Teacher's Girl (Aflyingwhale)

EMMA’s POV : For the first time in eight months, I typed his name into a google search.

A few things came up.

There was an article in The New Yorker about the gallery’s grand opening.

The article praised the exhibition, calling it a creative space for international contemporary art lovers.

There was also a picture of lan and Ally, standing together in front of the gallery with Mayor de Blasio.

They were smiling from ear to ear.

They sure made a great looking couple.

That was painful to see.

The article even called them ' the power duo’, New York's hottest art lovers.

I put my phone down and immediately regretted my decision.

I should have never googled an ex.

Ever.

But I was stubborn.

After my friends went back to the States, I was alone in my apartment again and I was forced to deal with my feelings.

There were still a few days left in the holiday, so I had no excuse to be busy with school or the internship.

In my desperate, boredom stage, I ended up googling his name again.

This time, I found Ally’s social media page.

lan had deleted his Instagram profile ages ago, right around when we started dating.

He wanted to keep himself and his activities hidden from the world.

He also never liked the idea of social media in the first place.

But finding Ally’s Instagram page was like finding a land mine.

Her page was filled with pictures of her and lan.

Ian looked...great, of course.

His hair was longer and his jaw was scruffier.

He wore a lot of suits now and he looked amazing in them.

His tattoos would peak out of his collar and I remembered how much I enjoyed running my fingers through his inked skin.

Ugh! I need to stop! We just entered a new year and this year my resolution was to stop pining over my long lost love.

Stalking his girlfriend’s instagram page wasn't gonna help my case.

I threw my stupid phone on the bed groaned into a pillow.

I'm so pathetic! I can’t keep living like this! I have to do something! Suddenly, I was hit with an idea.

I grabbed my phone again and stared blankly at the screen for a few seconds.

Not wanting to overthink things anymore, my finger tapped the screen several times and I got right to work.

This was probably not one of my brightest moments.

I just download Tinder.

For a while, all I did in that app was swipe people.

Swiping left, swiping right, it was just something to entertain myself.

I wasn’t in any mood to find love, especially not on Tinder in a foreign land.

I was just bored, honestly.

And looking at these guys’ faces on my screen was a safe way to remind myself that there are other people out there.

There could still be a future for me after lan Hayes.

Sometimes the guys I matched with would send me messages and they could be flattering.

They were a great confidence boost, and I would leave it at that.

But some days when I got super bored, I ended up replying to their messages.

I didn't think of much of it.

I only downloaded the app for fun anyway.

But after talking to several guys for a few weeks, the idea of meeting one of them seemed enticing.

"I don’t have to marry the guy, I’m just looking for friends,"

I said to myself.

So one day in early March, I agreed to go on a date with this guy, Olivier.

guy with beautiful eyes, and we bonded over our

at this bar

quickly learned was that people were not what

in his pictures and he seemed like a genuine guy on the phone, but as

to say, it wasn’t

I was too naive going into this date thinking that ms nA im his

about it, what is France famous for? No,

talking about

in France was

an art form, and French people were more than willing to indulge in them

noticed that French men were

course, there were masculine French men in the city, but I was

feminine side more

feminine side were often

France, guys were more vocal about their

or mushy, they only did what

tongue down my

no, sorry, I

I pushed Olivier by

looked at me in confusion as I gathered my purse

"Something wrong?"he asked.

ask, I don’t even know where to begin.I smiled politely at him and said, "Sorry,

for him to say another word, I turned to my heels and walked out of the

late at night and I didn’t feel like walking home alone, so I decided to

suddenly a tall guy in messy dirty blonde hair and

"Tough night, eh?"he greeted.

"Excuse me?"

inside.From the looks of it, you could use some of this,"he lent out a pack of cigarettes to me, and

good,

"You are an American?"

"Yes,"

are you

"Georgia originally,"

from Tennessee.Because you're the

"Only ten I see?"

I laughed drily.

at

guy, his English was pretty good even though his accent

"What's your name?"he asked.

"Emma,"

you, Emma.I’m Elliott Jacques,"he put his

away, however, he held onto it a second

was tension in the

being drop-dead gorgeous, what do you for a living?"he

still in my third year of college.I'm on an exchange

my mistake.I thought you

"Why?"

my

time I look at you,

help but laugh

"Are you always this...cheesy?"

You're the one

"What?"

you're looking Gouda tonight!"he

"Stop!"

my eyes

can keep going

what she said,"we both said

eyes met again and we smiled

moment, like

moment, my Uber pulled up in front of the

my ride, I have

"Wait, before you go,"

pausing for a second before saying, "Don’t tell me if you want me to take

funny

respond to that, so I just said,

I did agree on getting dinner with him and

bar, I hadn't been on a proper date with a guy other than lan

I couldn't really count that as going on a date since we

remember the last time I went out on a

surprisingly a very sweet

date, we got dinner at this romantic restaurant by the

dinner, I found out that he was

along the river after

could hold my hand and

guy asking to hold my hand instead

date, Elliott and I went to the Carnavalet Museum

by the time we got to the garden, so the

when I confronted him about it, he calmly responded with, "I keep looking at your because it’s

did kiss

the garden at

a short, sweet

I wouldn't forget it that

our third date, we took a day trip to

with a castle, historical towns, vineyards,

and Elliott kept raving about this glass of

the lips, parting my mouth open with the tip of his tongue, and a slurp of wine poured into

very