All day I’ve been seething over what happened in Thomas’ class, so much so that once my other classes are over, I trek back to the north side of campus and inside the Labyrinth. The building is as alive as ever. I wonder when these people even go home. It’s almost five in the evening and I can still hear the thumping footsteps above—the theatre crew. Fucking hippies.
I take the flight of stairs to the second floor, which is similar to the first floor with its long hallway and flanking rooms. A few are classrooms, but mostly this floor is for faculty offices. I stop at the last door. It sits right above our classroom downstairs and reads, Thomas Abrams, Poet in Residence. I grimace. More like asshole in residence. The door is ajar and I push it open.
Thomas is sitting in a high-backed chair, pen poised in his hands, head bent over a bundle of papers. He looks up as the door opens.
“Miss Robinson. Did we have an appointment?”
I enter and close the door behind me. “No.”
“Then you should make one and come back later.” He goes back to reading the paper in front of him.
If he doesn’t look up any time soon, I might throw something at him. By the looks of it, it’s going to be the small Tiffany lamp sitting by the door on a polished wooden stool.
“What was that?” I release a pent-up breath. “You humiliated me in class.”
For the longest time, all I hear is the scratch of his pen, and all I see is the dark hair on his bent head. My hand creeps up toward the lamp, almost touching it. I’d do it too. I’m that mad and that fearless.
At last, he is done. He sets the pen aside and looks up. “And when was that exactly?”
A laugh of disbelief breaks out of my lips. “Are you serious right now? You fucking humiliated me, tore my poem apart like it was some…some…” Dammit, I can’t find a word for it.
His fingers are laced together on the desk and with inscrutable eyes, he watches me struggle. “Like it was some what?”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I swallow the scream that itches my throat.
“No.” He stands up and walks around the desk, leaning against it. “I don’t enjoy being cornered for giving my honest opinion. Maybe you didn’t understand the first time: this is a creative writing class. If you can’t take the heat, then get out. Besides, aren’t you not in my class already?”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I bring my backpack around to my front and fish out the printed document. I walk up to him and pin it to his chest. “Here, my official registration confirmation. I am not a trespasser anymore.”
He lets the paper float down to the ground where it lands next to his boots. Fucking boots. I have no idea why I am so obsessed with them—and his hands.
“Is there a purpose to this visit?”
I focus on his face. “Yes.”
“And what exactly is it?”
I stare at the slant of his jaw. The stubble over his face has grown thicker over the course of the day. It casts a shadow that contrasts with the brightness of his eyes. Twin blue flames. There’s so much anger in them—anger, irritation, frustration.
I should be wary of him. I should want to stay away. But I don’t.
Thomas Abrams is a wounded animal. It’s a wound of the heart, bleeding and gaping. It makes him snap out and snarl.
I want to…lick him like I did his words. I want to kiss him.
Holy shit!
My broken heart wants to kiss him better. Stupid, idiot heart.
Swallowing, I lick my lips, studying the curve of his. I want to suck on those angry lips, vacuum his plump mouth between my mouth, my teeth, until the anger drains away and only his fire remains.
I breathe out misty breaths. They thicken the air. Under my gaze, the pulse on his neck jumps rhythmically, like my heart. I want to suck on that patch of skin too, soothe it. I want to suck the pain away from his heart.
Oh God, I’m crazy. I’ve lost my mind.
My mouth is dry even though I’m slippery between my legs. A wrong and dirty sort of quickening rises in my stomach.
“I have to go.” I pant like a fool and lift my eyes up to his. His gaze is searing. It burns through my flimsy cover. The tic in his jaw is violent in conjunction with his flared nostrils. He’s ready to kill, the wounded animal.
I gulp and back away. My registration slip crinkles beneath my boots, sounding like a gunshot in the silent but charged room.
“Writing is not for everyone, Miss Robinson,” Thomas says when I’m almost at the door. “It takes a certain depth of soul, a certain sort of sensitivity, if you will. Not very many people possess that. It’s good to know when to give up.”
I don’t know if he’s taunting me or telling the truth, and I don’t have the energy to find out. My lust has made me stupid, more stupid than I normally am.
“Thanks for the advice, Professor.” I turn to look at him. “But depth is misleading from the surface. Sometimes taking a plunge is the only way to find out if the water is too deep or just deep enough.”
We stare at each other. I don’t know what he sees when he looks at me. When I look at him, though, all I see is someone brokenhearted. I see him trying to catch his wife as she slips. I see him following her, like I did with Caleb.
I wrote that poem for you.
Thomas locks his jaw in a clench and walks back to his chair. The legs squeak as he sits down and his hands get busy sifting through the papers.
I turn around too, facing the door. Right next to the Tiffany lamp I was planning to throw at him lies a black, sleek book. In my anger, I hadn’t noticed it before. It’s the same book from the bookstore—A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes—though this copy is old and frayed.
As I step out of his room, I stick my hand out and swipe the book. I cradle it to my chest and walk away.
________________
Sitting in bed with Lana’s voice blasting through my headphones, I open the first page of the stolen book. It holds a message in curly handwriting.
To Thomas. Hope you enjoy reading this piece of literature (again) that no sane person can understand. Love, Hadley.
I run my fingers over the smudged ink while picturing scenarios in my head. I weave a story in which Hadley and Thomas have been dating for a year now, and it’s his birthday. Hadley gifts him his favorite book, a book he’s read countless times before. He’s surprised, happy, and he kisses her like she is his greatest gift. Gentle, tender kisses. Kisses worthy of a queen—not the kind I want and probably deserve, filthy and rough and messy and wet.
With a sigh, I focus on the pages that have been yellowed, flipping through them. Every once in a while, I stop when I see a passage underlined or a word scribbled. Agony. Fire. Passion. Loneliness. Destroyed. Crumble. Burn. Sleepless.
The letters are straight and clear, severe, like Thomas, but there is an extra swirl in his esses, making them playful, somewhat soft. I want to keep touching them, want to lick them.
Then all at once, my heart stops beating.
Unrequited.