He didn’t even look at me as I walked inside and I felt a powerful rush of hurt, unlike anything I had ever felt before.
This was why people always said it was a bad idea to get involved with someone who you worked with. I knew it, and yet I’d gone and done it anyway.
Will – Professor Marks – started the lecture discussion and I stared at the blackboard, the spot right above his head, in a concentrated effort not to look at his face. I felt myself slipping into a deep, cold fog – a fog that even the works of Virginia Woolf couldn’t begin to penetrate – and basically counted the seconds left on the clock until class was over.
A seminar had never gone more slowly than it went for me that day. My ass ached from the hard wooden chair as if I’d been planted there for hours, and my head hurt from the bright yellow florescent lights beating down on my head. I almost felt like I had a hangover, which was impossible as I hadn’t had anything to drink the night before.
I glanced up at the chalkboard just in time to see Will’s eyes flicker over me. A bolt of hot angst and love went shooting through me like a Cupid’s arrow, and I quickly glanced out the window, my heart racing as if he’d just pulled me into his arms for a steamy kiss.
Am I hungover on lust, I pondered as I nibbled my lower lip and stared out at the quad. A hint of green was beginning to show under the dead brown winter grass, and I crossed my legs in my chair and thought about spring.
Spring, which of course, would inevitably lead to summer.
Where would I be, then?
I felt a rude poke in my side and I yelped, then flushed crimson and turned to the side. Another student was staring at me with concern on her eyes. If Will had heard my squawk of surprise, he thankfully ignored it.
“What?” I hissed.
The student was the same one who had brazenly flirted with Will that day, in front of me, and I had disliked her ever since. But now that I saw her, I recognized her as someone who I’d shared more than a few classes with over the years at Oakbrook. She had a round face with even rounder blue eyes and wispy blonde hair – her name was Katie or Kelly or something like that.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” she whispered, leaning close so no one else would hear. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Just my period,” I whispered back.
At least women always have that excuse, I thought, even though I hated the fact that I’d used it so much over the last few weeks.
Katie or Kelly discreetly passed me a tampon and I stared down at it for a second before nodding at her in thanks. A slight pang of guilt hit me – what if all this time, we could have been friends?
If we’d been friends, I wouldn’t have cared that she tried to flirt with Will.
Was this relationship ruining more than just my heart?
The end of class couldn’t come fast enough. Will didn’t make another effort to look at me, and I slunk out of the classroom and hunched my shoulders around my ears as I stalked across the muddy grass to my tech seminar. When the professor saw me, he raised an eyebrow and my heart sank.
“Ms. Cooper,” he said. “Just when I never thought that I’d be seeing you again.”
28
Will – Friday
The week was rapidly turning into a miserable one. I hadn’t seen Eden since Tuesday – she’d skipped yesterday’s seminar. Normally, I’d be upset and frustrated that a student would choose to ditch so late in the semester, when I was offering valuable information about the final exam and how their senior paper should be crafted, but it was secretly a relief. Seeing her in class had been torturous – I had barely been able to keep my mind on the subject matter with her lovely curves and wounded expression.
I knew she was hurting, and I knew I was the cause. If I hadn’t acted like such a forceful asshole that day, going over to her apartment and fucking her and then leaving like a cad, maybe things would be better between us now.
I kept trying to tell myself that it was for the best. Yes, it hurt, but what else could I have done? Risked my job?
Back in January, losing my precious tenure-track position would have seemed as horrible as being damned to Malebolge, the eighth ring of Dante’s Hell, but now I could barely make myself care.
In fact, I was even thinking of taking a sabbatical ... which was practically unheard of for a professor who hadn’t actually made tenure yet. I thought about taking a semester or two off in a distant place, a huge city, where I could lose myself in the anonymity of it. I even thought about what I’d do there – but no matter how long I stared at Kayak and scanned the reviews on TripAdvisor, I just couldn’t make myself book a trip.
It was like I needed to be close to Eden, or I would die.
Dramatic, I know – almost like something a teenager would say. But the truth was, Eden had stirred so many deep feelings in me, feelings closer to love than I ever thought I would reach. I’d grown up with cold, distant parents who hadn’t exactly been a good model of romantic love.
I’d always assumed that my life would be the same. Eden had come into it, warm and wanton, and knocked me off balance. Around her, I was like a gyroscope missing an axis. I hated and loved it at the same time, and that hate only stemmed from not being able to take full advantage of my feelings for her, the way I wanted to so very badly.
Not to mention, I knew exactly why Eden had skipped my class. It wasn’t the usual nebulous heartsickness that she had clearly been wrestling with since the day when she and I had first kissed.
It was all because of me – and because of the texts I’d sent to her after Gina Grant had come to my office, all suspicious and demanding. I’d told Eden that we had to lie low for a while. She’d responded that she understood.
I kept waiting for something from her, which was stupid. At this point, radio silence was far safer. I kept thinking back to those damning emails we’d exchanged when I’d been out sick and wondering if the dean – or anyone else, say someone nosy and chummy with Gina in the IT department – would “mysteriously” stumble upon them.
