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“Yeah. Oh, shit. Now she’s pretending I’m nothing more than her student and is pushing away all my advances.”
“I’m sure the college has some policy against romantic teacher-student relationships. She’s probably just afraid of putting her career at risk.” Ryan said.
I took a large gulp of whiskey. “I do understand that. But we’re both fully grown adults, and I really think there could be something between us.”
“Well there isn’t really much you can do here. Either drop out or you both take the risk of getting kicked out the college.” Graham said, laying it flat-out honest.
I was afraid of the feedback because I knew what it really came down to. Maybe I just had to let it ride out and let fate do the talking. Or I could take the helm and get creative.
6
KRISTEN
Itended to be a creature of habit when school was in session. I would have liked to say I was the kind of person who naturally sprang up out of bed early in the morning, ready and raring to go, and was able to just stand in front of my classes and teach without preparation.
That was not me.
I was driven and strongly work-focused, but somehow that ambition didn't send the memo to the parts of my brain that would make several alarms and a highly structured morning routine necessary to get me going each day. To keep myself organized and make sure I actually managed to make it to class on time with something to teach, I had to stay on track. Which meant getting up with way more than enough time to get ready, going over my class plans for the day, then sitting with coffee and two eggs over easy on toast while I read through my emails and sifted through news.
My egg yolks were perfectly runny, and the funny article I'd just read about people trying to hack their lives and failing miserably had put me in good spirits the next morning when a new email popped up in my work inbox. I went to it and saw the subject line indicated a student had dropped my class.
That wasn't totally unexpected. The early parts of the semester usually had a lot of shifting around happening on class rosters.
I didn't take it personally. Not usually, anyway. Not until that morning.
Camden had dropped my class.
I read through the email a couple of times as if I hadn't gotten those messages before and might not know what it said. There was no explanation. There never was. It was just a statement that he'd dropped the class and I now had an open spot in my roster.
Good, I told myself. It was a good thing he'd dropped the class. That was the right thing to do. After our conversation the day before, he'd thought about the situation and made the decision that was most appropriate for both of us.
That was what I kept telling myself as I finished up breakfast and drank another cup of coffee for good measure. However, for some reason, I couldn’t let it go and snooped around trying to find out if anyone had any insight.
It took most of the morning, but eventually I find out that Camden hadn't suddenly decided that going back to school wasn't what he really wanted and just dropped all of his classes. He'd only dropped my class, and he replaced it with the same course, taught by a different professor.
"What did you do to him?" Greg asked with a laugh when he told me Camden was now registered in his course.
"Nothing," I said far too quickly and with more defensiveness than was strictly necessary in the situation. The startled expression on his face made me rebound. "He was late to the first day of class."
Greg nodded, understanding the frustration that comes when students disrupt classes by coming in late. I didn't think I had a particular reputation for how I reacted to these situations, but the way he reacted told me I might.
"Well, I'll see if he manages to be prompt for today's class and I'll let you know," he said with a laugh. He lifted his coffee cup toward me in a toast. "See you later."
I forced a smile and waved, then headed for my office. This shouldn't be bothering me. I shouldn't have a problem with him switching to another professor. As a matter of fact, I was fairly certain I'd told him to do that. Or at least strongly insinuated it would be a better idea if he wasn't in my class.
I didn't want to admit that it bothered me, or how much it bothered me that it bothered me. I shouldn't be so concerned about a man I barely even knew. Someone I met in a bar and then ran into a few times on campus before he happened to end up in my class. It wasn't exactly a close friendship we had going. It was even a bit of a leap to say we’d met at the bar. I kissed him. We exchanged a few words. He helped me pry my drunk-ass friend off a stage. That was it.
The entirety of our interactions with each other was a few exchanges, a tenuous plan to meet at the bar, and a showdown where I may or may not have accused him of stalking me. That wasn't the kind of thing I needed to cling to. And yet, I couldn't shake the unpleasant feeling him leaving my class gave me.
For the rest of the day, I stewed on it. But that was all I was going to allow myself. I needed to stay focused on my classes, my volunteering, and everything else going on in my life. I couldn't let this trip me up. Over the next couple of days, I found myself glancing around when I walked around campus, seeing if I might catch a glimpse of him somewhere. When I didn't, I pushed him into the back of my mind and kept going.
The beginning of the semester was much like any other. Some students did great right from the start, and some were in need of help nearly from the first moment of class. It was those students that had inspired me to become a tutoring mentor. There were student tutors available, but I'd found some students didn't respond well to their peers helping them. That was why I started offering my services for specific situations.
I got my first appointments by the second week of class, and by the third week, every slot I offered was booked. It was almost a relief when one of the appointments got canceled. I thought I was going to get a couple of hours to myself to catch up on some things and try to get ahead if possible. But that plan didn't last. Less than an hour before the time slot was to begin, I got a message that someone had filled it at the last minute.
Letting out a sigh, I opened the note to see what the student needed from me. My heart thumped in my chest when I saw the student's name. Camden. I'd managed to keep him out of my mind, or at least at the very edge of it, for more than a week now, and now here he was, right in my face again. I couldn't cancel the session. It was too close in time, and there were policies in place to prevent that from happening. There was no choice but to go through with it.
Bracing myself for gritting my teeth and getting through the session, I went to the assigned library study room and set up my materials. The note on the signup form was vague. It said he needed help with a paper. That didn't really give me much information on what he was having trouble with, or what he thought I was going to be able to do to help him, so there wasn't much I could do to prepare.
