by Dahlia Adler
It’s damn near impossible to keep my focus during class, but at least Professor Ozgur is back at the helm. When the bell rings, Connor leaves almost immediately, and I rush out pretty close behind him, eager to make my appointment. Well, more accurately, I’m eager to get it over with. Although I’ve always been diligent about using condoms every time and with every guy, the fact that I’ve never been tested makes me anxious about the results.
Thankfully, the entire process is relatively painless, and when I step out of the OB-GYN’s exam room with a clean bill of health and a prescription of a year’s worth of birth control pills in hand, I’m feeling pretty good.
Until I nearly smack into Sophie Springer, right there in the office.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she utters with more disgust than I’d previously thought possible to express over someone who’s never been convicted of war crimes.
It’s hard to blame her for not being thrilled to see me. Connor’s right—I wronged her, period. The fact that she’s an unbearable bitch doesn’t mean it was okay for me to sleep with her boyfriend. I take a deep breath—nothing comes less naturally to me than apologizing, especially not to someone I’d just as soon see transfer to Mogadishu University—and force the words out. “Listen, Sophie, I want to apologize. I’m sorry for hooking up with Trevor. It was wrong, and I shouldn’t have.”
Her eyes widen, her mouth dropping open slightly. “What are you going for here?”
“Nothing,” I say, hoping the honesty of my statement comes through. “I’m apologizing. For real. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
She laughs. Throws her head back and cracks up so loudly it draws the attention of every single other woman in the office. “Are you kidding me? You think I want or need your apology? God, you are delusional. You can keep that to yourself, thanks.”
“Okay,” I say stiffly, feeling my face reddening at all the scrutiny on us right now. “Well, I tried.” I turn away from her, toward the door, but then I feel her talons clutching my arm.
“I’m going to give you a choice as to how I’m going to ruin your life,” she hisses in my ear. “Which I think is pretty generous, since that’s certainly more than you gave me.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Sophie?”
“Your boyfriend,” she coos, her voice still low, turning the blood in my veins to ice. “You really think I’m going to let your disgusting relationship continue after you destroyed mine?”
“There was nothing in your disgusting relationship that hadn’t already been destroyed by Trevor being an asshole.”
She narrows her flint-gray eyes. “Maybe I won’t give you a choice after all. Maybe I’ll just tell your professor, and the administration, and your social worker, and let shit fly.”
Oh my God, she knows. She knows a lot. How is that even possible?
I force myself to keep a neutral expression on my face. “Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong.”
“Oh, don’t even. I’ve seen the two of you.”
“The two of who?” I ask innocently, hoping against hope she’s bluffing out of her ass. I’ve barely touched Connor anywhere people could’ve seen us.
“I was going to be more subtle about it in public,” she says dramatically, as if doing me the world’s greatest favor, “but apparently you want me to announce that you’re fucking Con—”
I yank her outside the office before she can finish, and her cackling echoes into the external hallway. “You little whore,” she marvels, shaking her head. “Aren’t you even the tiniest bit embarrassed at how many guys you let use you for sex? Especially when you’re supposed to be acting like a role model to those two little boys?”
“Leave my brothers out of this,” I spit. “What the fuck do you want, you psycho?”
“I told you—I want you to destroy yourself. Take your pick. Either you can tattle on your TA to your professor and everyone else, and get him booted, or you can drop out and move back to your sad little house in bumblefuck. See? Your choice.”
“You are so fucked-up—”
“Knocked-up, honey. The term is knocked-up.”
Oh. Shit. “You’re not.”
“Oh, I am,” she says, holding out the paper I hadn’t noticed in her hand until now, which is most definitely a positive pregnancy test with her name on it. “In case you weren’t sure just how much I despise you.”
“I didn’t get you pregnant!”
“No, you just fucked my baby’s father, then told the whole world about it.”
This conversation is too surreal for words. Trevor had gotten Sophie pregnant, Connor and I weren’t the secret we thought we were, and I had the shittiest choice imaginable to make.
Not that either choice was an option. I certainly couldn’t drop out; if I did, I’d lose my scholarship and be completely fucked. Not to mention that the boys are already enrolled in school here. I can’t just pull them back out, whether they love it or not. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to ruin Connor like that, either. I wouldn’t. He’d be finished at Radleigh; maybe even finished teaching completely.
Or maybe not. I’m legal, age-wise at least. I know it’s not good, but maybe it’s not so bad?
“Stop trying to think; your brain will probably explode from the effort.” She smiles cruelly. “So, which is it?”
“I don’t know,” I say flatly.
“Well, figure it out.”
“Thanks, I’ll just go ahead and do that.” Fucking psycho.
I turn on my heel and walk away, my hands trembling as I clutch my prescription, “You have until tomorrow” ringing out after me in the otherwise empty hallway.
• • •
“She’s full of shit,” Frankie says decisively, raking a chip through the plastic tub of guac that sits in the middle of the table in the common room of the suite. “Sophie Springer has zero power. If she really had any, her boyfriend wouldn’t have been able to screw around on her for months in the first place.”
