Fissure

by Nicole Williams

  I felt her stiffen, I sensed the tension steal over her body, right before she snapped away from me like I was toxic. She settled her hair behind her ears, then moved on to smoothing her skirt. So much for my world-renowned smoothness. It went over with her as well as silk over sandpaper.

  When she started tapping her pencil over her desk, I couldn’t take anymore of her spastic releases of discomfort. Especially knowing I was the idiot who’d induced it. When all else fails, I’d learned this great trick called changing the subject and acting like nothing had happened. Was a godsend.

  “So where’s Ty today?” I asked, facing forward in my seat and putting my voice back together.

  She cleared her throat, throwing me a quick look from the side. Super, I’d taken one step forward only to take about a hundred back. “He’s not feeling well,” she answered, pulling at a thread dangling from the sleeve of her sweater.

  I was going to mention something about a weekend of binge drinking generally equating to waking up Monday morning with a not-feeling-well result, but a blotch of purple kept poking to the surface each time Emma would pull the thread.

  Without thinking, I reached for her wrist and slid the sweater sleeve up to her elbow. She automatically recoiled, pulling the sleeve back into place.

  “More bruises?” I whispered, knowing my hackles would be rising if I had any. “Maybe you need to take a multi-vitamin or something.”

  She chuckled, but I wasn’t joking. I’d never seen a girl as bruised as her. She had to have some sort of vitamin deficiency or something. Either that or she was a magnet for bruises far and wide.

  “What can I say? Volleyball’s a killer sport and I’m not the kind of girl that dodges a ball when it’s firing at me.” She sounded proud of herself.

  I was about to reply that I hadn’t seen her take any balls or hits to the forearms at Friday night’s game when the good professor decided that late was better than never. I happened to believe in the other way around.

  “Sit down and shut up,” he hollered, grabbing his temples and grimacing at his own voice. Looked like students at Stanford weren’t the only ones that liked to have a good time during the weekend.

  The room went from a dull roar to Sunday morning silent. The man had skills of persuasion, I had to give him that.

  “I’m not in the mood to give out a lecture today on Freudian theory and, from the grimaces I just detected on your faces, you’re not ready to hear it either,” he announced, his voice barely making it through the room as he snapped his briefcase open and began rummaging through it. “So I’m going to give you the details—the brief details—on your semester project that will account for half of your grade.”

  Professor Camp grimaced, reaching again for his temples as a communicable groan vibrated the room. He twisted open an aspirin bottle and tipped it to his lips, shaking it back until two, three, or twenty went down the hatch.

  “Love,” he said, letting us simmer over the topic a minute as he tore open an alka-seltzer packet and tipped its tablets into his coffee cup. Emma snickered, beating me to it.

  “Love,” he repeated. “The most controversial, most sought after, men die over, women faint over, biggest piece of monkey crap to ever be conjured up by mankind.”

  You could feel the jaws dropping around us, the reaction was that strong.

  “Just joking,” he said. “Kind of,” he added as he tipped his cup at us before chugging it down in a single gulp.

  Emma’s pencil was primed at the ready, nothing more than Love scrolled under the date.

  “Love is emotional, love is physical, love makes you mental,”—I tried not to laugh at the personal relevance—“but love is most definitely psychological. And, in case you weren’t aware of the class you were in, that’s just what we are supposed to be studying,” he went on, yawning. “Myself and my other peers in the Psychology department hold to two schools of thought. Since I’m the teacher and you’re the students paying fifty grand a year and will pretty much do anything I ask you to for an A, you’ll be my guinea pigs to put love to the test.”

  He was the poster child for the kind of teacher that should have retired twenty years ago and probably shouldn’t have ever chosen teaching as a career since he hated youth, but he had a keen sense for holding his students captive. I hadn’t heard so much as a one word whisper since he’d stumbled into the room.

