The Lie(21)

My mind keeps tripping over itself, replaying the sight of him.

It hurts, hurts, how handsome he still is. More handsome than before. Standing there before me, in that sharp suit, looking every inch the put together professor. Tall, lean, with those shoulders I remember grabbing that one night, digging my nails in when my body and soul went wild with hunger.

The night we almost slept together.

The night he told me he was leaving his wife.

That night that became the last night for us.

How horrible it must have been for him to see me just now.

I ruined his whole life, sent it off the rails.

It crashed and burned.

All because of me.

And that will never ever change. I’ll never be able to take anything back and neither will he. We’re both doomed to live with our actions, he even more so.

God. The pain cuts deep, to the bottom of my lungs.

Breathe, I tell myself again, and a single tear splashes on the floor.

Eventually, somehow, time passes. The tears stop coming and my heart beats steady and slow. I feel like I’ve been drugged, the emotions riding me too hard and I’ve come out exhausted.

I sigh, getting to my feet. My legs ache from sitting for so long.

I check my phone.

Melissa has texted a million times, worried out of her mind. She’s at the flat now, with alcohol and the need to talk.

I step into the hallway, conscious that someone might have seen me go in. But the halls are practically empty. Still, in case I run into him again, I don’t waste any time getting out of there.

I’m back on the streets of London, the rain having stopped.

I’m back on the tube, crushed against commuters, nobody talking.

I’m back at the flat, going up the stairs instead of waiting for the lift.

Then Melissa is opening the door before I can even unlock it.

“Where the bloody f*ck were you?” she cries out, hands flailing all over the place.

I usher myself inside, head down, avoiding her eyes. “I was in the toilet.”

“The toilet?” she repeats, while I throw my purse on the kitchen table. She already has the Stoli out, making martinis. “With Professor McGregor?”

“No,” I say, sitting down at the table and resting my forehead on it. “I was alone. I didn’t…I ran away.”

“What? From Professor McGregor?”

I find it funny how she keeps calling him professor. She even did that back then, along with Mr. Married Man McGregor. The constant reminder of how careless I was being, what a fool I was to fall for someone who wasn’t mine.

“Yes,” I mumble. “I panicked. I couldn’t help it. It seemed he wanted to talk to me, like go somewhere, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it, Mel.”

She takes the seat beside me, and I hear her pouring a drink. “Good,” she says. “You don’t owe him anything. Especially with how he ended it with you.”

But I never blamed him for that. He only spoke the truth.

Our love was wrong.

A lie we told ourselves.

And it cost us the world.

As much as it stung to hear it, as much as it made me lose myself, it was well-deserved.

With us, the truth didn’t just hurt.

It killed.

“Here,” she says, and I look up to see her sliding me a drink. “It’s on the house,” she jokes. She’s the cheapest roommate ever and I feel like I’ll somehow have to pay for this in the end.

I take a long sip. It’s strong and it burns, but it feels good going down.

After a long pause, I exhale loudly. My shoulders loosen a tad.

“I just can’t believe it,” I say for the hundredth time.

She brushes her hair back from her face. “Neither can I. It literally took me the whole class to figure out how to tell you. I saw him walk in, and I was like…bloody hell. It can’t be. And then I had to look up the class again. Professor McGregor. That’s all I saw, and I knew I saw his name before, but we’re in Britain. There’s a million McGregors here.” She takes a sip of her drink. “And you know, he recognized me too. He remembered me. Kept staring at me the whole class, like he was seeing a ghost.”

A ghost. That’s what his expression said when he saw me in the hall. Like I wasn’t really there, that his mind was playing tricks on him.

“And now,” she says, “I’m a TA in one of his classes. I’ll be working with him closely all year. That’s going to be weird.”

Something squeezes in my chest. The line “working with him closely” makes my heart burn and I wish it wouldn’t.

“That is going to be weird,” I repeat quietly. I feel myself sink down into the spiral, the one that robs me of ambition, motivation, and makes me spend days in my room, in the dark, lost in despair.

“Hey,” she says, placing her hand on mine and giving it a squeeze. “We’re going to get you through this, okay? You suffered for your mistakes enough, and now you’re going to move on. You are not your past. He’s a teacher at your school—he’s not going to pursue you or harass you. You don’t ever have to see him again, and if you do, you have no obligation to talk to him. If he doesn’t leave you alone, I’ll report him.”

I give her a dark look. “Don’t report him. He’s lost enough already.”