Misadventures with a Professor

by Sierra Simone

  I glance up at her, confused.

  “You want to get married?” she asks, her voice layered with something I don’t understand.

  “I don’t see a choice. I have a duty now—we have a duty now. To honor the situation.”

  “This isn’t the Victorian ages,” she says tightly. “We have more choices than we know what to do with.”

  But doesn’t she get it? I don’t want any other choices, I don’t want any choice that separates me from her or from the baby. I want her.

  I love her and I want her, and I can’t let this end in heartbreak. I won’t.

  “We’ll get married, and I’ll stop writing and go back to teaching,” I say, looking back down at the paper and adding a few more lines on the growing list of things to do.

  “Okay,” she says faintly, and when I finally look up later, she’s left the office. Beatrix hops up on the desk and yowls at me, but I ignore her, just as I ignore the burning feeling in my chest telling me to find Zandy and hold her and tell her I love her again.

  There will be time for all that later. But first, I have a duty to her and this baby, and I won’t fail and I won’t stop.

  She’ll understand.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Zandy

  I have to set another freak-out timer on my phone.

  I give myself ten minutes this time, and I lie facedown on my bed, letting the shocked tears leak slowly out of my eyes. Did I think the worst thing that could happen was Oliver rejecting me? Did I dread him turning away in cool anger, ordering me to leave?

  I’ve been a stupid, innocent fool, because there has always been a possibility that is much, much worse, and that is Oliver treating me like some kind of obligation. Like some kind of responsibility he has to shoulder.

  I have a duty now. To honor the situation.

  Oh God.

  Cold rejection is so much less awful than cold acceptance. Cold duty. Talking about marrying me like it’s some sort of chore, some kind of burden that has to be carried to the finish line, no matter what.

  Feeling like a burden and a chore—why is that so familiar? Oh right, because it’s why no one’s ever wanted me before. No one’s ever wanted me to date and not even to fuck, and it’s probably because they could smell the too muchness on me. Because they could sense I’d become a duty if given half the chance.

  When Oliver said he loved me and then fucked me with fierce, unraveling passion against the wall, I thought—well, I didn’t think. I hoped.

  I hoped that all my fears and worries were misplaced and that somehow and some way, this would have a happily ever after for us. Him, me, and the baby.

  But I refuse to be his cold duty. I refuse to sit around waiting for the day when his resignation becomes quiet resentment, because it will. Maybe he’ll be able to keep it hidden. Maybe he’ll even fool himself into accepting this new, structured life, but eventually he’ll hate me for the things he’s certain he has to do now.

  Giving up his kink.

  His research.

  His freedom.

  He’d hate going back to teaching and giving up on his book, and he’d hate himself for every time he wanted to get kinky with me but would feel like he couldn’t. And he’d hate me for marrying him and invading his quiet bubble of a life. I don’t know why he thinks he has to give all that up because I’m pregnant, but I know him well enough to tell he won’t be moved.

  Which only means one thing. It’s up to me.

  By the time my timer goes off, I’ve dried my tears and started packing. And by the time Oliver notices I’m missing, it will be far too late.

  Two Days Later…

  My father’s voice is echoing off the kitchen tile in a dry rumble that used to put me to sleep every night as he read to me when I was a child. The familiar sound of it makes me want to cry, but I can’t tell if that’s lingering jet lag or the baby hormones.

  “Yes, she’s here,” I hear him say, and then there’s a long pause. “She’s sleeping now. But I can tell her you’ve called. Again.”

  I bury my face in my pillow, wishing my bedroom weren’t just right up the stairs from the kitchen. Wishing I didn’t have to hear the phone ring over and over again with Oliver trying to talk to me.

  In a flash of masochism, I lift up my own phone to peek at the screen. Tens, if not hundreds, of notifications, emails, texts, phone calls, everything—all from Oliver.

  All from my terrifyingly sexy professor.

  It was awful sneaking out of the cottage—more than awful. I thought I was dying as I climbed into the cab waiting outside, as Beatrix sat perched on the stone bench inside the front garden and tilted her little cat head at me. I hated leaving. I hated walking away from the cottage, with its blown flowers and leafy vines and old stone walls. I hated hearing the river nearby, shallow and bright, knowing I’d never hear it again. And I even hated poor little Beatrix for making me love her when she should have known better.

  I hated leaving Oliver.

  I hated knowing that his polished voice and mysterious eyes wouldn’t be mine to hear and to see any longer. I hated how hard it was to sneak away because I also hated how impossible it would be to say goodbye. I would try to leave, and he’d be too handsome, too smart, too magnetic, and I’d stay anyway, even though my staying would wreck his life and ultimately make him loathe me for the part I played in wrecking it.

  No, this was the way it was always going to be.

  And I hated that most of all.

  It only took Oliver an hour or so to realize I was gone, but an hour was all I needed. I was most of the way to Birmingham by then, and I made my way through security and to a flight before he could reach me. Then, like with all the calls and emails today, he was acting out of duty, and I bet even now the relief is starting to creep in. The relief that I won’t be ruining his life after all.