“It’s so not that simple, Frank.” Cait takes a sip from the water bottle at her side. “Just because Trevor has more doesn’t mean Sophie has none. Anyway, it doesn’t sound like it’d take much. All she has to do is get to your professor before Connor does and he’s pretty fucked.”
“I still can’t believe you were banging Hottie Historian and you didn’t even tell us,” Frankie muses, popping the chip into her mouth. “I should’ve known when you messed with him at Delta, but I totally thought you were gonna hook up with that friend of his.”
God, that night feels like a zillion years ago. “I told you, I wasn’t banging anyone.” I nip the edge off a chip. “He was just helping me out with some things, and it…happened. I don’t even understand how she knows.”
“Maybe she’s just seen you flirt,” Frankie suggests. “Maybe she doesn’t really know anything for sure. I mean, it’s not like she has pictures.”
“Does she?” asks Cait.
“I have no freaking clue what she has,” I admit grumpily. “For all I know, she’s bluffing completely. But what if she isn’t?”
“I think this is a sign.” Cait forgoes the chips, dipping a baby carrot in the guac instead. Other than the Twizzlers, she eats like she’s perpetually in training for the Olympics. “You need to get out of this while you can. It can’t end well.”
Both Frankie and I turn to glare at her. “No way. If she dumps him, Sophie wins,” Frankie says firmly.
“Never mind Sophie,” I add. “I don’t want to break up with him. If it were that easy, I wouldn’t have a dilemma to begin with.”
“Okay, then you need to get Connor to tell the professor himself.” Frankie snags one of the baby carrots and crunches into it. “It’s gotta be worth something if he beats Sophie to the punch.”
“She’s right,” says Cait. “The big issue is that he grades your tests and stuff, right? So he needs to tell your professor that he can’t grade yours.”
It makes sense, but still, the
thought of asking Connor to do this makes me sick to my stomach. We’d agreed to put things on hold, and obviously we sort of sucked at it, but I did genuinely think we’d make it through the next few weeks without incident. This…it’s going to embarrass the shit out of him—with Professor Ozgur, with the rest of the class, with the other grad students—if he’s even willing to do it at all.
Both Cait and Frankie frown when I share my hesitations. “Lizzie B,” says Frankie. “He’s the one in the position of power. He needs to man up.”
“That’s all well and good,” I say, drawing swirls in the guacamole with a chip, “but what if he won’t?”
“Then he’s not worth it,” says Cait, ever blunt. “This is, like, baseline, and it’s what he should’ve done to start with.”
“That’s easy for us to say,” I argue, “but what if he loses his teaching position over this? What if he can’t stay at Radleigh if he loses it? He’s supposed to lose his future over some chick?”
“You’re not some chick.” Frankie grasps my chin firmly in her palm, and I try to ignore the streaks of charcoal on her skin that are almost definitely transferring to mine. “You’re Elizabeth fucking Brandt, and he’s lucky to have you, no matter what it means giving up.”
“Hear, hear,” says Cait, lifting her water bottle.
I shake my head, laughing, and lift up a chip laden down with guac in a mock toast. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that if I ever did make the decision to run back to Pomona instead of sticking it out here, I would miss the crap out of these girls.
• • •
It takes a shot of tequila, a bunch of deep breaths, and three pieces of nicotine gum before I can get up the nerve to call Connor. I’m dreading this conversation with every fiber of my being, but I know Cait and Frankie are right about this—it’s the only thing we can do, and it’s probably what we should’ve done to begin with.
It rings three times, and I wonder if he’s screening my calls, especially after I showed up this morning. But then his voice, or at least a gruff version of it, says, “Hey.”
I know a time will come when that voice won’t make my skin tingle down to my toes, even in my most anxious moments, but right now, I’m appreciating it while it still does. “Hey. I’m sorry to call.”
“I should probably be sorry too, but it’s been a really shitty day,” he says, laughing bitterly. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”
Sophie. Shit. Has she already gotten to him in some way? “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing you need to worry yourself with. Just dissertation crap. And family crap. With an awkward cherry on top.”
I breathe a sigh of relief that none of that sounds Sophie-related, but then realize that doesn’t actually help the fact that he’s had a really lousy day. He sounds so miserable, and I hate that I’m not there to give him a hug right now, that I can’t be. “Talk to me,” I say, because it’s all I can offer.
So he does. He tells me about how his advisor thinks he needs to take a portion of his dissertation in a different direction, and how a site he’s supposed to visit in the spring is going to be closed due to construction. I have absolutely nothing of wisdom to say, and in fact know nothing about how any of this stuff works, but I vow to learn as soon as humanly possible.
“And what happened with your family?” I pry gently, because at least family I know a little bit about. “Your mom call again?”
“Oh, no, not this time,” he says, anger so apparent in his voice that I wonder if his father’s somehow come back into the picture, though it seems like that would’ve been his opener. “This time, it was finding out on my sister’s fucking blog that she’s getting married.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I don’t mean to blurt it out, but the image of Ty trying something like that makes a vein pop out in my forehead.
