The words were dehumanizing, yes, but it was more than that. It was that people, even this man Ian Hoult, thousands of miles away, seemed to know and be disgusted by this fact. It was that she was just one of the grad students, one face in a series of who knew how many. She knew this, she had known this, had learned this was his pattern. None of it was a surprise... and yet.He fucks his grad students.
How long would she feel this way? It wasn’t as if she was sitting around grieving. She wouldn’t even describe what she was feeling as missing him, now that she knew what he was. Graydon Lyons had been endlessly captivating, and he had made her feel smart and interesting. She had seen things with him—the world behind the curtain that separated writers like him from everyone else—and she had loved that. She had loved him. But Graydon Lyonswas also a miserable, emotionally stunted narcissist, and she was glad to be free of him.
No, what she felt was some mixture of shame and self-loathing. If people knew she was not only one of the grad students but alsothegrad student from the book... God, she could die. She no longer felt that her stomach was going to expel its contents but just the opposite—as if her stomach were a great, yawning ravine she herself was in danger of falling into.
“Hi.”
She turned to look at Whit, framed by the glowing white shape of the house behind him and the dangling café-style bulbs above. The mugs in his hands were overflowing with steam, and she took one gladly as he lowered himself to sit by her on the steps.
“Jeez, it got cold.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Merritt took a heartening sip.
She looked at Whit, who seemed tentative, careful. Was he embarrassed, too, now that he had figured her out? She was almost certain he had figured it out.
“It’s me.”
Saying it felt like passing a kidney stone. She had to get it out.
Merritt turned her head from Whit to stare across the shadowy yard as she spoke.
“The Graydon Lyons book. It’s about me.”
She felt him waiting next to her.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
Whit shifted positions. “I had an inkling. With where you went to school and that stuff about the bad breakup. And then when Ian brought it up, I could just tell...”
Merritt threw her head back.
“I’m in hell.”
Whit laughed, the barest wisp of something compassionate escaping through his nose.
“Only I could tell, I promise.”
She looked at him then, and he gave her a gentle smile whose meaning was illegible.
He fucks his grad students.
“Well,” she sighed, “that’s good, I guess. God, that Ian man is annoying.”
“A wretched human being,” Whit agreed. “These days, at least. We used to be friends, and he used to be all right. A little snooty, but in a funny way, and it didn’t matter as much because he didn’t have the fame to back it up. It’s harder to overlook haughtiness when there’s an actual reason for it.”
He scanned the darkness in front of them. Was he being respectful? Avoiding her glance? Was he worried he’d catch some sort of disease from her?
Oh, she was embarrassed. He was embarrassed, too, it seemed. She gripped the warm mug in her hands, a lifeline, and then said the horrible thing out loud.
“We weren’t just fucking.” She winced. “Ihatewhen people use that word like that. But that’s not what it was. We were in love. Or I was at least. God.”
She winced again.
“That sounds pathetic. He would probably say I threw myself at him or something, when really, he went after me.”
She was saying too much. She looked at Whit and immediately found she could not bear the weight of his soft, sweet glare.
“I just mean, it meant something to me, and then I realized what I was becoming when I was around him, and so I ended it.”
