snack

I parted my lips, still with the helmet in my hands and my eyes fixed on his.

"Ah-I-uh-" I looked at the helmet in my hands, in the stupid hope of watching it magically disappear and return to where he had left it from the beginning, "I-"

The truth is that I was so nervous that I couldn't find what to answer to him.

"Put the helmet back to its place," he said without breaking his tone, but it was enough for me to react immediately.

I nodded and turned around, placing the helmet in its place, exactly where I had found it, but maybe not how I had found it, because I did not remember exactly the position that the object would have initially had on the motorcycle.

I accidentally moved a hand and accidentally touched the other helmet, at the same time the helmet, leaning to one side, pushed the folders, whose white sheets that I kept inside scattered all over the floor around me.

And as if that weren't enough, the smaller helmet also fell and bounced about three times, rolling two feet from me. I was trying to fix something small and ended up making a mess.

I didn't even want to see his face, I imagined that seeing him would make me feel more stupid than I already did, so I had no choice but to hesitate again while I got down to work.

"Eh-sorry."

I walked around the bike and walked to take the helmet first, which I checked everywhere and whose surface I cleaned with one hand, hoping that it hadn't been scratched by the fall and slide on the asphalt ground.

Well, at least it hadn't broken. So I wasn't going to be, anytime soon, sentenced to die, although the look of warning and judgment from him

-which I imagined he would have- would already make me feel like someone waiting for a dart against my forehead.

I returned the helmet to its place and proceeded to collect it sheet by sheet, taking care not to wrinkle them in the process and returning them to its folders, in fact they had gotten so messed up that I no longer knew which one belonged to which folder, but the important thing was to collect even the one that had flown almost to the middle of the street.

I thought, as I tried to put everything together, that I would have the opportunity to put the sheets where they needed to be in order to get the correct order of the assignments. As long as he was still there, waiting for the professor to come back from wherever he had gone.

Finally, I had the three folders in my hands and not a single sheet laying badly on the ground, I had no choice but to look into the eyes of the young man in front of me, beyond the motorcycle that separated us.

"You finished?" He asked again, with that indifference that made me a little intrigued and shivered for not knowing what happened after this tranquility.

I nodded.

"Yes. Sorry. I didn't mean-"

I was interrupted when I looked down at what I was holding in his hands and the one that was extended towards me.

"Take," he said.

I stayed there, still, identifying that it was a yogurt with a cereal top, I don't know how I had guessed that this was my favorite snack.

His other hand was empty, which led me to wonder if he had gone there just to find a place to buy something for me.

I approached and received it carefully.

"Thank you," I spoke and had to keep my face up a bit so I could meet his eyes from my natural perspective.

"We've been here for a while, I figured you'd like to eat something to cushion yourself while we wait for the person you're waiting for to return."

The cold of the yogurt penetrated through the plastic of the small glass, to the skin of my hands, I shivered a little, the atmosphere had suddenly become colder.

"Thank you." I looked again at what I was holding in my hands. "You didn't have to, but thanks. Emm-you're very kind. And-I'm sorry about your helmet. It was foolish of me."

He didn't seem to care and just rolled his gaze to the folders he was holding under one of my arms.

"Put that somewhere, otherwise it'll be awkward for you to eat."

I hesitated and nodded, looking back at the bike and rejecting the idea immediately, I didn't want to knock things over again and, because I'm clumsy, I'd probably end up dropping the whole bike.

"Give me," he said, and he came to me in just one step.

I was immediately intimidated, because his reaction was never predictable and now he was just inches from me. Yes, his perfume was mildly different from the scent I remembered from the helmet, which meant that it was definitely something he put in him hair.

I noticed his eyes and the red bandana with small white prints that he had on his forehead, two layers of straight hair with a light wave that fell over it, leaving a small space in the middle of both eyebrows, while the lower sides, Closer to the ears, and the back closest to the nape, their hair was cut shorter than the top of their head.

"The folders," he reminded me. "I'll hold them while you eat."

I blinked and looked down at the folders.

"O-of course," I agreed, maneuvering the sky-blue plastic cup a little, so that my hand would be free with which I would take the folders I had stepped on from under my arm.

He took a step back, moving away from me just a little and calmly approaching the nearest lamppost, proceeding to open the first folder.

My alarms went off, everything in there had been messed up and apart from that I had horrible handwriting, well, that time it had been scribbled because I wrote the questions and answers at maximum speed to get the job done on time.

"My-handwriting is-ugly," I thought to say, looking at his back again.

