Page 11 of Brat Baby
I readjust on the bed so that I have one leg hanging off the side and turn to face all the gifts that are scattered over the comforter. Well, all of them except my phone, bracelet, and backpack. And the clothes still in the duffel.
My graphite pencil set and sketch pad.
The gift card for more art supplies.
There is also a purple… wait, is that the vibrator from the fitting room? And restaurant? And car?
A closer inspection confirms that, yes, it is the vibrator that Hudson controlled with his phone. I drop it into the lingerie bag and try to forget that it even exists.
Just thinking about the fitting room, the restaurant, and then the car ride home hurts.
And the Build-A-Bear box from Xavier.
He bought me a bear. A bear for me to keep.
Everything inside of me tightens, my throat aches, and my eyes well with another round of fucking tears.
What the fuck even happened this morning?
Like… why couldn’t they give us a minute to talk? Why was Derek so angry? If being a student was such an important piece of information, why didn’t they just ask?
I… I don’t get it.
Sure, I tried to hide the fact that I grew up in the system from them, but that was purely self-preservation. My status as a student is way less interesting and a much easier piece of information about myself to give up.
Like, sure, now that I know they work at the university, I’m a thousand percent sure that there will be something somewhere that says teaching staff can’t conduct an illicit relationship with a student. And I’m doubly sure it would be even worse, given I’mtheirstudent.
Surely something like this has happened before, right? There is absolutely no way that a member of the teaching staff hasn’t had a fling, a relationship, or something else with a student. NU is hundreds of years old. There is zero chance of it being scandal free.
But what were the consequences? Were those relationships ever found out? And if yes, who took the bullet? The teacher or the student?
Reaching for the Build-A-Bear, I run my fingers over the odd-shaped box. It’s kind of like a milk carton and has a house drawn on the outside with a little viewing window for the bear inside.
Carefully, I open the top of the box and peer inside. All I can see is wiry gray fur. Reaching in, I pull the softness from the box and then stretch it out over my lap. Once I have it all kind of anatomically correct, I can see that the bear has patches with stitches on it, like it was a well-loved toy that needed mending.
The heaviness in my chest swells impossibly as I trace the patch over the heart.
Grabbing the box again, I pull out a bag of fluff, a little cardboard box, a sewing packet, and then a… birth certificate?
Discarding the first few items, I scan over the certificate, my throat squeezing uncomfortably tight as I take in all the details, like the date of birth—Saturday. Full name—Theodore Nicholas, (Teddy). Height, weight, eye color, fur color. Belongs to—Emery Nicholas. And then the last line.
Stuffed with love by—Emery Nicholas.
I flip the card over and there is a handwritten note on the back.
For the nights that I can’t be with you.
Xavier.
My throat burns with more unshed tears.
Fuck, I need to get a grip. It was just a weekend. One mind-blowing, eye-opening weekend. But that’s all. Like, it wasn’t even forty-eight hours. They don’t love me, and I don’t love them. All we have is a bunch of shared orgasms and a shopping spree.
Eyeing all the parts that I’m now realizing I need to use to build this bear, I carefully pick up the little cardboard box, since the stuffing and sewing kit seem pretty self-explanatory.
Cracking open the plain white cardboard, I find instructions.
You can choose to place your bear’s heart with its recorded sound wherever makes sense to you. We suggest a paw before you add the stuffing or the chest after the stuffing.
