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“What?” I say dumbly. “What do you mean?”

“I said it was a mistake,” he says, harder now and he glances up at me, just for a moment, just enough for me to see how coldly serious he is.

“Alright,” I say uneasily. I swallow down bile. “You think it was a mistake. Do I dare ask why?”

He sighs and straightens, running a hand over his face. “I’m your professor. You’re my student. What happened last night shouldn’t have happened and it most definitely can’t happen again. I take responsibility for it, I do. The responsibility is mine, not yours. I took advantage of a situation when I was in a position of authority, and the correction is on me, and the correction is this…” he meets my eye, “we don’t do it again. We return to an academic, scholarly relationship. Starting now.”

“You don’t really mean that though.”

“I do.”

I shake my head. “You’re scared. That’s natural. I was scared too, at first, you know. But I think we can make it work. I think what we feel for each other, at least what I feel for you, I think it’s worth the risks. I think it’s worth…pursuing,” I’m babbling now, sounding desperate. “I think we just need time to figure out how this can work and then we figure out how to keep it a secret and one day I’ll graduate and this won’t be an issue anymore. Then we can be together and…”

I trail off, because I realize how I sound. Not just desperate but ignorant. I want to convince him, I want this conversation to go the other way, I want him to realize I’m right about this and he’s wrong.

But now that the words are out, now that he’s staring at me with a look on his face that borders on pity, I realize I may have had this all wrong.

I’m the one who thinks what we have is worth fighting for. I’m the one who wants to be with him no matter what, who sees the potential of our future.

And he’s the one who maybe never saw a future at all.

I’m suddenly very aware that I’ve come across so strong and that his feelings for me might only be a fraction of what I feel for him. I feel a bit smaller now, a little embarrassed, and I clamp my lips together to stop myself from saying more.

“Saturna,” he eventually says, his voice low. “No.”

And then I’m walking around the slab toward him, figuring if I can get my hand on his coat, if I can get close enough to let him look at me, touch me, feel me, he’ll remember who I am and he’ll remember who we are and he’ll change his mind.

I close the distance and get my hand around his wrist just as he tries to step back, thinking that maybe I can do it again, maybe I can reach into him and hopefully not see that screaming shadow again, but instead what’s actually making him afraid, or at least discover what his true feelings are.

But I only get his pulse going fast under my thumb, and the cold of his skin. I don’t understand my own gift. I don’t understand why it had come for me that first time and hasn’t come since, not when he kissed me by the seawall, not when he was inside me on a headstone, and not now when I need it most.

He pulls his wrist free.

“Saturna, don’t.”

“But—”

“No,” he says firmly, holding his wrist at his side. “I know what you’re looking for, and what you’re looking for is the truth. I’m telling you the truth. What happened was a mistake. I should not have kissed you, let alone had sex with you. But that’s over now and we can only learn from it. It can’t happen again.”

I stand where I am. My hands drop to my sides. The way he stares at me is the way he stares at his students, the grumpy professor, and with a sick realization I realize that’s what he is now, and a student is all I am to him.

“What happened to you?” I whisper.

His nostrils flare in annoyance. “Nothing happened to me.”

“Something happened to you.”

“I came to my senses. That’s all. I spent last night out of my mind and I spent this morning finding it again. I’m passing on these findings to you.”

I swallow hard, unable to let it go. “That’s a lie.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is. Baz. Look at me. You look awful, and it’s not just the words you’re telling me. I can tell you didn’t sleep. I can tell, deep under everything, that you’re scared and it’s not just of me, or this situation. It’s something else.”

“No, you’re looking for something that isn’t there.” He bites his lip for a moment, as if holding back something. “I came to my senses. That is all there is to it.”

Ouch. That one hits right between the ribs.