“Working at the University of New Castle was not my career. I wanted to give back. It was never a permanent situation. I just needed a break. I needed to start over. I was doing a good thing there.”
“A good thing?” my dad scoffed.
“Yes, a good thing.” James’ voice was louder than usual. “I founded my first tech company when I was 22 years old. Right after I graduated with honors from Harvard University. Blive Tech International. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s a publically traded fortune 500 company. Well, I sold it last year for 2. 8 billion dollars. I don’t need to work another day in my life. Your daughter, our future children, and our grandchildren won’t need to work a day in their lives if they don’t want to.”
2. 8 billion dollars? I couldn’t even conceptualize that much money.
James pushed his chair back under the table and looked down at me.
I could see the hurt on his face. The snap judgments that my father had made had stung. They had stung me too. I couldn’t believe my dad had done that. I knew that losing the scholarship was a big deal. I wasn’t naive. But I could work to make up the difference. I didn’t mind working during school. What I did mind was that it suddenly felt like I had to choose between my parents and James. That was the hardest part of all. I didn’t know how the afternoon would go. But I had never expected this. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I had made the decision to be with James. And I wouldn’t let my parents belittle him like this. He didn’t deserve that. I took a deep breath and grabbed James’ hand. “I think we should probably go.”
I only saw it for a second. But it had definitely been there. A flash of relief. He hadn’t expected me to choose him. I hated that he didn’t believe in me. Or us. Hopefully this would be what he needed to finally understand that I wasn’t just going to abandon him. He meant everything to me.
“Wait,” my mom said, breaking her silence. “A break from what, James? Why did you need to start over?”
“I felt empty in New York. I needed a fresh start. Teaching helped with that. I wish that the circumstances had been different. But Penny is my fresh start. She made me feel whole again.”
“I do understand,” my mom said. She looked at my dad. “Penny was right. We were her age when we fell in love. I’d like to think that if the circumstances were different for us, we’d still be together. Please don’t go, Penny.” She paused and looked over at my dad. She gave him a pleading look. “Peter, say something.”
“So that means your last name is Hunter?” my dad asked.
“Yes.”
My dad sighed and sat down. “James Hunter, the founder of Blive Tech International. I didn’t realize you had taken a sudden career change into teaching.”
“I needed the change.”
“You know, I actually own stock in your company.”
“You do?”
My dad nodded. He put his hands together on the table and looked down at them for a second. “I’m sorry. It’s just… Penny’s our baby.” My dad didn’t look angry anymore. He just seemed sad. He looked older than I remembered. As if this conversation had aged him. I had never meant to hurt him.
“I know,” James said. “I understand that you’re just trying to protect her. And I truly am sorry about how this happened.”
“You can’t really understand until you’ve had children of your own.”
They were both silent for a second. Both their apologies seemed to be enough. The tension was slowly seeping out of the room.
“So, your relationship was written about in the paper?” my mom asked.
“Yes, there was an article in the paper this morning,” said James. “If you read it, you should know that it is not accurate.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s mostly from my ex wife’s point of view. And it implies that there will be charges of sexual misconduct from other students I’ve had. And from Penny. That’s not the case.”
“Okay.” My mom took a deep breath. “What happens now?”
James ran his hand through his hair. “It’s really up to Penny. I’ve advised her to drop Comm. Unfortunately, the way that the information was leaked about our relationship does not make it easy going forward.”
“I think it’ll all die down if I ignore it. I just want things to go back to normal,” I said.
“This whole thing has been blown out of proportion because of my name. Under other circumstances, it would not have gotten as much press as it has already. Normalcy is a long way off.”
“So you resigned because of the allegations?” my dad said.
“They gave me the option to stay if I was willing to terminate my relationship with Penny. I wasn’t willing to do that. Resigning was the only option.”
“That’s very romantic,” my mom said.
I smiled to myself. It was romantic. Everything James did was romantic. Even dragging me here to tell my parents about the situation. He did it because he cared about me. He wanted us to have a future together. And he didn’t want our future to involve keeping secrets from my parents.
James squeezed my hand and then pulled my chair back out for me. I felt so relieved. My parents seemed to understand. Love was love. All the messy details didn’t really matter. And I felt so relieved, like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest. I sat back down and so did James.
“And if things can’t proceed as normal, what then?” my dad asked.
“Honestly, I’m not sure what the backlash is going to be like,” James said. “The blame for this lies on me, not Penny. It is my understanding that the University of New Castle will make that clear. If things don’t go smoothly, she can always apply for different schools next semester.”