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ChapterEight
Emelia
I barely get any sleep on Saturday night. We get back from the bars late and everyone crashes, but I stay up in my room, illuminated by the light of my laptop screen. Since I left Professor Barclay’s office on Tuesday, I’ve been procrastinating what needs to be done. I have to drop ARC 521, now more than ever. I’m determined to figure out a way to do it without falling behind in my major. It’s horribly complicated because we’re already well into the semester and because I need to maintain my enrollment in most of my classes while adding on an upper-division architecture seminar. I was planning on taking the seminar class in the spring, but I can’t now because I’ll be taking ARC 521 then. I switch things around and try to configure it so I don’t overload myself on one day more than another, but there’s no way around it. This semester is going to suck.
By the time it’s all said and done and I’ve dropped Professor Barclay’s course, I can barely keep my eyes open. I fall asleep with my laptop on my chest and jolt awake at six AM.
Professor Barclay is the first thing on my mind.
Specifically, thoughts of what he did to me, his hand sliding into my panties…
A wave of hot embarrassment engulfs me.
I still can’t believe I let that happen. He must assume all kinds of things about me now, must think I’m the kind of girl to follow her professor into a bathroom and throw herself at him. I wonder if he thinks that was my way of trying to persuade him to let me remain in his course, or perhaps to ensure a perfect grade.
Mortified, I shove my laptop aside and burrow deeper under my covers, opting to stay in bed until well past noon on Sunday.
Unfortunately, though, my hiding place doesn’t erase my tormenting thoughts.
Professor Barclay is there, pressing in from every side. I tell myself to forget about the exchange and erase the dirty act we did, but my body won’t comply. It wants a replay. No, anencore.
It realizes something I don’t.
What happened in that bathroom was the single most exciting thing I’ve ever experienced. The boys I’ve fumbled around with for the last few years never came close to eliciting desire like that. The wicked way Professor Barclay spoke, the dirty things he made me do…my heart quickens as I realize how scared it makes me to think of how unlikely I am to experience anything like it ever again.
Sonya was right earlier—Owen was boring in and out of the bedroom.
I tried to spice things up with him once. I spent more than I should have on a lingerie set. I set up his apartment with candles and curated a sexy playlist. When I heard his keys jangling in the lock, I stood in position so I’d be the first thing he saw when he walked in, and it worked flawlessly. He pushed open that door, took one step inside, and froze.
Then, he broke out into peals of laughter.
Shame and rejection fissured my heart. I wanted to grab a blanket and cover myself, but I made myself stand still, trying to save the last dregs of my dignity.
“Sorry. God, sorry,” he apologized. “I just can’t take you seriously like this.” Instead of walking to me, he went over to the speaker I’d set up and turned off the music before blowing out a candle. “C’mon, Emelia. You don’t have to do all this for me. I respect you and I like you just the way you are. You’re sexy without all this silly stuff.”
He didn’t know me. Not at all, because if he had, he would have picked up the thread of my fantasy and run with it. He would have worshipped me in that lingerie, not laughed.
If I’d done that for Professor Barclay,hewouldn’t have laughed. He wouldn’t have thought aboutrespectingme in that moment.
It’s a hard thing to explain, to want to be treated like an equal most of the time but, occasionally, with the right person and in the right setting, to want the exact opposite. I want to be thrust up against the door of a bar bathroom and told what to do.
I can’t stop thinking about Professor Barclay through the rest of the weekend. I barely manage sleep Sunday night and drag through my first class on Monday morning. I stop for a second cup of coffee, knowing I’ll regret it once the caffeine-induced anxiety takes hold of me, but there’s no way around it if I want to stay awake for my afternoon class. It would probably help if I ate something, but the idea of food churns my stomach.
I just want to get through this day, and the next…and the next.
I’ve been so focused on what happened on Saturday night that I haven’t let myself think ahead to what comes next. Daydreaming of Professor Barclay while hungover at my apartment is one thing, but now that I’m back on campus, it’s impossible to keep reality at bay. The barista calls my name to alert me that my coffee is ready to be picked up, and I go through the motions of stepping forward and claiming it, thanking her and moving aside, but inside my chest, my heart starts to race.
There is only one logical way forward.
What happened on Saturday night can never happen again.
Beyond potentially damaging my academic standing at Dartmouth, jeopardizing my integrity, and opening myself up to scandal, there’s the minor fact that I can’t stand Professor Barclay. From day one, he’s been rude and condescending, cocky and short-tempered.
I don’t like him.
Ican’tlike him.
He might have a way with women. He might have drawn out some previously dormant side of me, but it doesn’t matter.