  “Is love meant to be? You know, love at first sight, true love, soul mates,” he droned, waving his hand around, “all that mumbo jumbo load of crap?” Emma’s pencil screeched to a halt. “Or can it be forced to the surface over the course of time? Could you”—he pointed his finger at several gape mouthed students—“fall in love with absolutely anyone if you spent enough time and life experience with them?” He braced his arms over the lectern. “I know, but you’re about to find out.”

  I guessed the edge in his voice and the bitter smirk used when discussing love had to do with the tan lines framing a white ring of skin where I guessed a band had recently been.

  “I’ve paired you up and, while I’m a man of the times and have no problem with same sex, multi sex, whatever sex marriages that float your ding-dong, for our purposes—and so I don’t get a mountain of complaint mail from your rich, conservative, right wing parents—I’ve paired you into male/female groups.” He shuffled through his briefcase, pulling a sheet free from a binder. “This will be your partner for the rest of the semester, and who knows? Maybe the rest of your lives, and I can retire as a professor and move on to match-making?”

  A few laughs came from the class, but they were the forced kind. The throw-the-poor-bitter-professor-a-bone kind of laugh.

  “Some of you may be in committed relationships already. Good for you,” he said, making a whoop-dee-doo twirl of his finger. “Let me offer you some advice. Break up with the love of your life. Call it quits with your soul mate, at least if you care about getting a good grade in this class. If you are so moved, you can always pick up right where you left off at the end of the quarter.”

  This time a sound broke the silence. It was Emma’s gasp.

  I couldn’t believe my luck. I knew Emma and Ty had been together for awhile, but she struck me as the kind of girl that followed her teacher’s orders. The kind of straight A student that didn’t know how to get a B. And here was our professor all but demanding that we break up with our girlfriends and boyfriends. Was it on the up and up? Probably not. Was it legal? I doubted it. Would the school hesitate in firing him if they heard? Definitely not. But was he serious? Abso-flippin’-lutely.

  I had a new favorite teacher.

  “There are assigned dates every weekend, but you need to spend more time than a few cutesy little dates together. Much more time. If I walk into the cafeteria, I want to see you together. If I sneak into the dorm halls after hours, I expect you all to be breaking curfew with your partner like any self-respecting college student in love.”

  More laughter. This time, the real kind. The only person who did not seem into this whole mad scientist experiment was Emma. She couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable if she’d come to class naked.

  “I need to stress that in order for this project’s findings to be accurate, I need you to spend every other waking minute with your partner. The only way to prove or disprove if love is nothing more than a result of time and familiarity is to . . .”—his eyes circled the room—“you guessed it, spend time with each other. Simple enough? Any questions?” he asked, eyes on his sheet of paper and wasting no time, obviously unconcerned if there were any questions.

  I didn’t need air, so it wasn’t any big deal that I was holding my breath, but when I started to feel dizzy, I knew it wasn’t a result of the lack of oxygen. It had everything to do with the anticipation of hearing my name called out with Emma’s.

  In a class close to one hundred, it was what I suppose you could call a forlorn wish, but those were the best kind to hope for. The absolute unlikelihood of them coming to fruition made
the personal angst that much more intense. I could feel it pulsing through my blood.

  I leaned forward in my seat as Professor Camp called out the first pair while Emma seemed to slink so far back into her seat it was like she was melting into it. What was she so uneasy about? The assignment itself, being told to break up with Ty the bonehead, who she’d be paired with . . . wondering, hoping, guessing it could be me? Or praying it wouldn’t be me?

  I couldn’t tell, and I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I did anyways.

  “What’s wrong?” I whispered over to her as the announcement of names continued on at an agonizingly slow pace.

  She waved me off, working her tongue into the side of her cheek and wringing her hand in her skirt.

  I felt something then. Seeing her so uncomfortable, but it went beyond seeing. I could feel her discomfort, with such clarity it could have been my own. It was jarring and intimate . . . and a first. Setting all of myself aside, nothing else was on my mind but easing hers. I was just reaching for one of her hands and searching for the right words of comfort when I heard her name called out from down front.

