5
The whole class is like a fever dream.
Wyatt keeps speaking words, probably important ones, but it’s like my brain is made of oatmeal; I don’t process a single thing he says. He doesn’t look at me the whole time. Every time he scans the class, his gaze jumps right over me and onto Michal, as if I occupy a black hole, as if G-d just clipped this random fourth-row seat on the sixth floor of the Parker visual arts building right out of existence.
I kind of wish I actually were invisible. Life in the soul-crushing core of a black hole is probably better than whatever awkward-as-fuck conversation Wyatt and I are gonna have after this class is over.
What is wrong with me? How did I end up in this situation? Normal people don’t. I have never in my life met another human being who accidentally had a one-night stand with their professor. This is not a thing that happens to responsible people. This is a thing that happens in sitcoms.
How am I going to survive an entire summer like this? How are either of us? Is he going to be able to take me seriously nowthat he’s seen me naked? Am I even going to be able to learn a single word in this class when I’ve seenhimnaked?
But then I hear Wyatt’s voice say, “Ely,” and I glance up, and he’s finally looking back, his eyes on my eyes, and he says, “Please stay after class for a few minutes.”
Shit.
I haven’t felt guilty in front of a teacher like this since I was a teenager and got caught using an unfiltered phone during Midrash class. At least Wyatt is unlikely to call my mother.
Still, Michal arches her pierced brow at me as we pack up our things. She graciously doesn’t ask me why Wyatt knows my name; it’s not like he took roll or anything. And she doesn’t ask what I did wrong.
I wonder what I’d tell her if she did.
The other students filter out the door, some of them casting curious glances at me over their shoulders as they go. I pack my things away slowly, lingering over the clasp on my bag like delaying this interaction will somehow make it better.
“Ely.”
When Wyatt says my name, all I can hear is the way he said it last night, low and soft, sweet as honey. I close my eyes for a moment, digging my nails into my palms. Then I make myself look.
He stands at the front of the room, one hand braced on the edge of the table and his weight shifted over onto his left foot—uneasy. Or maybe just embarrassed. He looks the way I feel, like I want to break apart into my component atoms and disappear.
I make my way up to the podium. He seems to be having trouble meeting my gaze; his eyes keep flicking down and to the left, as if to stare at me is to stare directly into the sun. So, obviously, I keep my own attention fixed on his face. One of us will refuse to be embarrassed about fucking the other one.
“Hi,” I say. “I feel like I know you from somewhere.”
His cheeks flush a dull red. “Did you realize? Before?”
It takes me a solid fifteen seconds to process what he’s trying to say. And then once I do, I’m embarrassed all over again. It’s not like New York is positively littered with guys named Wyatt, after all.
“I couldn’t hear you in the club,” I admit. “You kept saying your name, but I couldn’t understand it, so I just…went with it. I didn’t know you were—well—you.”
Which is the truth, but once the words are out of my mouth, they don’t sound all that convincing.
“I see,” Wyatt says. “There’s nothing to be done about it now, and obviously neither of us—that is, we didn’t expect— What happened happened, and the important thing is…well. It can’t happen again, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I echo.
He must have taken that as agreement because he clears his throat and nods, even if he still can’t quite look me in the eye. “The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable, so…”
“Do I look uncomfortable?” I ask, and so what if it comes out flirtatious? Idowant to fuck him again.Gladly.
Wyatt sighs and—finally—meets my gaze. I can practicallyseehim piecing together what he wants to say to me, pulling the guise ofresponsible, grown-up, sober professorover himself like a cheap Halloween costume.
“I can’t have power over you after what happened,” he says. “It’s not right.”
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
He shakes his head, lips pressing into a grim line. “That’s not good enough. I’m sure you’re a wonderful person—but my career and my reputation mean everything to me.”
What a slap in the face. He says it as if he justassumesI’d want to continue the relationship. As if I’m some silly girl with notions of forbidden love floating in her head.
