My Professor's Secret

25|

twenty-five

With everything going on lately, home was the only place I wanted to be. And not home as in my dorm room, but home in the real sense of it. Dreycott. My own bed. My father's kitchen. A place where nothing about Trevor, rumors, work, or school could touch me for at least a few days.

Luckily, Chris had somehow convinced the same friend who drove us home last time to let us borrow his car. It wasn't like he needed it right now anyway. The drive back for the holidays was too much for him, so he'd opted to fly instead.

It turned out that not talking to your brother left a lot of room for conversation.

Since the last real one we'd had was at the mixer, the silence between us had stretched long enough to collect all kinds of things neither of us had said. At first, it was easy enough. Small things. Classes. Home. Dad. But somewhere between campus and the highway, Chris glanced over at me and shifted into something else entirely.

"A friend of mine from Theta Nu has been trying to get me to give you his number. I told him you're seeing someone," he said, pausing just long enough to study my reaction from the driver's seat. "At least that's what I've been hearing."

That was news to me.

I let out a dry laugh. "Wow. Am I the hot commodity around campus now? Have I officially made it?"

I hadn't been seeing anyone. Unless he meant that one date with Wyatt, it had to be campus gossip doing what it always did, grabbing a harmless detail and stretching it until it resembled something worth ruining.

Then I remembered Rachel's letter. My throat tightened almost immediately.

"Trust me, it's not a good thing," Chris said. "Clearly you don't know, but that rumor about you and a teacher has still been spreading around campus." He kept his eyes on the road. "I avoid gossip. You know that. But if something like this reached me and held my attention, there's a problem. You being my sister and all, it felt only right to make it my business."

The only people who could have fed something like that any real substance were Rachel or Meghan. And while Meghan was dating my brother now and occasionally offered something close to decent advice, trust wasn't exactly what came to mind when I thought of her. Somehow she always found a way to circle back into other people's mess.

"Wait," I said, forcing out a small laugh that didn't sound nearly as natural as I wanted it to, "people are still going on about that? All because we work together? Are they just pulling shit out of the sky at this point?"

Chris looked over at me then, enough to make it obvious he wasn't buying what I was selling. He pulled into a gas station a minute later and parked beside a pump, but he didn't get out right away.

"Alex," he said, "I'm serious. The rumors are about you and Trevor. Don't try to brush this off." His eyes stayed on me. "And before you say anything, no, I don't think you're stupid. But I know when something's off."

I looked away first.

Maybe that was enough of an answer because when he kept talking, his voice dropped into something less accusing and more disappointed.

"You can talk to me, you know," he said. "If he's pressuring you into anything, if he's taking advantage of the situation, if he's abusing his authority... I need to know." He paused. "We used to tell each other things once. Remember?"

That part hit hard because he was right about one thing. About us.

For a second, I couldn't say anything at all. My silence only made the air inside the car heavier, and Chris seemed to take it for confirmation of something he'd already decided.