“I didn’t love teaching. The only thing I think I’ve ever truly loved is you.”
“I don’t want to hold you back from…”
“Stop. Please stop. I don’t understand why you won’t accept what I’m telling you. You’re all I want. You’re all I care about.”
“I just feel so selfish.”
He rubbed my tears away with his thumb. “You’re it for me. I don’t know how else I can tell you.” He ran the tip of his nose down the length of mine.
It comforted me whenever he did that.
“If you’re going to keep going to class, you need to ignore what other people say. Because I don’t like seeing you cry.”
“That wasn’t it. That wasn’t what made me cry. It just got worse from there.”
It looked like he was in pain. He didn’t like when I was hurting. But I needed to tell him everything that happened. He was right, there couldn’t be any more secrets between us. Not now, when we needed each other more than ever.
“I got to Psych late because I was upset about what I heard in the bathroom. The professor called me out and asked me to talk to her after class. No one wanted me to sit with them. Luckily Tyler had called one of his frat brothers who had saved me a seat.”
James didn’t look upset when I mentioned Tyler this time. “I’ll have to thank him for that,” he said calmly.
“After class I went to talk to the professor. She told me my grades were slipping. Which I already knew. But she implied that she thought I had been getting perks in my other classes because of our relationship.”
James sighed.
“I told her I had gotten to class early, but had been hiding in the bathroom because I was trying to avoid hearing what everyone was saying about me. And she basically said that she wasn’t sympathetic and wasn’t friends with you, so that she would have no problem failing me.”
“What is your professor’s name?”
“I don’t want you to talk to her. I feel like that will just make it worse.”
“You know that I can find out without you telling me.”
Of course he could. “Professor Thornton. But please don’t talk to her. I’m going to get my grades back up. When you weren’t talking to me I just fell apart. But I have the rest of the semester to fix it.”
“Okay. I won’t talk to her. Honestly, I don’t even recognize her name. I don’t think I’ve met her. There probably isn’t anything I could do anyway. I don’t know that many professors outside of the business school.”
Professor McCarty. James would know him. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do when I told him. But I had to tell him. I couldn’t go back to that class. And I couldn’t go to the dean. Professor McCarty had made that very clear.
“My intro to marketing class was the worst. It’s what made me cry. I didn’t expect anything like this to happen. I didn’t expect any professors to even talk to me. And I was already upset about everything else. I got a paper back in that class. I got a C-. So when Professor McCarty mentioned an extra credit assignment, I wanted to do it. But apparently he had already explained it in the class I missed on Wednesday. And I hate raising my hand in class. It makes me all nervous and…”
“I know.” James picked up my hand and kissed my palm. “You ramble when you’re nervous too. It’s incredibly cute.” He kissed my palm again. He looked down at my hand. “It’s okay. I want you to tell me.” It was like he knew that I was about to tell him something bad. He already looked upset. Or maybe he was just upset that I was nervous to tell him anything.
“So, I waited till class was over and went up to ask him what the assignment was. He pulled out the paper that it was on and asked me to come behind his desk so he could explain it to me. I had never really talked to him before. I sit in the back row. I usually get As on all my papers and tests. I never had any reason to talk to him.”
James was running his thumb up and down each of my fingers.
“He put his hand on my back when I went behind his desk. I didn’t know what to do. I thought he was just being nice. I felt kind of frozen. I thanked him for the extra credit assignment and told him I had another class to get to. But he said he thought we might be able to work out some kind of arrangement that would be better. And he put his hand on my ass. And I didn’t know what to do. I told him to stop. I eventually slapped him. But he grabbed my wrist. He said he had more connections than you at the university, so it would be more worth my time. I told him that I was going to report him to the dean. But he said that if I told Mr. Vespelli, he’d say I had come on to him. Somehow he knew I had two strikes. He knew I’d be expelled if I got in trouble again.”
James dropped my hand and sat up. “Did you want to stay here or do you want me to drop you off at the apartment?” He got off the bed and began to tie his shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to go pay your professor a visit.”
“James, I don’t want you to do anything to Professor McCarty. That wasn’t why I told you about it. I need to know what to do. I can’t go back to that class.”
“He touched you.” James stood up and stared down at me. He looked so angry. I had made him mad so many times. But not like this.
“And I slapped him.”
James shook his head. “I’m going to kill him.”
“James!”
“He shouldn’t have touched you!” His voice was loud. People in the rooms next to mine could probably hear him.
“No, he shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t mean you should kill him! He didn’t even know that we were dating. I just want you to help me switch classes. I just don’t want to see him. And I don’t want to be expelled. I don’t want you to hurt him. The last thing I want is for you to do something that’ll get you in more trouble. I just don’t know what to do.”
James looked down at my left hand. “Marry me.”
“What?”
“Let’s get married.” He ran his hand through his hair. “And move somewhere where no one knows either one of us. We can start over together.”
“James, you just told my parents a few days ago that you weren’t ready to get married. You just got divorced. This isn’t what you really want. You’re just upset.”