My Professor(20)

I don’t like him.

I can’t like him.

He might have a way with women. He might have drawn out some previously dormant side of me, but it doesn’t matter.

There can be no future where Professor Barclay is concerned.

I walk from the coffee shop toward my afternoon class, and my head is in the clouds, which is probably why I don’t spot him earlier. He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs outside the building I need to enter for my next class.

By the time he turns to look over his shoulder and finds me, I’ve regained my composure and resumed walking at what I hope looks like a leisurely pace.

Everything about him is just so. He’s wearing a light brown sweater, tugged up to reveal a hint of his forearms, and dark slacks. His watch is gleaming. His hair is styled. He doesn’t look like he’s spent his weekend like I have, in a turbulent state of unrest, a perpetual cyclone of worry and wonder.

I almost make as if I’m going to pretend I don’t see him, but then he steps forward and cuts off my access to the stairs. “May I speak to you for a moment?”

“Oh…” My cheeks are already screaming with color. “Of course.”

I don’t know when I decide my exact course of action. I don’t think the plan fully forms until he gestures for me to step off to the side, out of the way of the other approaching students. We don’t hide around the corner of the building or anything, remaining in plain sight as he looks down at me and speaks quietly.

“We should have a conversation about what happened on Saturday night.”

I can’t read his expression, but I think of Owen the moment he walked in the door and saw me standing there, heart on my sleeve. The shame and rejection still live just beneath the surface. I won’t relive it.

“Saturday night?”

His brows furrow in consternation. “At Murphy’s.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Emelia…”

His tone is a warning; he wants me to stop this silly game.

Instead, I double down.

“Professor,” I reply respectfully, “I have no—”

“Please do not make this more difficult than it needs to be. I apologize. I take full responsibility.”

My suspicions are confirmed then. He wants to apologize, to erase it all and make it go away. Emotion tightens my throat. Tears threaten to gather in the corners of my eyes.

When I speak again, I’m sure he can tell my voice is wobbly.

“Responsibility? For what? I was out with my friends for my birthday. We were more than a little drunk by the time we made it to Murphy’s, or so my friends have told me. If I ran into you, if we spoke…I don’t remember.”

“Bullshit.”

I startle at his biting tone.

Then, probably remembering where he is, what he is—an esteemed professor at a university speaking to one of his students—he regains his composure.

“You unenrolled from my class,” he presses, as if that’s proof enough of what took place.

“Yes, just like you requested in your office last week. It had nothing to do with Saturday night. Whatever might have happened…” I shrug and shake my head. “I suppose I didn’t find it all that memorable.”

His blue eyes turn dark and stormy, narrowing at the edges. I can barely keep my voice from shaking as I press on.

“Now, if that’s all, I really should get to class…”

He studies me for a lingering moment, seeking something in my gaze that I refuse to show him. You search in vain, I want to tell him. Every boy who’s come before you—even you yourself—has pummeled the wild unruly side of my heart, forcing it back into its cage.

I take a half-step around him and then add on a parting thought, my voice low, my gaze down at his shoes. “And Professor, if something did happen between us, I’m sure we both regret it, and I’m sure neither one of us would ever say anything to anyone…ever.”

I turn to go into the building, fighting the urge to look back and see if he’s watching me walk away.





PART TWO





Four Years Later





Chapter Nine





Emelia



* * *



I’m on the doorstep of Sonya’s apartment, staring down at her welcome mat.

I’ve been here for a few minutes and I suppose I’ll knock at some point, but I haven’t quite worked up the energy. I’ve got a suitcase resting at my right hip and a few cardboard boxes stacked up behind me. My Uber driver was nice enough to help me unload them.

“Got a new place?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

The truth is I’m homeless as of, oh, thirty minutes ago.

I had an apartment I liked well enough. It was a third-floor walk-up in a cute neighborhood with a nice view of a tree from the bedroom window, but it was in my boyfriend’s name, so this evening when he came home from work with tears gathered in his eyes, telling me we needed to talk, I knew it wouldn’t be my apartment for much longer.

“I’ve been sleeping with someone else,” he admitted.

My mouth formed a perfect O.

Then there was silence. Silence as he waited for me to have a huge explosive reaction to his cheating. Silence as I waited for my body to fill with jealousy and rage.