She had been running late. She hated being late. Being late cut into her daily-vending-machine-stop to pick up her daily-twinkie.

She was late because of Spanish.

Katara hated Spanish-

Well, scratch that, she abhorred Spanish. Conjugating wasn't so bad, but then there were all those irregular verbs (No es rompido, dice roto).

And don’t even get her started on subjunctive.

She shifted from her slouched position when the professor walked into the room. Apparently he had been running late too. So she did have time to get her twinkie. “Too late now,” Katara thought to herself.

“Hola.” The man was short and stout, and the first time she had met him she found that he pronounced his double LLs as Ys instead of Js. Katara knew, from then on, it was going to be a long semester.

“Hola, Profesor.” The class said, collectively.

She watched with little interest, her head propped on her right hand, as the teacher began speaking, but stopped a confused look his dark face. “Quien es?”

The class all turned to the new student. Katara’s eyes widened. She knew that face.

She stood abruptly, tripping in her haste. She fell, a not an uncommon occurrence, along with her books, desk, and chair. Katara sighed, simply listening to the laughter around her, but suddenly someone’s hands were lifting her up. When she was finally standing face to face with him - she knew it was him because when you’ve thought about someone every day for the past four years you are connected with them in a way no one else is - the only thing she could think about was how much she wished she had taken the time to stop at the vending machine.