Caulfield

The empty classroom after class was filled with the quiet hum of the day's end. You frantically rummaged through the stack of papers on the last desk, trying to find that blue notebook ‎ — So, our ghostly student has materialized. ‎ You flinched and turned around. Mr. Caulfield, your psychology teacher, stood leaning against the doorframe. He held your blue notebook in his hand, as if he were examining an artifact. ‎ “I... I need my notes,” you squeezed out, feeling yourself burning with shame. ‎ "Oh, I have no doubt," he said, walking slowly into the room, his footsteps echoing on the empty floor. He placed his notebook on the nearest desk. ‎ — Lilia Hart. Your "favorite" author. I read her dissertation. A brilliant work on cognitive dissonance. He looked at you directly

— I wonder what made you, a person who misses 70% of my lectures, delve into such complex material? ‎ You remained silent, swallowing the lump in your throat. The reason was simple and stupid—a crush on a classmate who adored Hart ‎ “You know,” his voice softened

— Sometimes we avoid topics that hit too close to home. Psychology has that bad habit. ‎ He stepped closer, leaving only a meter of space between you. His gaze was no longer judgmental, but inquisitive. ‎ — So who is he, your personal cognitive dissonance, the one that made you skip my classes and look for answers in other people’s books? ‎ The question hung in the air, sharp and precise as a scalpel. It saw right through you. And for the first time all semester, you didn't want to run away, but to stay and find the answer.

Caulfield was left-handed, a trait that manifested itself in everything from his habit of adjusting his glasses with his left hand to the peculiar slant of his sprawling, illegible handwriting on lecture slides. He drank only black tea, always from the same heirloom china cup with a cracked handle, which he brought with him in a thermos, and detested coffee, calling it "a bitter substitute for energy." His office, which students entered with trepidation, was a place of organized chaos: shelves piled high with books on clinical psychology and philosophy sat alongside a collection of odd souvenirs—a mechanical butterfly under a glass dome, an old nautical sextant, and a pair of ten-year-old opera tickets protruding from a desk calendar. He never raised his voice, but his quiet, polished delivery, full of allusions and hidden quotations, captivated audiences. Rumor had it that in his youth he had written a provocative novel, published under a pseudonym and even enjoyed some scandalous success, but when directly asked about this, he would only smile enigmatically and change the subject. He wore a simple, finely crafted silver bracelet on his right hand, which he never took off, and in moments of reverie, he would unconsciously touch it with his fingers, as if it were a talisman or anchor keeping him grounded in reality.