He sighs. “Yep. Apparently the wedding’s in a month. In Mumbai. So, even if I wanted to attend, there’d be no chance in hell I could afford a ticket.”
“Did you call her, at least?”
“To say what? Congratulations on the wedding you never even planned to tell me about?”
“Well,” I say, searching for something to make this a little better, “I’m sure she thinks you read her blog. Which, actually, I thought you didn’t.”
He laughs shortly. “Well, after you asked me about it in my office, I felt bad that I don’t read it more, given that it’s pretty much our only connection other than the postcards she sends. So I started reading it regularly. I guess it’s a good thing.”
“It is,” I say softly. “I know your family…leaves a lot to be desired, but you only get handed one. I’m not trying to play the ‘dead parents’ card, but cutting your ties while she’s still around and walking the mortal plane seems less than optimal.”
“How is that not playing the ‘dead parents’ card?”
“Fine. I played the ‘dead parents’ card. But you should call her. Hell, you can even tell her she’s not the only Lawson sibling pairing off.”
“That sounds like a great conversation,” Connor says wryly. “Hey, sis, congratulations on the engagement I found out about online. I can’t afford to come, not that I was invited, but if I could, I’d be bringing the student I’m sleeping with, who’s almost young enough to be your daughter. Are you registered at Crate & Barrel?”
I suck in a deep breath through my teeth but it does nothing to calm the stabbing feeling of his words. “Wow, Connor. Fuck you. ‘The student I’m sleeping with’? Really? That’s what I am to you?”
“Tabarnac.” He sighs so deeply it seems to come from his bones. “I’m sorry. That was…I didn’t mean that.”
I don’t answer. I won’t say anything nice if I do.
“It’s been a really shitty day,” he continues softly, all the fight out of his voice, “and I just kept thinking about how all I wanted to do at the end of it was be with you. And then remembering I couldn’t, that the only person in the world who could make this day better is right fucking here and I still can’t have you—it just made me that much more bitter. Which is obviously a really dick thing to take out on you.”
“Yep,” I agree, though his apology has already thawed my anger and we both know it. “I guess learning you’re apparently Radleigh’s new most fuckable TA didn’t help that?”
“Pretty sure my ego peaked the first time I made you come. Everything else is just sprinkles on the sundae.”
“‘Sprinkles on the sundae’? God, how do you make being such a dork so hot?”
“Years of practice, baby. Years of practice.”
I snort, and he laughs, and it’s really good to hear. “So, do I get to hear about the awkwardness?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he says. “I just bumped into Jess again and she tried to take me up on that whole ‘raincheck’ thing.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. ‘I’m seeing someone’ didn’t go over so well considering I wasn’t a couple of weeks ago when I told her I was too busy.”
“Seeing someone?” I tease. “That’s a cute way to put this whole thing.”
“Hey, we’ve gone on actual dates. We’ve had dinner together—”
“At my house and apartment, with my family.”
“And gone to the movies—”
“Again, with my family, and mostly because you convinced me that I needed to chaperone Ty and his date from a distance.”
“And gone bowling, and gotten ice cream—we are very much seeing each other, thank you very much. A date with tween boy chaperones is still a date.”
“I suppose these outings do generally end in kissing,” I concede.
“That’s what makes a date?”
“That’s what makes a good date.”
He laughs. “Duly noted. I will keep that in mind when planning all future outings.”
“If you need to remind yourself to kiss me, I’m definitely doing something wrong.”
“There’s no winning with you, i
s there?” he asks with a sigh.
“Not really.”
We’re both quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For proving me right that just a few minutes with you can make my whole day better.” I can hear the smile in his voice, and it’s contagious. I like having proven him right on that front too. “Sorry I sorta blew that earlier.”
“We’re both gonna fuck up,” I say, my stomach turning as I think about Sophie, about what I called to tell him but know I won’t, not tonight. “But we’ll figure it out, right?”
“Right.” As if he knows all there is to figure out. As if he has all the information.
But he has enough on his plate today, and I definitely don’t want to pile on any more relating to the whole teacher-student issue. Sophie drama can wait. I’ll buy another day, and maybe by the time I can have this conversation with him, I’ll have figured something else out.
Or maybe Sophie will transfer to the University of Guam.
A girl can dream.
I’m no closer to figuring out what I’m gonna do about the whole mess when I leave for class the next day, but I figure as long as I avoid the coffee shop, Greek Row, or anywhere else Sophie Springer might be lurking, I’m probably okay.
I am wrong.
“So what’d you decide, Teacher’s Pet?”
I whirl around at the entrance to Krieger Hall, home of my Russian class. Now that I’m no longer going to office hours with Connor, it’s my only Friday class, and it’s one I used to skip a decent amount.
Clearly I should’ve kept up that habit today.
“Are you stalking me?” I ask Sophie with a scowl.
“I don’t need to stalk you,” she says with that charming homecoming-queen-serial-killer smile of hers. “I know everything.”
“I can’t believe this is all coming from someone who called me delusional,” I snap at her, stepping away from the door and giving her no choice but to follow me. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about, and you’re going to ruin a good guy over it, and it’s still not going to make you feel better about what happened.”