  “Emma Scarlett, your partner is . . .”—I sucked in a breath; she did too. I had just enough time to send out another prayer into the waiting universe before the good professor finished, “Patrick Hayward.”

  And then, I did something I had no control over. Something that had the whole class busting a gut. I leapt from my seat, threw both arms in the air, and screamed, “YES!”

  When I realized what I’d done, I didn’t blush, I didn’t sit back in my seat and duck my head like anyone who had a shred of self worth would. Too late to worry about my delicate male ego. Way too late.

  Instead I turned around and gave a bow, which was followed by another round of laughter with some applause tossed in.

  “Glad to have made your day, Mr. Hayward,” Camp said, trying his best to look irritated. “Happy love making . . . errrr . . . finding,” he edited before going on to the next pair on his sheet.

  I’d been so caught up in the moment I hadn’t noticed Emma’s reaction, and now that I was thinking about it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to look because I knew if she was grimacing or shuddering or anything that indicated she was dreading what I was dying for, I would have melted where I stood. The bad kind of melting, the water doused Wicked Witch of the West kind of melting.

  I sat down first, giving myself a few more moments to let it all simmer in. Chancing the shortest of glances her way, I didn’t see any lines of dismay or eyes narrowed in aggravation, so I mustered up some courage and did a full-on body turn so I could look at her straight on.

  She kept her face forward, not allowing me to read anything in her eyes. Her face was expressionless, as unreadable as an empty book. Her shoulders were relaxed, as was the rest of her. No more hands wringing the hell out of her skirt, no more looking so uncomfortable she could have been seated on a hot burner.

  She could have been elated, she could have been devastated. I didn’t know.

  I didn’t think there could have been anything worse than finding her cringing at the thought of spending the quarter together, but I’d been wrong. This was worse.

  She was so still and flat faced she could have been a mannequin.

  “Emma?” I whispered, contemplating reaching over and shaking her a little.

  When she didn’t respond with even a blink, I did just that. “Emma?” I repeated, wrapping my fingers around her arm. “Partner? What’s going on up there?” I tapped her temple, eliciting a reaction from her this time. Her eyes blinked a few times, followed by a few shakes of the head, like she’d been caught in a dream and had just woken up.

  I only hoped she didn’t leap to the conclusion she’d woken up to a nightmare.

  “Are you all right? I think you blanked out on us for a few minutes.” I was genuinely concerned. I didn’t need to have the framed certificate on my wall like my M.D. brothers did to know this wasn’t normal, or healthy, behavior.

  Clearing her throat, she ran her hands through her hair in quick fits. “I’m fine. Sorry. I was just getting caught up on my meditation. It’s been awhile and since I just found out I’d be spending the semester with you,”—the corner of her mouth fought the upward movement—“I figured I’d need as many moments of calm as I could get.” She tore her fingers through her hair a few more times before twisting it into a fat bun and stabbing it through with the pencil held between her teeth.

  The woman was a pencil welding, bun stabbing samurai.

  “Why, Miss Scarlett,” I said, flicking my ear at her, “was that an attempt at humor I just detected coming from you?”

  “No,” she said. “That was my attempt at honesty.”

  I put on my most injured face. “That was an attempt at humor.”

  “Yes, it was,” she said, grinning. “Thank you, thank you very much. I’ll be here all week,” she said, bowing her head.

  “From what I hear,” I said, leaning in again. Pressing my luck, but that’s what I did. “You’ll be here”—even closer. She didn’t back away—“all quarter.”

  Her cheeks colored. Not instantly, but a beautiful, smoldering journey to muted crimson. She was blushing. She was blushing at something I’d said. Something I’d done. I didn’t need to be the ladies man I was to know this was a very good sign. Girls didn’t blush at boys that didn’t make them go, somewhere inside, pitter-patter.

  I very nearly leapt from my desk again shouting praise to the skies.

  “All right, everyone,” Professor Camp called out. “Now that you know who your partner is, the first matter of business is to assign your first project. Other than spending copious amounts of time together, this weekend’s date will be—because I like to think of myself as a traditionalist on the dating front—the man’s choice.” The girls all groaned, Emma loudest of all as she threw me a look and an elbow, like boys were positively hopeless when it came to the date planning department.

