Page 84 of My Unfinished Heart

“No… no. I want to remind you life is good. You just achieved a huge goal. You’ve got a gorgeous girlfriend, your best friend made it back in one piece. You’re all right. All right?”

Am I? I yank at my tie. It’s way too tight.

He straightens the loosened version, looking me in the eyes.

“I’m glad you’re back,” I mumble at him.

“You should be. Past is past. Time to move on.”

“Right.” I take a breath.

“You’re all right,” he reminds me.

“I’m all right. Thanks, brother.”

He and I descend the spiral staircase, and we both stop at the classroom door.

I run my hands through my hair. I remember this feeling. The unsteadiness, the uncertainty—the plank.

When I woke up this morning, I knew this was the day my life would change, but I am more nervous now than I was sitting before that doctoral committee, because this is the real dime my life is spinning on.

With a glance into the room, Tristan is an explosion of light as everything else fades to gray. It reminds me so much of the day on the hospital patio. How I couldn’t see anything but him. How does he still have so much power over me? He’s been gone so long.

My eyes lock on his, and he visibly startles. I catch my breath, blown back by the memories. Before I can get a handle on my facial expression, he’s already blinked and looked away.

Can I do this? Can I pretend this is any other day? Or will I fumble my words like I’m fumbling my thoughts, flip the slides backwards instead of forwards, drop the battery pack of my microphone down the back of my pants? I can feel him in the air around me—like he’s inside me. I am incapable of shutting it down.

How did I do it that summer? How did I convince myself that my feelings for him had been alcohol-fueled and imaginary? That they’d been based on a lie. His lie. They obviously weren’t, because those same feelings are running rampant through my entire body three and a half years later, stone cold sober. The reality is I mourned him, and I have missed him beyond all reason. If nothing else proves it, the aching tug in my heart does. Like it’s been there all along. I mistook it for something else. Disappointment maybe, or inertia. But it’s Tristan.

It has always—always been Tristan.

Which is patently ridiculous. I don’t believe in any of this shit. I don’t believe anyone is meant for me any more than I believe I’m meant for someone else. So why, then, is this pull so fucking painful? Why the fuck haven’t I felt even a shadow of it since he left? I’m reminded of the clawing sensation that needed him so badly that one night—that had to be closer—had to take everything. I told myself then it wasn’t love or anything like it. It was too ugly and messy to be love.

But it’s scratching at me again, the claws ready to come out.

West brings my attention back to him with a hand on my shoulder. “What are you gonna say?”

“I’m gonna tell him…” I close my eyes and take another shaky breath. “It’s nice to see him again.”

I start class, and except for losing my train of thought a few times, the slide show moves forward as it’s supposed to, the hands of the clock sweep around, my mic stays where I put it, and I manage to regurgitate my knowledge of early Renaissance art without anything too embarrassing happening.

When the class ends, my anxiety surrounding Tristan’s persistent presence rises. There’s a huge part of me that wishes I’d never seen him again, but there’s another part that’s louder screaming don’t let him get away. In that respect, it feels exactly like he’s about to move to Houston. I am bombarded with students with questions, but I catch Tristan’s eyes, needing him to read my mind. Needing him to wait for me.

But he doesn’t wait. He gets up and leaves, and I am crushed. It fucking crushes me. I’m a total dick to the people who separate me from him. It takes a good five minutes to extricate myself from them, and I leave the room intending to go up to my office and bang my head against the wall.

But there he is. On the stairs. I stop where I stand, gathering my words—my stupid, scrambling longing that hasn’t learned a damn thing.

“Remember me?” he asks as I start my approach, my heart hammering in my chest.

He’s older, and he’s changed a lot. The quality of his light is dimmer. It makes him easier to look at.

“I said I would,” I say standing before him. After all this time.

“You said a lot of things.”

“So did you,” I say meaningfully.

He clears his throat and sits up straighter. “You should know that in the course catalog it didn't list you as the professor of this class. It just said “Staff.” I wasn't trying to ambush you. I didn’t do this on purpose.”