“Not your fault.” She stares at me with a critical eye now. “Why do you look like a raccoon? When did you get home last night? Where did you even go?”
I’m terrified, panicked, a statue of shame and guilt. I went and offered myself up to our married professor because I thought he was lonely like me and I thought extramarital sex would be just the thing to cheer him up.
Oh God, I can’t even say it in my head without wanting to kick myself.
“I-I just…went out. For a walk.”
“With all that makeup on?”
Oh yeah, the makeup. Along with grooming myself, I also attempted to put makeup on. It’s all ruined now.
“Um, yeah. I do that, sometimes.” I stand, unable to bear her shrewd eyes. “Do you wanna get coffee? Let’s get coffee.”
Emma knows I’m hiding something but doesn’t push, just leaves to get changed for our coffee run. Thank God. If I have my way, last night will be the only secret of mine for a long, long time to come.
________________
It’s night again. Emma is sleeping in the next room. She’s still mad at Dylan, even though I’ve tried to reason with her. Dylan was just being a caring boyfriend who wanted Emma to give her mom another chance. I called Dylan and he told me that it was simply a casually thrown idea that got out of hand. One of those arguments that escalate, unexpectedly. And now, even he doesn’t want to talk to her.
I’m trying to go to sleep but I can’t do it. I can’t fall asleep.
I’m staring at the ceiling, trying to stay put, and then my phone rings. A gasp catches in my throat and I have to shoot up to a sitting position to be able to breathe. It’s Thomas. It’s his office number.
I’m too shocked to pick up the call and the ringing stops. It’s visceral, the loss I feel at a mere missed call, but…he’s never called me before. I jump up from the bed, shed my pajamas, don a skirt and t-shirt, pile on my winter gear, and I’m out the door.
Like last night, I run and run and don’t stop until I’m at the Labyrinth. I climb up the steps and reach Thomas’ office door with an urgency I didn’t have last night. I turn the knob and it gives, exactly like yesterday, and I enter.
This time, Thomas is sitting on the chair, staring at the phone on his desk. He jerks his eyes up when I close the door. I’m panting, drawing in difficult breaths as his gaze tangles up with mine. It’s angry, furious, blazing, as if he’s on fire.
He takes in a sharp breath and stands, nostrils flaring. My heart is pounding. It doesn’t understand the role it needs to play. Should it be afraid or thrilled to be the subject of Thomas’ intensity? Can it be both?
“I told you not to come back here.” Though his voice isn’t angry like last night, the cutting edge is still there. It still manages to stutter my breath and douse me in shame.
“You called me,” I tell him, angry and aroused.
Thomas rounds the desk and advances on me. “So?”
“So why did you do that if you didn’t want me here?” Another step toward me and I press my spine to the door. “Well? Why did you call?” Before I can stop myself, I add, “A-And if we aren’t anything to each other, why did you…”
He stops in front of me. He is close, too close, and I’m caged between him and the door. All of this is déjà vu, repeated history. I can still hear his words. I can still hear him telling me we are nothing to each other. That’s what hurt me the most.
“Why did I what?”
I lift up my chin, even though I want to shrink into myself. “Why did you make me come? If you hate me so much, why did you do that?”
Thomas puts his palms on either side of my head and strains down on them, bringing his face extremely close to me. “You think I hate you?” A short laugh escapes him, resembling the bark of an animal. “I don’t hate you, Layla,” he grits out. It sounds exactly like he hates me.
“So you like me?” I squeak.
My na?ve question seems to have angered him more. His face is red, the vein on his neck bulging out. It’s scary.
“God, you make me so fucking mad.” He shakes his head. “Do you think this is a joke? Huh? Do you think we’re in high school? Do you think I’m going to kiss you and make out with you and take you to the movies or something? Is that what you think, Layla?”
“N-No.”
“Then what do you think is going on here?”
“I don’t…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You got a fucking tattoo for me. You came to me naked. You can’t seem to stop throwing yourself at me.” He mocks me, and my eyes water. “Are you telling me you have no clue what’s going on here?”
Tears spill and track down my cheeks. I hate him. I hate him so much. This is what he does to me—pulls me forward one second and then pushes me to the ground the next—but this time, I do the pushing. I put my hands on his chest and push him away with everything I am. He doesn’t budge.
The nerve on his jaw jumps and he cradles my wet cheeks. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” He wipes my tears off with his thumbs. “Do you have any idea what I’m going to do to you? You don’t want this, Layla. You don’t want me to touch you.”
I curl my palms on his chest, fisting his shirt. Regret clouds his features, dulling the aggression in his eyes. “Why not?” I ask him through the tears.
“Because you’re going to regret it. You’re going to regret what happens if you don’t leave. You have to stop coming back.”
“But you called me.”
“You don’t get it, do you? I’m not a nice man, Layla,” he warns.
“I don’t believe that.” I fist his shirt tightly. “You’re just lonely, like me. Lonely and brokenhearted.” I let go of his shirt and caress his heated, chiseled jaw and cheeks. “You can touch me, Thomas. I won’t regret it, I promise.”
He shudders under my touch, as if coming apart. This is the most vulnerable I’ve seen him. But then he steels himself, goes rigid. I’m afraid he’ll push me back and send me away, but he hauls my body flush with his.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He breathes over my lips. “When you regret this—and I know you will—just remember that you asked for it.”
In the next second, he puts his mouth on me and I forget my every thought.
I stand naked in the middle of Thomas’ office, bare except for the pair of polka dot ankle-length socks on my feet.
The only source of light is the lamp sitting on the desk, illuminating my meager curves. There’s a shadow of me on the wall. I wonder what these walls have seen. Is it something new to them? A girl—a student—naked and horny in this room. Has this ever happened before? For a second, I can’t imagine any other girl feeling like this for her professor, as if I’m the only girl in the history of this college, in the history of this world, to ever feel this way.