My Professor's Secret

37|

thirty-seven

For the past few days, morning's have not been the way they used to be. Despite the sunrise piercing into our window, getting out of bed has become one of the hardest tasks of my day. Groggy and sluggish, I wrestle with myself until I've eventually pulled my body from the comfort of my sheets. The daily routine I crafted during my first week of college ceased to exist now. How could it be when the world around me felt as if it were devouring me with every passing moment?

Fortunately, once I've finally made it to the showers, they're empty. One o'clock in the afternoon was a clear indication of that and there were no complaints. At least I didn't have to worry about anyone else. Showering nearly strips me of every shred of energy left, until I've readied myself to leave. With winter refusing to clear, its slicing chill jolts me awake as I attempt to wrap my body further into the heaviness of my winter coat to head across the quad to see Christian.

His roommate answers the door in a hurry and invites me in before promptly scurrying out the door to avoid truancy, Christian says after the door has latched shut and I've made myself comfortable on his bed. Instead of arguing further about the real reason his roommate avoided me at all costs now, matters more important steals my thoughts.

"Heard anything lately about dad? Figured Lorelei would reach out to you first. It's obvious she likes you more." It hits the air in a spat—aggressive and most certainly nasty, yet true. Who could blame her if she had hated my guts? Truly I didn't deserve her respect, let alone her sympathy and yet the outburst towards my brother proved that to be a lie. There were no other motherly women in my life besides her. None that could foster my deprivation of a mother.

Perhaps if he weren't still rubbing the remnant of slumber from his eyes as I had done all of twenty minutes ago, I would have reaped his wrath, but all he does is shake his head and find his way over to his desk. Chris' body collapses into the swivel chair and his eyes find mine, though he remains silent. There's much to be said between the two of us considering we had yet to speak amidst our return from Dreycott, but it's obvious that conversation—or argument has been reserved for a later date—if ever. If my brother and I weren't avoiding one situation, it was the next.

The waking anticipation surrounding the probability of our father's recovery was hell by it's lonesome. Despite the strength I'd exhausted attempting to hold on to the version of my father before his attempt, doubt continuously crept in to devour them. All the nights I'd slip into his room ridden with night terrors as a little girl. My mother meant the world to me, and then some—but ultimately it was dad who'd always managed to console me to serenity. Long after cancer had taken my mother's life, dad and I spent countless nights tiptoeing out of the house—just him and me. Going on adventures he would call them. Some nights dad would drive us out to a lake where we would sit and talk or swim in silence until the both of us felt secure enough to leave pieced partly back together. I'd recite whatever I remembered from my horrible nightmare and he'd be there, no judgment just comfort.

Perhaps that sense of comfort is what prompted the night we'd spent hours by the lake—eventually watching the sun break through the water's horizon. He cried in my arms that night. Sobbed. We'd talk about how to survive without my mother. Though we managed to leave in high spirits, it was an emotional conversation to say the least. One that obviously hadn't done him much justice. And even if it might've not meant much to him, seeing him so vulnerable, slumped in my arms for comfort is what further solidified our bond. Now—all my brain could fathom of the man I knew was a vegetable lying in a hospital bed waiting to relearn life all over again. Destroyed and struggling to survive in a world that didn't involve the love of his life. It frightened me to my core and the one person I needed to talk about it with couldn't help. Could never help again because she was already gone.