But he didn't even get upset, in fact, I thought he wasn't going to answer me, because he kept turning aside page by page, analytical and calm.

"It's better than mine," he replied, and I didn't know if I should feel relieved by that statement or think he was just lying to pity me. "Come on, eat."

"Yeah, sure," I answered, looking down again at the small glass that had another smaller glass on top, turned upside down and sealed, where cereal flakes with peanuts and raisins remained.

I had to mix that in the largest glass, so I proceeded to separate both sections and first uncover the yogurt one and then, praying for this time not to drop the things I was holding in my hands, I uncovered the one containing the flakes. From one side of the largest glass I took off a teaspoon sealed in a paper bag and brought it closer to my lips, stepping on one of the ends with them and tearing the paper to more easily extract the teaspoon that would also be a stirrer.

I then ate the first spoonful, discovering that I had been hungry without realizing it, besides, the yogurt tasted very good, of course that's why it was my favorite.

And so a few minutes passed, me ruminating the cereal in my mouth while taking advantage of the fact that he had his back to me, leafing through things that he might not even understand, I was also looking at him, attentive to when he made any sign of turning back to me. Then I noticed that a lady with short white hair was passing by on the same sidewalk that we were on, she looked at us first, as if she were analyzing that we weren't some criminal.

I kept looking at him too, curiously, but on his side he didn't even turn to look at the old woman, even though her footsteps could be heard crashing the heels of her shoes against the ground.

She passed close to us and stopped at the entrance of the house that was next to the professor's, which was also two-story, like the other houses in that rather pretty town; not like where I lived, a poor looking neighborhood that screamed vandalism in all its expression.

She again turned to look at us, at the same time turning the key in the lock of the main gate.

"Are you waiting for someone there?"

I nodded and rolled my eyes at him, and he turned around to look lady face, then rolled his eyes to look at me and I then looked away from him, turning to see the lady again.

"Yes. I'm waiting for the teacher who lives here, because I need to hand in some homework."

She finished opening the gate and adjusted the round glasses he was wearing on his face, still paying attention to us.

"My children, don't keep waiting there." She shook his head. "The professor had a family emergency, for months his brother had been suffering from a serious illness, this afternoon he died and the professor had to travel to Madrid. Poor thing" she shook her head regretfully, "he must be going through a very bad time."

I remained pensive, realizing the conclusion of all the time I wasted doing last-minute tasks and now standing there, waiting for him to arrive. And I was not going to do it, coping with mourning like that would have to be something very strong and apart from that Madrid was not very close that could be said.

The lady entered her property and I sighed, looking down.

"Well, I've wasted my time and I've made you waste yours." I looked up to meet his eyes, while he looked back at me, calm, as if nothing in the world could bother him in any way. "Sorry."

He looked back at the folders in his hands, closing the top one and bringing it to my view in a small gesture, shaking them a little.

"Then it will give you time to order the sheets again, because they don't agree with each other, the sequence is wrong." He approached me with calm steps.

"I know," I muttered and looked at the yogurt glass for a moment, noting that he had already finished it for me.

"Take" he offered me the folders.

Another thunder was heard in the sky and I looked up, while he approached the motorcycle, I assumed that he was already going to turn it on and I should be mounted there then, ready to go. But I was distracted by the blackness of the sky half contaminated by the lighting of the city that night. I just hoped that since it wasn't going to rain that morning at that precise moment, not while I was away from home, I was already beginning to understand why it had started to feel cold a few minutes ago.

My phone rang then and I lowered my face to look at the pocket from where I was taking out that shell whose screen had damage from the time of use and the falls that had occurred against the floor in previous years.

"Mom," I said when I answered, keeping the object to my ear as best I could.

"Why haven't you come home yet?" I heard her, with a worried voice.

"When I arrived, the professor's house was empty, I decided to stay and wait a little longer. But a neighbor has informed us that the professor had to travel at the last moment. So we're about to head back, I'll be back soon, we're getting ready to get going."

"Okay, baby. Don't be late, she sees that it looks like it's going to rain, there's a thunderstorm near here.

"We'll see each other soon," I promised affectionately.

I moved the phone away from my ear and noticed that he was next to me, waiting for me to finish speaking and with his helmet under one arm. I realized there that he was much bigger than me, that my highest point reached him perhaps at the height of the clavicle.

He then proceeded to take his helmet from under his arm and bring it closer to my head.

"Do not move."

He placed it on me, carefully adjusting it in the correct position and fastening the strap closest to his neck, again I perceived that masculine smell that his hair would surely have, it was intoxicating, exquisite, hallucinating.