Every morning that week, I’d woken up and chugged a solid half bottle of Maalox before heading to Oakbrook to teach. Things proceeded mostly as normal.
Until that morning.
I had just finished grading papers when I went out into the lounge to refill my coffee mug. To my surprise, Dean Schell was standing there.
He wasn’t smiling.
“Hello,” he said, nodding curtly at me. We’d always had a decent relationship – as cold a personality as I cultivated, it was nothing on Dean Schell, but I’d always figured that we had done it for similar reasons and thusly were bound to get along.
My stomach churned.
“Hello,” I replied.
“Will, can I have a moment?”
From the tone of his voice, I knew he was asking merely as a courtesy.
“Of course,” I said. “What seems to be the matter?”
The dean coughed and turned away. “Please, Will, come with me.”
Feeling more and more like a chastened student by the second, I followed behind.
The walk to Dean Schell’s office was like marching to an execution chamber – what kind of horrors awaited me there? I tried to tell myself that it was nothing: he probably just wanted me to lead some kind of committee, or organize an event, or even go to that stupid fucking conference with Gina and represent Oakbrook.
When we got to his office, Dean Schell ushered me inside and closed the door behind him.
Gina Grant was waiting inside, perched on the edge of her chair like a nervous debutante.
Oh, fuck.
I stared at her in shock but she refused to look at me, keeping her little upturned nose in the air.
What a bitch, I thought. Clearing my throat, I made a point of not sitting down, as if I hoped to keep this sure-to-be unpleasant meeting as brief as possible.
“Will, please sit,” Dean Schell said.
Reluctantly
, I lowered myself into the squashy leather armchair next to Gina.
“Will,” Dean Schell began, sitting down in the chair behind his desk and grunting slightly. “I’ve heard serious allegations of an inappropriate relationship between you and an undergraduate. If you have anything to tell me, I’d advise you to do it now.”
“What have you heard?” I shot back.
“I’d rather hear it from you,” Dean Schell replied, and my heart sank.
Gina threw me a triumphant look and just like that, I knew she’d done it – somehow, found out about Eden and myself and then gone to the dean, all because she was so fucking jealous and bitter.
“No,” I said. I shook my head. “Nothing has happened.”
The dean narrowed his eyes, but didn’t reply. My mind was reeling around inside my head and my stomach was still doing anxious flips, but I knew I had to deny everything or risk losing my job and everything that I’d worked for.
And Gina was behind all of this – not Eden. A sudden realization hit me: that Eden never would have done something like this. She clearly loved me too much to make my life a living hell, even if it would mean getting revenge for breaking things off between us.
She loved me, and she would want me to be happy and secure no matter what.
The epiphany nearly made me sick to my stomach. How could I have been so wrong, so evil, to think that Eden would even contemplate telling someone about what had happened between us?
Fuck, she’d been even more careful than I had.
I loved her – more than I had ever thought possible – and now, I had to do whatever I could to make this up to her. I loved her goodness, her sexy curves.
Loved her heart and her sweet brown eyes and the way she wanted nothing more than to be loved in return.
She was able to penetrate my icy exterior with her kindness, with her adorable self – a feat that literally other no woman would ever be able to accomplish in the span of my lifetime.
“What?” Gina sputtered. “Will, confess!” She turned to me, angry, with her eyes glittering.
“Nothing happened,” I said. Leaning back in my chair, I sighed and crossed my arms.
“Gina, what is going on here,” the dean began slowly – his voice was skeptical and suspicious, and he narrowed his eyes at her.
“He’s fucking a student!” Gina cried shrilly. “I know he is!”
The dean shrugged. “Without proof, I’m sorry, I can’t take your allegations seriously. And that’s all this is, yes? You mentioned in your email that you had a feeling,” he added. All the same, he eyed me very carefully, and I knew he wasn’t fucking around.
“Will, I’ll be watching you very closely,” he said. “Please, don’t make me regret trusting you right now.”
I got to my feet. Shockingly, I was able to stand without collapsing due to relief. I felt faint and sick and bombarded with adrenaline all at once, and I shoved my hands in my pockets.
“Yes, sir,” I said, as humbly as possible. “You won’t regret it.”
“I don’t understand,” Gina cried. “I know he’s doing it! I just know he is!”
She was steaming mad, and now that she was angry, it was actually kind of hilarious. Red in the face with her hair frizzing up around her head, she looked like a cartoon villain, someone who had been defeated by a couple of measly kids.
We left his office in silence.
The silence didn’t last, however. Nearly as soon as we were in the hallway, Gina grabbed my arm and turned to me.
“Fuck you!” Gina snarled. She began slapping and punching and kicking at me, even trying to bite my arm. I twisted out of her grip and held both of her wrists with one of my hands, rendering her useless.
“Stop it,” I growled back at her. “Why are you doing this? What the hell do you think you’re even going to accomplish with it?”
