Chapter Text
The thing about UCLA in September was that it looked like a postcard. The jacaranda trees were done blooming. They still looked nice against the sandstone buildings. The morning fog was gone by the time students got to the Janss Steps. It was a breathtaking sight. Royce Hall was at the top of a hill, where he had to be by 8:00 am.
It was 7:58. He had two minutes. He had two minutes and a syllabus he hadn't finished reading and a hoodie that he was pretty sure didn't have a coffee stain on the sleeve, but couldn't actually verify without putting the tray down, and putting the tray down would cost him the two minutes he didn't have.
Evan Buckley— Buck, Evan was what showed up on disciplinary letters and on the lips of a father he hadn't called in fourteen months— climbed the steps two at a time and tried not to spill the coffees.
Junior year. Third year as an English major. Second year of telling everyone, including himself, that he was fine. First year as an undergraduate TA.
His class was ENGL 116B. It was about American Literature from 1900 to 1945. Prof E. Diaz was teaching the class. Of course, he searched him up on the faculty page.
Buck shouldered the door of Royce 314 open with his elbow, coffees threatening to fall any second.
The room was already three-quarters full. Eighty students, maybe ninety, the murmuring pre-lecture hum of a Monday morning seminar that nobody really wanted to be at. Buck made for the TA desk at the front, set the tray down, and was halfway through unzipping his bag when the side door opened, and Professor Diaz walked in.
Buck looked up.
And then forgot, briefly, what he had been doing with the zipper.
The faculty page photo had not been accurate. The faculty page photo had been a lie. Whoever Prof. E.Diaz had been when that photo was taken— younger, softer around the jaw, hair longer, pushed back— was not the man who set a worn leather satchel down on the lectern at 8:00 AM precisely. This man was in a white t-shirt, with a black suede jacket, sleeves already rolled up to his forearms, a tattoo peaking out; barely, a silver watch catching the lecture-hall light. And God that moustache— not the point. He had an expression that suggested he had been up since five and had already lived several lives before walking through that door.
Thirty-nine, the department directory had said. Buck did the math without meaning to. Thirty-nine, and Buck was twenty, and that was— that was honestly nothing, like that saying “Age is just a number,” but that was not the point right now.
“You must be Evan Buckley.”
The voice was lower than Buck had expected.
"Yes— yeah. Sir. Hi. You can call me Buck, Oh! and I— I brought you a coffee." Buck pushed the second cup across the lectern with whatever dignity he had left.
"Black, two sugars. Karen in the department office said— she said that was right."
Professor Diaz looked at the coffee. Then at Buck. Then, briefly, at the coffee again, as if it had personally surprised him. “Karen told you my coffee order?”
“She— well yes”
“On your first day?”
“I wanted to— I don't know, to make a good first impression?” Bucks hand drifted to the back of his neck and scratched it; flustered. Eddie looked at Buck amused.
There was a pause. Long enough that Buck started mentally drafting the apology he'd send by email later that afternoon.
“None of my past TA’s did that so i guess you did” Eddie said, lips threatening to smile. Then Professor Diaz picked up the cup. Took a sip. Set it down with the kind of care that suggested he hadn't been brought a coffee by anyone, in a very long time.
“Thank you, Buck” A beat. “You can have a seat now, I'm about to begin the lecture.”
Buck took his seat, a little dazed with the interaction. I mean he has never felt this way before.
☆☆☆
Buck didn't hear the first 10 minutes of the lecture. He was too busy staring at his phone.
Missed call from Dad.
Why was his father calling after 14 months of no contact? It wasn't a good sign.
This was a problem, because Buck had prepared a small spiral notebook for this lecture; opened in front of him in which he had planned to take meticulous, color-coded notes— green for thematic threads, blue for historical context, red for anything Professor Diaz seemed especially passionate about, so that Buck could be ready when students come to office hours and asked questions Buck would, theoretically, know the answers to.
But now he is sitting, thinking of what he is gonna say to his father when he calls him back. At the corner of his eye, he sees Prof. Diaz staring at him, it sends a chill down his spine. Then he turns back to his lecture.
Professor Diaz was talking about Fitzgerald— not the Gatsby version of Fitzgerald that every freshman thought they knew, but the other one, the tired and broken one, the one writing letters from a specialized medical facility in North Carolina and asking his agent for fifty dollars. The students were quiet, listening to him with such intent. I mean he gets them, he could probably listen to Professor Diaz talk about anything for hours.
So Buck did, he took it so seriously that he didn't notice his phone buzzing in his pocket until it buzzed a second time, and then a third, in the particular insistent rhythm that meant someone was calling— not texting. He pulled out his phone from his pocket to see.
‘Dad’
His Dad was calling him again.
Bucks stomach churned with dread. He had spent a whole year trying to forget, and heal. He is not in the room with you. He can not touch you. He is just a name on the screen. He kept repeating this like a mantra.
He quickly reached for the power button and switched off his phone. When he looked up, Professor Diaz was watching him intently.
It was only for a second. The professor's gaze flicked back to the room, back to Fitzgerald, and the moment passed so cleanly that Buck might have imagined it. He probably did imagine it. Definitely imagined it. So he went back to compiling all the notes he was supposed to be doing in the first place.
☆☆☆
When the lecture ended, the students stood up in the slow tidal way, bid their goodbyes and started to make their way out of the room. Professor Diaz didn't immediately gather his notes. He took another sip of the coffee— almost cold now, Buck thought— guilty, and looked at Buck over the rim of the cup.
“Office hours on Wednesdays are 2-5pm. The office is on the fourth floor; you can come and have your stuff settled prior.” Eddie said as he made his way out of the lecture room.
“Yes, sir”
He paused.
“You don’t have to call me sir— Professor is fine.”
Buck could only nod. He did not trust his voice at the moment— his hands were still shaking.
Professor Diaz hesitated. It was a small hesitation, the kind that Buck wouldn't have caught two months ago, before he'd started noticing things about people that he hadn't used to notice.
Eddie turned back and made his way to Buck. He reached for his satchel and pulled out a thin folder, and slid it across Buck's desk.
"Reading schedule. There's a note in the back about the students I'd like you to keep an eye on— the ones I think might struggle. Don't tell them I told you."
“I won’t, Professor.” At least his voice wasn’t shaky.
“And Buck?” “Yes?”
"Whoever was calling," Professor Diaz said, not looking at him, busy with the buckle on his satchel, "Please refrain from letting personal matters disrupt my class. Got it?"
“Y–yes S—Professor, I am so sorry, I-it won’t happen again.” What an ass, Buck thought.
“Good, email me the notes later, I wanna see if you are good enough to be my TA.” And with that Eddie made his way out of the room.
Good enough. There was that sentence again.
Buck stood by the desk— trying not to cry or go stir crazy. At this point he doesn’t know. He wanted to prove himself to Eddie, so he will.
He pulled out his phone, turned it on and opened the call log. He started at the multiple voice mails left by his father. He deleted them without even listening to them.
Then he went to his next class.