CHAPTER 22
Nate
With the door barely cracked to my office and the lights turned off, I stared at the computer screen, the monitor lighting my face. Staring. But not seeing. Knowing that she was only a few walls away was agony. A weight deep in my stomach was a constant reminder of how I had royally fucked up. It didn’t matter if it was with the best of intentions; I had disrespected Mara. There was no excuse for that. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling of letting Mara down. One of the few people I actually cared about.
Cared about? If I was willing to change careers at forty-three, with tenure practically in my grasp, as stupid as that decision may have been to others, it was more than caring about her. So much more. I was in love with Mara. A student. A pupil. Someone I should have forgotten long ago. I should have stuck with my impulse, told her no, I would not do the contest. Because if I knew anything, I knew trouble when I saw it. And then trouble came walking into the Afterglow, determined to prove me wrong.
And she had proved me wrong. For the first time in years, Mara had shown me that I was wrong about her. That I was wrong about myself.
I loved her. It was as simple as that.
But I was old enough to know better, to know that Mara was young. She was better off without me. Now that she had been introduced to the world of BDSM, she could explore, experience the things she desired, rather than doing it with me.
I should have asked Mara, should have convinced her that submitting her paper elsewhere was the right thing to do, but I wouldn’t take it back.
A woman’s voice sounded through the hallway, but it wasn’t Mara. I sighed.
Perhaps I had been too hard on her, pressured her too much.
Maybe I should have let her figure it out. Without me.
No. I couldn’t take it back, and I wouldn’t. I loved Mara. Because if Mara had taught me anything, it was to do what I wanted. Don’t hold back. To take each day as if it were your last. And that’s what we did.
And what I wanted now was to never do the same thing to another student again. No more opposing papers. Support students. Nothing else.
And now, with respect to Mara, I would give her the space she needed to grow.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.Zaidblinked on the screen.
“Have you heard from Hazel?” Zaid asked. “Grant isn’t answering his phone.”
Normally, I’d make a joke that Grant wasn’t his employee anymore, but a friend. But it didn’t feel right to make a joke.
“No,” I said.
“Are we on for the morning tomorrow?” he asked. I knew that I needed it. A couple of days had gone by since I had last spoken to Mara. We had resorted to clipped emails only relating to academics. Like it should have been.
“What’s up?” Zaid said. “What’s bothering you?”
“I haven’t spoken to Mara in a few days,” I said. “Things ended poorly.”
“What happened?” A door slammed shut, the sound echoing through the corridor, and I imagined Mara doing that, taking out her anger in the action. “Hazel can reach out to her. See what’s going on.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head to myself. “It’s my problem.” My mess. My mistake. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he said.
A notification alert came from the computer: a reminder for my tenure review in a few minutes. Checking my email, there were only two read messages: confirmation of the follow-up interview at EDCSN, and Mara’s last message. As far as I knew, EDCSN hadn’t made a decision yet. Even if I didn’t get the position at EDCSN, even if Mara hated me, I would find a way to get a face-to-face appointment with Florence Berkley and make sure that Mara met her idol.
I gathered my portfolio. Though it was not on the way to the Humanities Director, I went by the graduate student offices. The door to Mara’s office was open, but there was no noise within. I pushed it open: the light on her desk was on, the copy ofThe Death of Powerturned face-down on her desk.
I don’t know what I was expecting. But seeing the book like that made the room seem truly empty. Mara hadn’t cared to put the book in her bag. A flash of her crossed my mind: clutching the shredded strap of her bag in the library, earbuds blaring in her ears, looking down the aisles of books at me. Her round face. Her pink lips.
I turned off the light on her desk and closed the door. I adjusted my grip on my portfolio and headed to the Humanities Director’s office. This was the moment I had been waiting for. Before Mara, I had thrown myself into academia as a way to forget the loss of truth. If there was no truth, and I could prove it time and time again, all while securing the unattainable goal of tenure that academics craved more than anything, then I would win.
And then what?
I clutched the portfolio. There wasn’t a grand prize waiting for me if I was offered tenure. I didn’t need the stability. All I had needed when I started this journey was the ego boost. The security in the fact that there was no truth.