  They were right. Boys were. Good thing I happened to be a man.

  “Word of advice, boys,” he said, pointing around the room, “leave the condoms in your nightstand.”

  “Damn,” I said under my breath, which was promptly followed by a sharp elbow to the side, compliments of Miss Scarlett.

  “This is a project, The Luh-ove Project, not a one night stand,” he said, letting that hang in the air. “Try to go against your hormones hitting hyperdrive at this time in your lives and act accordingly. I don’t need the blame for being the catalyst for bringing an illegitimate child into the world.” Stepping around the lectern, he tapped his head. “Fight nature and think with this, not with this,” he finished, tipping his hips.

  There were a few nervous laughs, but mainly just a lot of faces frozen in varying shades of red.

  “Friday or Saturday night?” I asked her, wasting no time. The professor had just given me carte blanche for dating Emma Scarlett, and I wasn’t going to waste a second of it.

  She looked over at me with an expression that said, eager, much? I shrugged, not denying her silent accusation. I was nothing if not eager. “Friday night I’ve got an away game, and Saturday night I’m supposed to be going out with Ty to some Monster Truck rally,” she said, like she was reading from a calendar. “How about Sunday afternoon?”

  I didn’t need to fake a look of insult. “Sunday afternoons are for family dinners, last-minute studying, or catching up on cartoons. They are not for dates. No can do, Em,” I said, liking the way the nickname came out of nowhere and seemed just right. “In case you missed it, Professor Bitter ordered we break up with our significant bothers”—that earned me a glare—“if we wanted to get a good grade. I don’t know about you, but I won’t accept anything less than an A+.”

  She laughed a few notes. “I’m sure someone with your attendance record has been blessed with report cards punctuated with nothing but A+s,” she said, her sarcasm the blatant, not even an attempt at subtle, type. “And I think it was more of a suggestion than a
n order that we break up with boyfriends we’ve been together with for six years,” she enunciated, giving me a knowing look. I already knew where she was going with this. “Or deleting the phone numbers, addresses, and bra sizes of every sorority sister on the west coast from our phones.”

  Specific, no hint of remorse in her delivery, scarily accurate in her conclusion. All in all, I’d have to give her an A+. That’s just the kind of girl she was. I knew she’d settle for no less in this class.

  “Saturday night,” I said, no room for negotiating in my voice and expression.

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she relented. “But Ty is going to be really, really . . .”

  She fumbled for whatever the right word would be to describe him, so I saved her, guessing there weren’t enough descriptors for a butt-wipe of that level.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven,” I said, not bothering to hide my elation. I’d fought a lot of battles, won a lot of wars, but I’d never felt the victory in my veins, or tasted it on my tongue, like I was this one. “I can’t wait.”

  When she smiled back at me, its tip echoing my sentiments, I almost wished Ty had gotten his hung-over butt to class to witness the first wall of their relationship fall.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I hadn’t talked to Emma since Monday when we made our original plans to confirm we were still on for tonight, but I wasn’t going to let a two hundred pound amoeba get in the way of a first date with Emma Scarlett. He might have been under the impression that his macho man crap would be enough of a deterrent to keep me away from Emma, and maybe it would have for some guys. But I’d never fallen into the category of some guys.

  I rolled up to the curb outside her dorm ten minutes early, having no problem with parking in the fire lane. If a man trying to convince the woman he was falling for to join the free fall wasn’t considered an emergency, I didn’t know what was.

  I grabbed the bouquet and the shiny silver box and walked-slash-jogged up the walkway to her dorm. My stomach felt like a family of angry chimpanzees were tearing it apart from the inside out. My palms were wet, long surpassing the clammy stage. I was jittery, anxious, expectant, and about ready to burst from the cacophony of emotions eating me from the inside out. Basically, I felt like a virgin on prom night. Walking down the hotel hall.