My Professor's Secret

28|

twenty eight

"It was good seeing you all again. I hope you enjoyed your holidays however you chose to spend them and came back prepared to give one hundred and ten percent in this class. First semester was child's play. This is when your work and effort start to matter. With that said, I'll have your midterms in by midweek," he says, clearly waiting for a reaction that never comes. "Other than that, you may be dismissed."

Class seems to unload slower than usual, or maybe I just have my own hesitation to blame. Avoiding him suddenly feels like something that requires too much effort, too much thought. But from the way he keeps his attention fixed on the papers in front of him, it doesn't seem like he's in any rush to hear from me either.

Maybe that's for the best. Especially after the last time we spoke. For both of our sakes, distance should have been the obvious choice.

Time away from campus was supposed to help. It was supposed to give me some clarity on how to move forward without making things worse than they already were.

Instead, it only gave me more space to think about everything that happened—and everything we left unsaid. Particularly the calls. The ones he made at four in the morning as if restraint didn't exist anymore.

I still don't know if he even remembers any of it.

Part of me thinks leaving it alone would be easier. Like if neither of us acknowledges it, then maybe it won't matter as much as it does.

The other part won't let it go. I can't stop thinking about it. A drunken mind doesn't recognize restraint. It doesn't weigh consequences or second guess what it's about to say. It just says it. And whether that makes it honest or reckless, I don't know—but it makes it hard to ignore.

Especially now.

Because this isn't just about what he said anymore. There are rumors. Rumors he assured me he would take care of. And those matter more than anything else right now.

The closer I get to the front of the room, the harder it becomes to look him in the face. Holding eye contact long enough to have an actual conversation feels almost impossible now.

It felt like somewhere along the way we skipped over how to exist around each other and ended up here instead. In silence. In avoidance. In whatever this is supposed to be.

Replaying the voicemail he left more time than I should've didn't help. If anything, it made everything worse because it made me aware of how he sounds when he isn't holding himself back. When there's nothing stopping him from saying exactly what he's thinking.

And as much as I hate admitting it, it only drew me closer to him.

Every day leading up to this one, that voicemail has been sitting in the back of my mind—what he said, how he said it, the way his voice sounded like he didn't care about the consequences in that moment.

In a way, I hate that I keep going back to it, but for once, there was no distance between us. Which is exactly why I should've let the rest of the class leave and walked out with them like I had been planning to do for weeks now. But instead, I keep moving toward him instead of the other way.

Class empties slower than it should. Or maybe it just feels that way because I'm still here—waiting for the room to clear without making it obvious that I am.

Every second that passes makes it harder to pretend this isn't intentional. That I'm not doing this on purpose.

One by one, people filter out until the noise fades, footsteps echoing into the hallway, voices dissolving into nothing. The space stretches around me, quieter with each passing moment, until there's nothing left to hide behind.