Page 34 of Given Our History

“Yes, she’s twenty-one. Barely,” I add with an admonishing look in the rearview as we roll down the dark street toward campus. I’m not sure Reagan notices—she’s too busy staring at Teddy, a funny look in her eye. And that’s when it hits me, seconds too late. It’s not actual vomit I should be worrying about.

It’s word vomit.

“Maybe this is weird to say,” Reagan slurs, folding her arms and leaning forward on the center console so that her head and shoulders are fully in the front seat, “but my friends think you’re, like, the hottest professor on campus. Has anyone ever told you that?”

I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her, but then she might throw up for real. “That’s inappropriate,” I cut in. “And put on your seat belt.”

“I’m wearing it.” To emphasize the point, she hooks a thumb under the overextended shoulder belt and lets it snap back into place.

The look on Teddy’s face is somewhere between amusement and embarrassment. His gaze snags on mine and my stomach does a backflip. “Ah, no,” he says. “They haven’t told me that.”

Reagan’s eyes are wide as saucers, though the haze remains. “Well, they should tell you. Clara, tell him.”

“I’m not going to—” I stop short, huffing in indignation. There’s no point even arguing with her. She’s drunk.

She pouts at me. “I don’t understand why you’re being so weird about it.”

Teddy’s curious gaze flits from Reagan to me. “Weird about what, exactly?”

Well, that’s a loaded question, one that I have no intention of answering, but I’m also not sure how to brush it off without seeming suspicious. In the interim, Reagan tries to lean forward, but I come to a stop sign and her seat belt locks. She flops back into her seat. “You need to sit down,” I order. I’m not saying I stepped on the brakes harder than normal, but I’m also not not saying that.

“Fine,” she says, belligerent. “Then I’ll say it from back here.” She takes a deep breath. “Professor Harrison, you should know—”

“That’s enough, Reagan—”

“—that my sister is most definitely in love with you.”

I sputter a laugh, as though that could ever diffuse the tension that settles over the car in the wake of that simple statement, all the memories I’d shoved to the very back of the archives, left to collect dust. I am not in love with a man I haven’t spoken to in over a decade. I hardly know him. But I did love him once, in my own way. And maybe that doesn’t ever go away completely.

I pull into the parking lot and park in a faculty space. Reagan can’t possibly know everything she’s dredged up, but she tries to resolve it with a lot of drunk babbling that I only half hear—oh my god, I was just kidding, you should see the look on your face, that sort of thing. The person I wish would say something is Teddy, but then again, what could I possibly expect him to say? No, you’re wrong, Clara’s not in love with me and she never has been? I throw the car into park and glance over at him, tentative. He’s watching me, his brow lightly furrowed, like he’s trying to work something out.

“Thank you for the help tonight,” I say, my voice tight. I clear my throat. “And I’m sorry.” I jerk my head at the back seat. “For my sister.”

“Hey!”

He shakes his head. “You don’t need to apologize.”

Now that we’re no longer moving, Reagan pops up between the seats again. She swipes a lock of tousled blond hair out of her face. “This isn’t going to affect my grade, is it?”

Teddy tears his eyes from me to give her an appraising look, like he’s actually considering docking a few points. After letting her sweat for a few seconds, he concludes, “What my students do on their own time is none of my business.” He unbuckles his seat belt, but pauses with his hand on the door handle. “Just—don’t bring it to class,” he amends, quite seriously. I’m not sure if he’s referring to the drinking or the whole Professor Hottison thing. Maybe all of the above.

Reagan nods once, gives him a sloppy little salute. “Yes, sir.”

We exchange a quick good night and he leaves without any of the usual hesitation—we’ve finally established, it seems, that we’re not on hugging terms. I watch his retreating back and wonder whether we ever could be again.

The hardest part about loving someone is, in my experience, stopping. Maybe because I’ve never had to grapple much with the opposite, with choosing to keep on loving them despite everything. There was never much choice involved, for me. Falling in love was like falling asleep on a road trip: you let yourself get comfortable and then suddenly you wake up and you’re already there. Falling out of love, in contrast, was like a car crash: you slam on the brakes, but you don’t just stop, because the momentum is still there. And years later, you might’ve recovered, but you still have the little aches and pains, and maybe you’re a little scared every time you hop back behind the wheel, because look what happened before.

I back out of the parking space and turn down one of the dark campus drives, lost in thought.

“I’m not wrong,” Reagan says, breaking the heavy silence. I toss a glance at her in the rearview. Her face is shadowy in the back seat, but I don’t need to see her to know what she’s referring to. I heave a sigh. I’m not sure I have the energy to keep denying it.

CHAPTER13

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

“Stop looking at it,” Izzy ordered. “You’re making me antsy.”

It was an especially dark and blustery November, the sidewalk cold where we sat with our backs against the stucco wall outside Baltimore Premier Cinemas. That year, I’d gotten my driver’s license, finally convinced my parents to add me to the cell phone plan, and Izzy had dragged me to the midnight premiere of The Twilight Saga: New Moon. We’d camped out since two that afternoon, until only the lights in the parking lot and the orange glow of a Fantastic Mr. Fox poster illuminated this side of the building.