  I don’t read the emails or the texts. I don’t let myself. Because as much as I want Oliver to be feeling relief right now, as much as I want to think I’ve found a way to walk out of this with my head held high, I feel nothing but agony.

  Maybe there’s a tiny part of me that hopes he’ll board a plane to America. That he’ll come chasing after me.

  It’s ridiculous and childish—sheer nonsense given what I’ve done and how I’ve refused to talk to him—but maybe I’m too Zandy Lynch not to be ridiculous and childish sometimes. Yet another reason Oliver and I would never have worked.

  My father appears in my doorway, holding out a mug of coffee for me, which I take even though I won’t drink it. I haven’t told him about the pregnancy yet—or even that Oliver and I were briefly a thing—although I think he’s pieced that together from my unexpected arrival home and Oliver’s many phone calls.

  “Do you want me to take you to your apartment?” Dad asks softly. “At least to get some fresh clothes?”

  I look down at my flannel unicorn pajamas—a relic from my high school years that I found in my old dresser. “I guess I should. But…can I stay here for a few more days?”

  He softens, trundling over and sitting on the edge of my bed. “You know I’m always happy to have you here, Zandy. No matter what’s going on.”

  He takes my hand, and I try not to cry in earnest. My dad has always been like this—loyal and quiet and easy. God, how I wish I’d been born the same! Instead of messy and loud and too much.

  “Dad? Were you ever scared about having me?”

  He looks down at my face, and understanding rearranges the smile on his face into something both kinder and sadder.

  He knows.

  Maybe it’s my question or his fatherly intuition, but it’s plain that he’s just figured it out, and he squeezes my hand.

  “When I found out your mother was pregnant, I felt nothing but excitement, because I knew I could do anything with that amazing woman at my side. But when she died…” His eyes grow glassy, and I know he’s seeing memories I’m too young to remember. Memories of hospital beds and doctor visits. “I was mo
re than scared. I was paralyzed. Because I didn’t think I could do it without her. You were six then and still so young, and every good part of you was because of her. What if I ruined you somehow? What if I stifled all the parts of you that had only flowered because of your mother?”

  He’s never told me this before, and I sit up a little, curious. “What do you mean, because of her?”

  Dad smiles fondly. “I’ve told you how smart and driven she was, but have I ever told you how funny and friendly she was? How determined? How brave? She could march into a room full of strangers and have them loving her within minutes. She could travel to a country she’d never been to, and within a day, she was already learning the language and having adventures. She was the opposite of me and perfect in every way. And when I saw how like her you were…I wanted to treasure that at all costs. I still do.”

  I give him a hug, overcome, swelling with pain and pride. “I never knew,” I whisper, my eyes leaking tears onto his shoulder.

  “I should have told you. But it’s hard to talk about for me, and for you…for you, I only wanted you to look forward to your future. Not be stuck with me in a painful past.”

  “But what do I do now?” I ask tearfully. “What comes next?”

  “That, my brave girl, only you can answer. But I will say that I believe fear is part of the process. It’s what makes the joy all the more precious in the end.”

  “That’s very wise,” I say, sniffling as I pull back.

  “Go easy on Oliver,” Dad says gently. “Men like us sometimes need longer to become as brave as you and your mom were. He’ll find his way.”

  I shake my head. “He was willing to do so much for me, but it felt all wrong. It felt like he was forcing himself, and I decided at the beginning of the summer that I wouldn’t be that girl. That clingy girl who grabbed on to any promise of a future, no matter how emotionally coerced it was.”

  “So noble,” Dad says. “But did you ever consider it’s the other way around? That he’s trying to cling on to you and just doesn’t know how?”

  I frown. “It didn’t feel like that.”

  “He’s lost someone before, and it sounds to me like the first thing he wanted to make sure of was that he didn’t lose you too. Think about it, pumpkin.” And with that, Dad drops a kiss on my forehead and leaves me to my thoughts.

  Could he be right?

  Was Oliver trying to hold on to me, as opposed to grimly shouldering me like some kind of burden?

  Did he…want me?

  And the baby?

  And even if he did, would he ever forgive me for running away?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Oliver

  I thought I already lived through the worst day of my life. I thought what happened with Rosie was the worst thing I would ever go through, but as I walk through the house calling Zandy’s name and realizing with cold, encroaching horror that she is gone, I know I was wrong.

  This is the worst day of my life.

  This is having my heart broken.

  And the shitty thing? I absolutely know why. I know I deserve it.

  I walk back into the study where I had her pinned to the wall not an hour before, where I held her curled and crying in my lap.

  God, what a fuckup I am. I should have held her until night fell. I should have dropped to my knees and worshiped her. I should have cradled her and murmured how happy I was, how much I loved her, how I would take care of her as long as she’d let me. I should have been honest. I should have just talked.

  But my God, how could she have expected me to respond right away? Wasn’t a man allowed some time to process news like this?

  Even as I think a bitter apparently not, raking my hand through my hair, I know it doesn’t matter. I didn’t even ask her to marry me, I just told her that we’d do it—God, no wonder she left. I fucked up. Something that becomes more and more apparent as she refuses to answer my calls.

