Page 29 of Bachelor

“Do you feel fulfilled here?”

“I guess so, yeah. It’s not what I thought it would be.” It was a lot more complicated than I anticipated, that was for sure.

“Because of Whitney?”

I went totally and utterly still. “What do you mean?”

Tyler exhaled and leaned back, resting the back of his head against the bench behind him. “I’ve known her since we were teenagers, did you know that? Doubt it, doubt she even knows we went to same private NYC school meant for kids with enough money to buy into the Ivy Leagues. She was in my grade, too,” he laughed. “Anyway, we had a few classes together over the years, especially toward our senior year. But I was a jock. I played lacrosse, basketball, any sport I could that had a ball I could chase or someone I was supposed to push over. I joined a frat and lost myself for a few years to that culture.”

He sighed heavily, continuing, “I remember my sophomore year when Christian came to campus. He was a freshman, but you wouldn’t know it just looking at him. He was huge, a bully, bullied his way to team captain of the lacrosse team within a year and then took over our frat like the dictator he is to this day. But he was different around women.”

I wanted to ask what he meant, but I wasn’t in the position to say anything.

“He set his sights on Whitney. She was the same as him back then—popular, powerful, good at everything she did, but she was a lot softer than people realized, and he was able to get into her head. I think for a while, she wanted the things he did. Marriage, a family, a big house on the coast. To attend parties with champagne towers and gold crusted cutlery. But she snapped out of it her senior year. He wouldn’t let go, and when she started pulling away, I watched him manipulate her and her parents until he had her trapped.”

Anger started to course through my veins.

“Anyway, I graduated, and that summer I heard from some of my lacrosse buddies that Whitney had turned down his proposal. She dropped off the map until this past semester started. A lot of us were shocked to see her back. Girls from families like hers don’t come back for graduate degrees. They’re all married by the summer after their senior year, if not sooner. I came back for graduate school and found I was cut off by my old friends, my old frat brothers and teammates. They alienated me because I wasn’t wearing a stuffy suit and tie and sitting on some board, overseeing a company I was underqualified to lead. I had nothing to offer them, they thought. Neither did Whitney. She hasn’t spoken to any of sorority sisters, did you know that? They don’t come near her. It’s like she has a scarlet letter.”

I forced myself to swallow. He continued to stare absently at a far wall on the other side of the pool. “But all of that didn’t start until she dumped Christian for good and publicly humiliated him and then essentially forced him to marry Nicole.”

“Why are you telling all of this?”

“Because you were the reason she finally stood up to him, weren’t you?”

“Tyler, I don’t know what you heard—”

“Whitney told me everything.”

My stomach sank. “Why?”

“Because I overheard Christian threatening her outside the library tonight and I got between them. I asked if it was true. She told me it was, that you guys had a love affair last semester but that nothing is going on now. I just thought I’d ask you as well.”

“This could get her in serious trouble if anyone were to find out. She’d be dropped from her program in a heartbeat, Tyler. You can’t say anything about it.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you—”

“I’m not talking about me. I don’t care what happens to me. This is about protecting Whitney. I messed up. I shouldn’t have put her in this position.”

“It was just a hookup,” Tyler said with a shrug. “I’m sure that happens all the time here.”

“It wasn’t just a hookup,” I protested, my voice dropping an octave.

Tyler finally looked over at me, his eyes settling on mine expectantly.

“I was in love with her.” It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. “I loved her, and I had to end it, and I was an asshole about it.”

“What happened?”

“What do you think, Tyler? She was my student, and I allowed this mess to happen against my better judgment, putting us both in a situation where we could face serious consequences. We agreed we had to end it after we spent Thanksgiving break together, and it hurt more than I can even put into words. We came back to campus and tried to pretend like nothing ever happened, and then I—I kissed her, in Hollis Hall. Jessica caught us, and thank goodness it was her and not someone else. After that, I stayed away from her until Christmas break, when I left her a note telling her to meet me at the airport. And I... Instead of telling her what I wanted to say, instead of telling I loved her, and I would find a way to make this work, to fix it, I told her we couldn’t do it. That there was too much risk. She drove all the from Jersey, and the look in her eyes...” I tapered off, shaking my head in defeat. “She didn’t deserve to be jerked around by me. I’m just as bad as Christian.”

“You’re not.”

“I am, I really am. I’ve spent this whole semester so far thinking about her, trying to find a way to get her alone so I can say everything I want to say. But I can’t apologize enough for the way I handled things, and I’d rather she just hate me.”

“I didn’t know it went this far.”

“Oh, trust me,” I breathed. “It gets worse. She’s my TA, now we’re stuck together until she graduates. Then what? We move on? Act like it never happened? I know I’ll never be able to get over her, and I’ll regret that the universe put us together like this and then forced us apart.”

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