Page 8 of Hot for Professor

Oh God, he knows about the blog. How? It doesn’t matter how. This ruins everything. The tears start but I shake them away.

“That’s just something from my past,” I say. “Please, you’re—”

He cuts me off with a harsh laugh. “From your past? You updated it last night. In quite vivid detail. I hope I gave you enough to work with for your next entry to the saga.”

“It’s not like that,” I plead. “That blog is stupid and meaningless to me now.”

He looks at me like I’m something revolting. “Yes, it is,” he agrees. I begin to shake from the fury in his voice. “And I’m sorry I ever met someone who could write it for so long.”

He averts his eyes and walks quickly away from me, disappearing into the night. I know it’s over—it must be over. Something cracks inside me; I think it’s my heart. How did it come to this? When I get to my room, I’m crying so hard I scare my roommate, who for a moment thinks I need emergency medical care.

“I’m not sick,” I tell Jen. “I just need to be alone.”

She looks at me worriedly but finally grabs her laptop and leaves, telling me to call her if I need anything. But there’s nothing she or anyone can do to make the pain go away. I curl up on my bed and sob, knowing I brought this agony on myself.

Chapter 8

Adrian

Rosalie left me heartsick to the point I couldn’t teach—I would just stand in front of my class, numb and silent, when I was supposed to be lecturing. A few of my students looked at me like I was going crazy. They weren’t totally wrong.

Christ, what a nightmare.

Thus, I requested some time off and retreated to my summer cabin, out in the woods. It’s so nice this time of year; I love to sit on the porch and stare out over the lake in the afternoon, listening to the buzzing of the insects in the green reeds. The air is luminous and golden; a breeze brushes against my cheeks.

Even with the time away, I still can’t shake her. I don’t understand it. I should have been able to free myself of her after I got my revenge and fired her, but the look on her face that night haunts me even as I sit in my wicker porch chair, ruminating.

The warm air and sunlight are dappling through the trees—all the nature in the world, it seems like—can’t erase that look. Neither does staring at the words on my laptop screen on the table in front of me. It took all my strength to walk away from Rosalie that night two weeks ago, and it takes all my strength each day that I’m herenotto drive back to the campus and give her another chance.

It’s ridiculous, of course. She’s probably over me already—probably laughing about it to all those followers on her blog. I haven’t checked. Frankly, I don’t want to know. I only go online to back up my work once a day. If anyone wants to reach me, they’re shit out of luck; I don’twantanyone to reach me. Sorry, anyone. I haven’t turned my phone on since I got here and I’m not checking my emails. All I do is write.

That’s the only good thing to come out of this heartache: it’s gotten me writing again. Five years ago, I had a breakout first novel, but I couldn’t find another book in me untilthishappened. Now the words are flowing again, and I already have a hundred pages of something that I think will be quite well-received. If I can just fucking man up and show it to my old editor, anyway. It’s raw, personal, and was always inside me. It just took Rosalie to break the dam and release it.

I pull the laptop closer and sigh, writing until the sun goes down and I’m left in the dark. The mosquitos are out and beginning to swarm, so I grunt, lift myself up, and drift inside to make a lonely dinner. Just some pasta with sauce from a jar, a handful of frozen shrimp, and some lemon zest—but when I set it down on the table and try to eat it, I can’t. I scrape it back into the pan, step onto the back porch, and backhand it into the lake. It splashes mutely a few yards out. Let the fish have it. This loneliness is killing me.

But is it loneliness? I’ve lived alone since I graduated college. No, I’m not lonely, I realize. I just miss Rosalie. I laugh bitterly. A girl I barely knew has somehow stolen my heart and soul. I miss talking to her. Her presence is so bright; she was always so cheerful when she’d come to work in my office. And, of course, she isincrediblygoddamned hot. How could Inotmiss her gorgeous body—which she gave me so freely, and with such abandon?

After I plug in the router to back up my writing for the day, I can’t stop myself from visiting that foolish blog of hers that made me throw away something that might have changed my life for the better. It may have also ruined me, but I’m so miserable now that I don’t know how if losing my job over her would’ve been worse. I want to reread her innocent fantasies about me while I think about the day I fucked her senseless and made all those dreams come true.

But the blog is no longer there. Instead, it’s a blank page with a simple message at the top:

I’m sorry, but I won’t be updating anymore. It was all a terrible mistake.

I’m stunned at how disappointed I am to be unable to connect to her in this small way. This is an unexpected blow. I put my head in my hands.It was all a terrible mistake.

Does she mean the blog, or giving herself to me?

Oh God, amIthe one who made the mistake in running away?

Chapter 9

Rosalie

I go to my classes like a zombie, always immediately holing up in my room after each one. Professor Hayes took a leave of absence, so I can’t attend the new class of his I signed up for, but I’m not sure I could have gone to his classes anyway without wrapping myself around his knees in front of everyone and tearfully begging him for forgiveness—so it’s, um, probably for the best. I miss seeing him so much I’m barely able to eat or sleep. I feel like I’maddictedto him, and each day I spend without him feels like I’m going through withdrawal. I hide my tears from Jen because she’s already worried about me enough. Every day I wake up thinking the pain will finally subside, but it only gets worse. I reallyamin love with Professor Hayes. My heart is truly broken, and I did it all to myself.

The poor man didn’t stand a chance with the way I acted. He even felt the need to take time off to get away from me. The fact he despises me now makes it all worse. If only he hadn’t seen the blog! If only I hadn’t written the horrible thing in the first place! No matter how badly it hurts now, however, the one thing I’ll never regret is our time together.

I send him another text message: the twenty-first one. I’ve sent one for each day he’s been gone. I started them out trying to explain how sorry I was, then I tried admitting and explaining my feelings. Now I’m just simply offering another apology. I start to tell him how much he’s missed by the other students and teachers, and that he should come back and I’ll drop his class and stay away—I don’t want him giving up his life for me—but I delete the last part because I don’t think it’s true. I wouldn’t be able to stay away.

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