Gina’s eyes were red with fury and she hissed a steady stream of curses at me just as Dean Schell came out of his office and saw us locked together in anger. Immediately, he turned on me.
“Will, what is the meaning of this?” He nearly shouted. “What is going on?”
I dropped Gina’s wrists – she made a show of looking wounded and rubbing them together, as if I had been the one to turn on her – and faced him.
I cleared my throat. “Dean Schell, I have something to confess,” I said. “Gina and I have been in a relationship, which we’ve managed to keep professional and off-campus ... until now,” I added, trying for a touch of sadness.
The dean narrowed his eyes and looked severely displeased.
“I know it’s wrong,” I said. “But she’s angry that I ended things. She became so jealous and vengeful that I was worried for my own safety.”
The dean pressed his lips together.
“Ask around,” I said, as casually as I could muster. “I shouldn’t have been talking about it – I know it was wrong – but I told my TA, Peter Hawke, that we’d been seeing each other.”
“That’s not true!” Gina shot back. “He’s lying!”
“Ask Peter,” I encouraged. “Bring him in – I finally told him when he noticed how distracted I’d been all semester, and I had to confess that it was my turbulent relationship with Gina that had thrown me so far off track.”
Dean Schell still looked angry and I held my breath. I knew that by lying now, I was taking a serious risk ... but it was just as if things had fallen perfectly into place.
“I see,” he said curtly. “Will, I’ll deal with you later.”
Gina, who had been silent for several seconds, began screaming once again. She yanked open the fire extinguisher cabinet and threw the fire extinguisher to the floor with a tremendous clang. The automatic fire alarm began to shriek and chirp and students flooded out of their classrooms into the hallway just as Gina turned to me once again, pummeling her tiny, useless fists against my chest.
Dean Schell rushed into his office.
“I hate you!” Gina screamed. “You ruined everything, you motherfucker!” She was truly unhinged now and a huge crowd of students watched, awestruck, as saucy Professor Grant attacked Professor Marks with slaps and kicks and punches.
When the authorities arrived to arrest her for assault, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I knew it was wrong.
Criminal, even.
But I couldn’t help feeling like we had both gotten what we deserved in the end.
29
Eden – Friday
I had skipped classes yet again and was sitting on the couch, trying to make sense of the plan I had come up with – and decided on firmly – last night. I hadn’t told anyone of my decision yet, not even Petra, although I was sure that telling her would be a hell of a lot easier than breaking the news to my mother.
It wasn’t a plan that I had ever thought my life would come to, but here it was. I couldn’t let things go on the way they had for so long now. I had to reclaim my life and take charge of myself and be the best version of Eden Cooper that I could be. An untouched bowl of popcorn sat on the dining room table and the TV was on to an old rerun of Friends, but I had it muted as I sat in thought, pressing my lips together and gnawing at the inside of my mouth.
That was when I heard a knock at the door. There was no time to change – I was in sweats with greasy hair – and my heart leapt into my throat as I walked to answer it.
Standing on the other side was Professor Will Marks.
I sucked in a deep breath, expecting him to rush inside and kiss me and fuck me or worse – stand there and break it off with me officially, with a cold look in his eyes.
In my panic and paranoia, it took me a moment to realize that he didn’t look cold at all.
His dark eyes were warm and apologetic and – dare I think it? – perhaps even anxious.
“We need to talk,” I said as I stepped back to allow him inside.
Will nodded. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I came over.” He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak
just as I held a finger to his lips.
“I’m taking an incomplete in your class,” I began. “And I’m dropping my other two classes, which will put me just nine credits short of graduating.”
Will’s eyes opened wide and he began to protest, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said softly. “Please, Will. Let me talk, for once. You owe me that, I think.”
Will clamped his mouth together and gave a brief jerk of his head. I could tell that he wasn’t happy – he was practically shaking with confused energy – and it was hard to go one, but I had to.
It was all part of my plan – it was just happening in a different order than I’d pictured in my head.
“I’ve done terribly this semester,” I confessed as I led Will over to the couch where we sat down, close enough for our thighs to touch. Normally, being so close to him would have excited me and made my heart flutter, but right now it emboldened me and made me more certain than ever that I was doing the right thing.
“And if I don’t drop at least one of my classes, I’ll flunk it,” I said. “I’ve been trying to catch up, but there’s no use doing that – it’s already too late, and there isn’t anything else I can do about it. Believe it, I’ve tried.”
Will looked aghast.
“And for my senior seminar, well, I’m going to do an independent study with another professor over the summer to make up the lost credits. I can take my other classes through distance learning and that way, I should be able to graduate by the end of the summer term.”
“Eden, you can’t do that,” Will finally protested. “What class are you failing? Not mine, I assure you,” he continued.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him flatly. “Like I said, it’s done. I made up my mind. I have to do this – I can’t have you go around trying to fix my mistake, like I know you would do for me.”
Will looked chastened and almost embarrassed.
Forbidden First Times: A Contemporary Romance Collection Page 119
