But… I have to talk to him. I have to figure this out, because between my conversation with my grandma and the image of Professor Levine’s face caught just behind my lids… I know I have to figure out how to make this work.
And maybe the first step in doing that is just making sure I can still be in the same room with him without spontaneously combusting.
That will be good. If I can manage that, then I can probably handle figuring out how to get through the rest of the semester without disaster striking.
And what if I do? What if I get through the semester and my chest still feels like it’s going to implode every time he looks at me?
What if he keeps telling me howgoodI am…
What would happen if I actually let him know how much I liked it?
That’s the possibility that scares me the most. Professor Levine seems like he’s so astute, so perceptive. I’m afraid if I’m not careful—very careful—he’s going to look right through me and see that what almost happened at Mask is something Iwant.
I want it more than I have words to articulate… and a small part of me knows that he wanted it too, or he wouldn’t have offered. He wouldn’t have let me into his classroom again.
Which means that somewhere, somewhere in that realm of what-if and possibility is a world where I don’thaveto hide how I’m feeling.
Somewhere there’s the what-if of the things that would happen if I just…
If I just told himyes.
I’m so caught up in possibilities and fantasies that I’m not looking when I bump into a broad body as I round the corner. As much as I want it to be Professor Levine, I know better. I don’t even raise my eyes as a smooth voice drips across my skin, slimy like pond scum.
“Oh, hey there, Luca. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
That’s been by design. I stare at Professor Hilman’s stupid shiny shoes and don’t look up when I answer. “I’ve been busy.”
It’s not a lie, but…
“So busy you can’t take a few minutes to visit with your favorite professor?” The way he says it makes my entire bodyjerk. My heart feels like it’s going to jump out of my chest, my entire body threatening to seize up. Just hearing him talk, being this close to him, smelling his stupid cologne as it spills through the air is enough to jerk me back to freshman year.
His body pressed against mine, his hand drifting down the back of my jeans—his mouth hot and demanding and wrong as he forced his tongue between my lips and I?—
When I feel his fingers trace my jawline, I jerk back like he slapped me.
Usually I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I know myself. I’d be frozen in fear and shame and lost in memory.
Lost in thought.
But…
Come to me if you need anything.
How much do you want to forget? What’s up there that you want out?
Everything.
I want to forgeteverything.
“I have to go,” I mutter, surprised that I’m able to speak at all.
“Why? Maybe we could head back to my office? What do you think? It could be nice to catch up.”
Catch up.
I know what he means by those words—poison on a snake’s tongue, and I…
I have somewhere to be.
