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“I didn’t say that, but you must maintain a professional distance from Professor Stellar. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to contact the college myself.”
I rub my hands together, staring at the floor, to stop crying again. I’m still waiting to wake up on his tattoo chair. This can’t be real.
“Why was a professor tattooing you, Ellie? Hmm? Is that really all he wanted?”
“Maybe I wanted it, too,” I whisper.
“What did you say?” Mom asks sharply.
I look up at her. She’s got a soft, loving expression on her face. I’ve never had to question if she genuinely cares for me. Every signal comes from a good place. I want to listen to her desperately. She’s never led me astray, but with this, it just feels wrong.
Professor Stellar feels right.
“Nothing.”
“You should keep it that way,” Mom says. “There’s far too much baggage involved.”
I lean forward and lower my voice. “Do you really think he hit Aunt Jane?”
“Whether or not he hit her, he left her at the altar. He broke her heart. She had a miscarriage, and he left. That makes him bad in my book.”
“Maybe he was young, scared, and immature. He must’ve only been my age.”
“Are you immature?” Mom asks.
“Well, no, but we’re not the same person.”
“The only good thing that came from that wedding was meeting your father.”
“That’s the wedding where he swept you off your feet?”
She smiles. “Yes. I fell. He swept.”
“But Mom,” I go on, “if Jane said he hit her, and he didn’t, it’s not good that Jane’s saying that.”
“She was bruised after she rushed home and found him packing his things. They argued, and she had a bruise. That’s all I know.”
“If you believe that about him, you should call the police.”
Mom sighs. “It was a long time ago. Look, Ellie, fate has thrown you in his path. You need to do the mature thing and just be a student. Go to class. Do your best. Keep things professional. If he oversteps the line, you tell me. Okay? Deal? Please?”
Her tone gets desperate. I hate to hear her like this. She’s looking at me like she did after Dad’s death when she said, “We’re in this together, right, kiddo?”
“Yeah, Mom,” I say. “I’ll keep my distance.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Max
It’s the first class since the fallout, and Ellie is sitting in the front row again. Ever since the argument, ever since all that bullshit, about me hitting a woman… Ever since then, I’ve tried to shut down the feelings. It’s been several days, long enough to lock it all away.
But when I see her again, legs crossed, hair free and wavy to her shoulders, an unsure smile on her shy lips, I know I’ll never be able to lock it away. So I’ll have to exist with it, accept it, but somehow ignore it. Somehow not act on it.
I stand behind the lectern, waiting for everybody to take their seats. I can’t look at her for more than half a second without feeling as if I must keep looking at her, only her, nobody else. Stare at her and remember the kiss, relive it like I have a thousand times since we did it. I can still taste her. I’m hungry for her.
“More love talk today,” I tell the class once they settle in. “So let’s start with the first couple of lines. I’m sure you’ve all devoured the sonnet. I’m sure you’ve spent several long hours in deep contemplation.”
That gets a collective laugh from the students, but Ellie doesn’t join in. My woman’s eyes are shiny, like she’s struggling to hold herself back. Her friend glances at her.
Too late, I realize I should’ve chosen a different poem, but I’ve got to keep pushing on. For the first time in several years, I feel nerves washing over me as I stand here silently.
Clearing my throat, I go on. “‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove.’ Does anybody have any thoughts about these opening lines?”
Ellie’s hand flies up, almost like a reflex.
“Yes?”
“It’s a lie,” Ellie says. “That’s one of the fundamental things I’m starting to realize about Shakespeare. He spoke a lot of bull crap.”
Everybody laughs, and Ellie grins up at me like it’s a challenge. I almost grin. She sees me almost grin, and her smile gets wider. She’s reading me. We can’t be together, but here we can. We can forget. Is that what’s happening?
“The next line explains it. It’s an ‘ever-fixed mark.’” I pace up and down in front of the room. “Love doesn’t change, Shakespeare tells us, with hours or weeks.”
I feel Ellie watching me closely, but I don’t look at her again for the rest of the lecture. I can’t because I’ll lose control. Her taste will overwhelm my memory, and I won’t be able to think about anything else. I won’t be able to contemplate anything else, just her, just us, just what we did and the things we could do.
