“Oh, pickleball.” I gave myself a shake. “I’ve played before, but I’m afraid I’m not any good.”
“Then you’ll fit right in! Between you and me, Professor Du Bois is a far better orator than he is an athlete. But we would be grateful to have a fourth, regardless of your skill. And it would help relieve some of this stress that I can see you’re carrying around.”
“I… I’ll think about it,” I said. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
Professor Galloway smiled. “It can be lonely being an educator. I do hope you’ll join us.”
I slumped back in my office chair after he was gone. If my stress was obvious to my colleagues, then it was becoming problematic.
And I knew it was only going to get worse.
My mind kept going back to the worst case scenario: being outed publicly. The University would have disciplinary hearings. My conduct for the past two semesters would be scrutinized. Everyone would discover my dirty secret.
And then, after I had experienced a sufficient amount of public humiliation, I would lose my job.
That was the scenario that played in my head when I tried to sleep. The more time went on, the more I realized I would do anything to avoid that happening.
And I was afraid that if I didn’t respond to the accuser, they would go public with their information. They probably just wanted money. I could make a deal with them. Buy their silence.
The thought made me feel like I wassomewhatin control of my fate.
That small kernel of an idea grew in my mind until it seemed like the only logical path forward. By Saturday night, a full eight days since the email, I couldn’t stop myself.
I replied to the accuser.
42
Lila
My response to the accuser was a simple one.
I’m ready to talk. Meet me at Frankie’s bar tomorrow night at 7:00pm.
I tried to sleep, fighting the urge to check my inbox every five minutes. Instead, I checked it every ten. But they still hadn’t replied.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but the first thing I checked the next morning was my email.
The accuser had replied to my email with two words.
Come alone.
A shiver ran up my spine. After spending a week terrified of this anonymous person, getting a new message from them was like getting a phone call from a serial killer.
It was the longest Sunday of my life. I paced around my living room and checked out my window every ten minutes. I ran a load of laundry, vacuumed my entire house, then folded andput the laundry away. I tried grading papers, but my eyes kept reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over.
Without any other way to relieve my stress, I met Professor Galloway at the park for pickleball. I was awful at it, but so was Professor Du Bois, and it helped me release a lot of energy that had been building up.
“You look like the weight has been lifted from your shoulders,” Galloway mentioned as we walked back to our cars afterward.
“This helped,” I replied.Until you mentioned it again.
That evening, I got to Frankie’s an hour early and sat in a booth over in the corner where most people wouldn’t see us. Brock wasn’t working tonight, and it felt like a personal betrayal for me to be here without him. I ordered a beer, but only took a few sips. Every time the door opened, I almost jumped out of my seat.
Would it be one of my students, or another member of the faculty? I couldn’t decide which scenario I would have preferred.
I wished I could text the guys about this, but I knew they would disapprove. Worse, they would probably want to do something macho like show up and get in a fight with my accuser. That would only make the situation worse,andit would potentially get them in trouble. It would be deeply ironic if my students received an up-close tour of the Tennessee justice system thanks to their Criminology professor.
While I waited for the accuser to show up, I began catastrophizing about the entire situation. If I somehow got out of this with my job intact—a very big if—I couldn’t keep doing this. I would need to cut things off with Jace, Brock, and Cam.
