My Professor's Secret

44 |

forty-four

Despite the imminent shine of the sun into my dorm this morning, getting out of bed was more complicated than I anticipated it would be. Across from me, Taylor's bed had not been slept in—she'd most likely spent the night with Leonardo, leaving me to fend for myself. If I had the energy to turn to the other side of my bed to pull my phone off its charger, I would text her how not okay I was about that. Yesterday, after careful consideration, I decided that I would tell Taylor everything that was happening in my life this past week, most notably about my relationship with Trevor.

Apart from crying, the better half of my drive from his apartment last night was spent rehearsing how I would explain to her how I ended up in a predicament I was in with her ex-brother-in-law. But after making it home and waiting up for her for three hours and she still hadn't returned, I realized she wouldn't be back, so I slept instead. Everything seemed to be going to shit apart from my relationship with Wyatt—if I could even consider that. It was based on the insinuation that Trevor might own up to his feelings about me which didn't go the way I thought it might.

There was nothing more that I wanted to do other than disappear. Somehow, I had single handily ruined two relationships in one night. With the play happening in one day, how could I manage to see Professor Thornton without completely losing myself to anger or seeping into a pool of my tears?  Breakups were never my forte. For that reason, I shielded myself from engaging in relationships. When Keenan Abernathy and I had broken up a month before graduation, I spent two weeks struggling to find the energy to get out of bed, let alone make it to school. My mother's condition flourished during that time—based solely on the naked eye view, of course. She was mobile and could get around the house without becoming completely depleted after just five steps as she had been a week before. She'd even made me breakfast in bed on one of my many days hold up in my room. She spent most of the day telling me stories about her time in high school and her first breakup that caused her to lose twenty pounds.

Nevertheless, she convinced me of alternative methods of expressing my sadness and anger. After convincing my dad that she was well enough to drive, she took us to a rage room where we smashed plates, threw axes at targets, and took Louisville sluggers to old cars. It was the best time I had had in a while. It was then that I learned about paradoxical lucidity because my mother died two days later. Looking back, I wish I'd been less worried about my stupid breakup with Keenan than my mom's health. All that time I wasted because of Keenan could've been spent making memories with her. It was one of my biggest regrets.

The chirping of my phone centers me back to my bed, convincing me to use whatever depleted strength I had left to turn and check who it was from. Chris. I hope you're dressed. The message read. Shortly after, a knock on the door demanded my immediate attention. I couldn't stay in bed forever. The wasted time with my mother was a testament to that, so I wrapped myself in my comforter and drug my limp body from the bed, and braced myself for whatever was to come from this interaction with my brother.

"You look like shit," he says, pushing passed me and into the seat at my desk.

I give him an unamused smile and plop back onto my bed. "If you came over to scream at me some more. Save it, I got the point last night and I'm not in the mood for another lecture."

Chris lets out an exaggerated sigh and sinks further into the chair. A part of me could sense where this conversation was headed. Last night's debacle with Meghan was hard to misinterpret as anything other than the beginning of a rocky road between them. As much as I wanted to shout how I wish he'd never gotten involved with her in the first place, I knew I couldn't. Not when it was I who drew the last straw between them. And certainly not when I was in relationships I had no business being in myself.