Michael was considering his answer to meeting up later when Florence offered to walk him back. "Nah, I better hurry. Later sounds good." He touched her hand with his knuckles in a kind of 'see you later' gesture, then said of the highlighters: "Good luck with those," before departing from the library.<br/><br/><div align="center">*</div><br/>When "later" arrived, Michael realized he had left before discussing where their meeting would take place. Back at the library? His cell was now charging so he couldn't fire off a text.<br/><br/>The course of action he decided on was to head towards horticulture and if it turned out he missed her, then he would hit the library with the hope that she would have the same "last place" thought...<br/><br/><div align="center">~</div><br/>A classmate of Florence's paused her when class let out. "Hi! Interesting stuff tonight, huh?" She was really stalling as she worked up more nerve than she already had, having never spoken to Florence before asides from the occasional lesson related comment in-class. "Um, so uh..I've seen you hanging out with that um, that Michael guy from Political Studies? Yeah well see, like my cousin was up visiting me last week," she became more conversational now, "she spied Michael, wondered what he was doing here. Apparently they were in the same highschool. So anyway I told her he's a student and she was all surprised, like surprised to see him in university I guess. Apparently he was like a trouble kid in highschool. Missed a lot of class by what she told me. Seemed weird sometimes and well," she paused briefly, considering her next words as she neared her point.<br/><br/>"Well, by his looks you'd think he would've been pre-tty popular, except he wasn't. For long. My cousin said a few girls tried to like, get to know him since he was shy, but then it seemed like something switched," she made a switch-flicking motion, "and they weren't interested anymore and not very many other girls were either. By word of mouth, I mean. I reason if he was some regular bad-boy heartbreaker, us girls are supposed to be into that kind, right?" She rolled her eyes, clearly not having gone through that phase or not wanting to admit so, "but the fact that it wasn't really like that makes me -well my cousin first, but I agree- that it must've been something more major. You know, like maybe he was into something? Maybe he knows someone on the faculty here and it's some arrangement how he got here....My cousin didn't think his GPA could possibly be adequate.."<br/><br/>She seemed to go into her own thoughts a moment before remembering herself, with a shake of her head, "anyway! Sorry. I just..you always seem really nice," she smiled, "and I thought, if there is something weird about him, well, I just thought I'd give you all the facts." Her bright smile sustained, she clearly thought "facts" were what she had given instead of rumour. "I'd want the same--"<br/><br/>Before she could finish -and before there was time for an answer from Florence- the classmate's cell went off. "Oh--who could that--" she grabbed it from her pocket and answered, then added to Florence in a low voice "see you next class!" as if they had just been having a totally normal conversation.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Michael didn't meet Florence coming out of horticultural studies. He was back in the library, standing at a shelf this time.