I bolt out of my chair. “God, no!”
Terror pumps rivers of adrenaline through my racing mind. This is really happening. Caiden is going to lose his job…maybe go to jail. It’s all happening because I didn’t leave him alone when he asked me to.
I could have walked out of class Friday night instead of waiting for him. He wouldn’t have come to the slam. He wouldn’t have taken me home.
He wouldn’t have taken me home.
And the single most intense experience of my life would never have happened. It’s the most selfish thought I’ve ever had, but that was the most real night of my life.
“There’s nothing for you to be ashamed of,” he says, standing from his chair, as if he thinks it’s impolite for him to sit while I’m standing. “You are a child. You were taken advantage of by someone in a position of authority. None of this is your fault.”
But it’s all my fault. I’m the one who pulled my bra out my sleeve every evening between class and seeing Caiden in the library. I’m the one who made the first move and kissed him. My hand was in his pants before his was ever in mine. But telling that to Professor Duncan isn’t going to help.
“Caiden didn’t do anything wrong.”
His eyes widen. “Miss Leon,” he says, his tone turning from sympathy to admonition. “Even if he was not my graduate student, had I found any student in the position I found him in, I would have had him removed from campus. The fact that he was your mentor only makes the offense that much more egregious.” He picks up his phone. “Let me at least call your parents to come for you. This has been a traumatic experience. I don’t believe you should be driving home alone.”
“I’m fine to get home on my own. My car is in the student lot. And I’ll talk to my mother when I get there.”
He sets his desk phone down and pulls his cell off the clip on his belt. “What is your phone number? I want to call after you’ve had the discussion with your family.”
I give him my cell number because there’s no way I want him talking to my parents without having to go through me first. He types it into his phone then lifts his desk phone again.
“I need a security escort for a student from Benton Hall to the student parking lot. And then I need you to confirm that Caiden Brenner is out of the resource center on the fifth floor of the library and off the university grounds.”
He stands and walks with me to the front of the building. “I’m so sorry for my role in this, Blaire. I can’t undo what happened, but rest assured, I’ll do everything in my power to make this right for you. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m really okay,” I say, and try harder to sound like I mean it. “He didn’t make me do anything.”
Sympathy slips over his features again and I want to slap it off his face. “Talk to your family. When you’re ready, I will give you the name of our counselor.”
A uniformed security guard pulls in front of the building in a golf cart and Professor Duncan nods to him as I descend the stairs to the sidewalk without another word. He doesn’t speak and neither do I, and when I get home, I give Mom a wave on my way past the family room and go straight to bed.
In the dark of the room, cocooned under the sheets, I finally let myself feel everything I’ve been struggling to keep at bay. I feel the heavy dread in Caiden’s eyes when he realized we’d been caught. The weight of it sinks me halfway through the mattress. I feel Professor Duncan’s sympathy and the security guard’s curiosity. I feel paralyzing shock tighten my chest and force the air from my lungs. I feel the press of cold fear grip me first by the stomach, making me feel sick, then by the throat. And last, I feel aching emptiness. Because, wherever I go from here, it’s going to be without Caiden.
When my phone vibrates with Professor Duncan’s call, I don’t answer.
∞
I’ve spent every minute of the two days since Professor Duncan caught us in the library either on the phone with Caiden, or waiting for the other shoe to drop. When I’m called to the school office in the middle of second period AP calculus, I know it has.
Principal Elbridge meets me outside her office, and from the practiced sympathy ingrained into her features, I know she knows.
“Blaire,” she says, laying a hand between my shoulder blades and guiding me to her closed door, garnering a curious look from the administrative assistant at the reception desk as we pass through the outer office. “I’m sorry to pull you out of class. If it wasn’t of the utmost importance, I wouldn’t have. There is someone who needs to speak with you in my office.”
She opens the door into the cluttered space and a woman in a green blouse and black slacks stands from the chair next to Principal Elbridge’s desk.
“Blaire Leon?” she asks.