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“Am I that transparent?” His mouth tilts into a smile even as his eyes retain a glimmer of regret.
“Clear as a pane of glass,” I say. My butterfly friend abandons me for a beautiful red blossom with pointed petals. I read off the Latin name on the placard below the trellis: “Passiflora vitifolia.”
“Perfumed passionflower,” Gavin says.
“They’re beautiful.”
“They are,” he says. “I saw them all over the place the last time I was in Hawaii.”
“When was that?”
“A few years ago, for my honeymoon.”
My heart literally stops. Gavin’s eyes pinch shut as he sighs.
“Fuck,” he murmurs. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
I pretend to be fascinated by a heart-shaped leaf, though in reality, I’m utterly taken aback by his slip of the tongue. “You... You’re married?”
“Separated,” he says.
I fidget with the heart-shaped leaf, still reeling. There’s so much I don’t know about Gavin’s life. So much I won’t get to know because we’ll never be more than what we are now.
“I would’ve told you,” he whispers.
Even in the wake of his jarring disclosure, I don’t doubt his sincerity.
“I know.”
His fingers brush mine as he encourages the monarch to crawl onto the back of my palm, an apology in the form of an insect. He’s patient with the monarch, like a first-grade teacher helping a child through a tricky math problem.
“Do you have kids?” I ask.
He chortles. “No.”
“Don’t laugh. For all I know, you could have triplets.”
Gavin shakes his head. “My ex and I wanted to wait until we were both established in our careers before we had kids. We weren’t together long enough to reach that point.”
“How long were you together?”
“Just shy of three years total. We separated eight months ago.”
I shouldn’t pry into Gavin’s marriage. It’s none of my business. He’s my professor, not my friend, not my boyfriend...
“How come?” I ask.
He frowns at the passionflower like it just said something offensive.
“I found out she was having an affair.”
Hurt detonates like a glitter bomb in my chest. I’ve never been cheated on, and I’m sure my sympathy pales in comparison to the betrayal he experienced. Yet even in the midst of my own heartache, I’m furious for him. So much so that the monarch senses my anger and decides it’s time to fly away.
I want to wrap my arms around him, but it wouldn’t be appropriate. “Gavin, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “The only reason we aren’t divorced is because we’re still fighting over the house.” His tone is casual, but the hard lines of his face betray deeper emotion.
“Are you sure?”
