I scoffed. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
He took a deep breath and blew out a loud stream of air. “Let me start over. We’re able to be professional to each other during class, so why create all the extra work for yourself by requesting a new thesis advisor? Most professors will want to put their own touches on your work, and you’ll wind up with rewrites for months.”
“I guess you prefer to put your touch on my work in a different way.”
From his tone, I could tell Caine was losing his patience. Which is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to piss him off...wanted to get a rise out of him in some way. Our ending had been too anticlimactic. It made me feel like I’d never been worth his energy. And that just sucked.
“I’m trying to be professional, Rachel.”
My spine straightened. “So am I, Professor. If it was my choice, I wouldn’t be your TA or have you as my thesis advisor. I could request a new thesis advisor without raising suspicion since we hadn’t worked together that long and you weren’t my original advisor. But I couldn’t come up with a reason to be removed as your TA without raising suspicion. I thought telling them we were fucking before and now we’re not might not be the most professional way to handle things.”
Caine raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry for hurting you, Rachel. I don’t know how to fix things and make us go back to friends.”
“We were never friends, Caine. And as far as fixing things, it takes two to make any relationship work. We can’t fix anything, because only one of us knows what was broken.” My voice softened. “I still don’t understand what was broken.”
The crack in my voice on the last few words brought Caine’s eyes to mine. I wanted to stare him down, shoot angry daggers at him, but when I looked deep into his eyes, all I saw was hurt.
In a moment of weakness, I allowed my heart to show. “What happened, Caine? Why did you cut me off? We were fine one day and then the next…”
Instead of looking away like he’d been doing lately, Caine allowed me in for the briefest of moments. Our gaze locked, and I saw inside of him—the man I’d met was still in there, down deep. I’d started to think I’d imagined who he was since it had all disappeared so quickly.
“You’re an amazing woman, Rachel. You deserve better.”
One minute I was vulnerable and soft, and the next I was impervious and hard. I stood abruptly, losing my equilibrium and almost losing my footing before I steadied myself. “You don’t get to tell me what I deserve. I get to choose what I want.”
Caine stood and grabbed my elbow as I went to turn. The loud clank of the heavy classroom door opening echoed through the empty lecture hall. Voices followed behind it as students began to filter in for the next class. I waited, curious to see how important keeping me in place would be to him.
It hurt all over again when he just let go.
“Think about it, Rachel. Don’t cause yourself extra work just because you’re mad at me.”
Even though the students were at the top of the hall, I leaned in to make sure no one could hear. I might have also done it for effect.
“Go fuck yourself, Professor,” I whispered in his ear.
“Talk to me.” Charlie leaned his elbows on the bar. He was done for the day, but still hanging around. I’d suspected he was waiting until the last afternoon stragglers called it a day.
The dryer cycle of our dishwasher had stopped working a year ago. Charlie had no intention of fixing it. Oddly, that worked for me—especially today, since I found the motion of wiping down glasses soothing. I pulled a dripping soda glass from the crate I was working on and shoved the dishtowel inside.
“What would you like to talk about? Current events? Music?”
“Don’t give me that, missy. You know what I’m asking.”
I smiled at Charlie, completely aware of what he was asking. “I’m not sure I do.”
“You’ve been moping around here for a week. What’s going on? Boy trouble?”
Charlie was tough on the outside, but had an ooey-gooey soft center. It was one of my favorite things about him.
“Everything’s fine, Charlie. Just a busy week is all.”
He shook his head. “You’re full of shit. Twenty-eight years on the job. I know when someone’s full of shit.”
I was about to deny it when I thought of something. “How can you tell when someone’s full of shit? I mean, what are the telltale signs?”
“There’s body language that can give you an idea on most people, if you pay attention.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there are the obvious ones—the person won’t look you in the eyes, they get fidgety, they touch their mouth or face. Although most good liars know those signs and work to control them. There’re smaller things that are better indicators. For starters, their shoulders sometimes rise a bit. It’s because their breathing gets a bit shallow when they lie, and that’s the body’s natural reaction to the change in breaths. Some also stand rigid still. When people are talking, they have a natural sway to their body. But when they lie, they lose that natural comfort. Aside from that, there are hints in speech—like saying the same words or phrases repetitively. “I didn’t. I didn’t.”
“Interesting.”
“Who’s lying to you?”
I exaggerated raising my shoulders and repeated myself. “No one. No one.”
“Wiseass.”
Charlie cared about me, and I knew he wouldn’t pry too deep into things like Ava would, so I was honest with him. “The guy I was seeing broke things off. I get the feeling he’s not being truthful about why.” I sighed. “Maybe I’m just looking for a reason that doesn’t exist because of my own ego. I don’t know.”
“We talking about that professor?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to know whether his heart’s still in it or not? You’re thinking there’s some crap in his head that doesn’t reconcile with what’s inside his chest?”
I nodded. “I guess so.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out if a man who’s running the other direction really loves you.”
“What’s that?”
Charlie looked me in the eyes. “Move on without him. A man comes to his senses really quick when he thinks you’re not waiting around for him anymore.”
Caine
I was full of shit.
Only this time, I was lying to myself, too. The department chair had emailed to ask that I do a write up of my observations on Rachel’s thesis project to pass around to the other professors to help solicit a new advisor. I’d been dragging my feet to give her a chance to reconsider, and now I was using it as a reason to see her—pretending I needed to turn it in fast when I had no intention of doing any such thing.