  Shit. Where could she have gone? Where does she have to go? I’m the only person she knows here. My cottage is the only place she has that’s not in America—

  Oh fuck.

  The flight from Birmingham. Of course, she even told me about it, but somehow I wasn’t able to connect that with her absence now, because, pathetically, I suppose I’ve been holding out hope that she wouldn’t do something so drastic, so…real.

  What else is she supposed to do? Stay in a country that’s not her own while she carries the child of a man who was grimly planning an emergency wedding?

  Good God, I’ve become my own Victorian morality narrative.

  Fuck.

  I get in my car and speed to the airport, but I know even as I wince my way through all the speed traps that I’ll be too late. Zandy doesn’t do anything by half-measures, and she has a plan for everything—whether it’s arranging my hallway bookshelves or getting Beatrix to switch to dry cat food. There’s no way in hell she doesn’t have a concrete plan for escape. She made a spreadsheet to help her decide what to do about this pregnancy, for pity’s sake.

  And even as I fruitlessly search the public parts of the airport, I can’t help but admire her. Even her spreadsheets and escape routes. Even her spine of steel normally hidden behind schoolgirl enthusiasm and lush curves.

  How could I have been so foolish as to let a woman like her slip through my fingers?

  “Zandy, thank fuck.”

  I’m in my study, warm summer darkness pressing up against the windows and Beatrix lying sideways on my desk, watching me pace the floor. A floor I can only pace because of Zandy’s hard work in organizing my research.

  “Oliver,” Zandy says quietly. I know it’s morning in the States—in the last three days of ceaselessly calling and emailing, I’ve become something of an expert in time zones—but she sounds exhausted. Raspy, like she’s been crying.

  The thought of it burns in my chest.

  “I just—” I stop, searching for the right words to say. I’m still stunned she finally picked up the phone, and I don’t want to say anything wrong. I don’t want to scare her away. “How are you? And the baby?”

  “The baby is currently the size of a pomegranate seed,” Zandy says. “So I think it’s fine.”

  She doesn’t answer how she is, and she doesn’t have to. Her voice says it all.

  “Zandy, I—I fucked up. I should have listened. I should have talked. I should have done everything differently.”

  There’s silence on the other end, and somehow I know it wasn’t good enough, that she needs more. “I love you,” I say. Plead. “I want you. And this baby. And I’ll do anything to prove it.”

  “Are those the things you think you have to say?” she asks softly. Too softly, but I don’t see the danger.

  “Of course. Aren’t they the things you need to hear?”

  A sharp breath, like a gasp. From all the way across the Atlantic, it sounds like a gunshot.

  “Zandy? What did I say wrong? Tell me, tell me and I’ll fix it, I swear to God.”

  “Don’t you see?” she whispers. “I don’t want this to be about what you think you should do. I don’t want you to leave your research. I don’t want you to marry me if you are only doing it out of some kind of half-baked obligation of honor.”

  I sputter a little at that, but she’s not done.

  “And I especially don’t want you to give up the professor games. How could I, when they make me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt? When they’re a part of you, and I love every part of you?”

  The burning in my chest is a fire now, an inferno, and it’s searing my very soul. “I love you too, Zandy. Don’t you see that’s why I’m willing to give up anything to be with you?”

  “And don’t you see that’s why I can’t let you?” Her voice wavers, and I know she’s close to tears, if she’s not already crying. Damn this distance, this ocean! I tighten my hand around my phone as if I can pull her back to me through the tiny device.

  “I want you just as you are,” she continues. “And I
refuse to be the reason you ruin your life. I’m sorry that Rosie made you feel like you didn’t deserve a child or a future because of the things you like in bed, but dammit, Oliver, if you can’t see how absurd that is after all these years, then I don’t know how to make you.”

  Defensiveness wells up in my throat. “It’s not absurd. It’s reality. People like me can’t have families; that’s why I have to change.”

  “But money isn’t an issue, so you shouldn’t need to change jobs, and there’s no law that says we have to be married to have a child together. And there’s certainly no law that says people can’t have playful sex after they have a baby. You’re inventing this new version of yourself that’s wholly unnecessary, and it’s a new version I don’t want. I love you how you are, and I refuse to be the excuse for you to hurt yourself.” She takes a deep breath, and it trembles enough that I know she’s truly crying now. “I love you, but I deserve more than being a duty. I deserve the man I love—as he is—choosing me because he’s happy to choose me. Not because he feels forced.”

  She hangs up, and the sudden silence on the other end might kill me, save for one thing.

  I understand now.

  She isn’t upset that I hadn’t acted happy enough. She wants to save me from the mire of self-loathing I’ve been in since Rosie left me. And for the first time in years, I not only want to save myself, but I recognize that I don’t have to. I didn’t love Rosie in any real measure, and I’ve been a fool to let her words fester and slowly infect me.

  If Zandy will have me as a crabby scholar who delights in taking her over my knee, then that’s what she will get.

  And to hell with the rest.