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I motioned to the stack of textbooks and notepads stacked on the coffee table. “Not all night. My last final is this afternoon, so I woke up around four to get a head start on studying.”
“You should try to take a nap at least,” she suggested, her eyes grazing over my face. “You look like hell, Whitney.”
“I feel like hell.” I wrapped my arms around my knees and squeezed.
Jessica frowned at me, then sighed heavily and took off her backpack, dropping it on the floor with a thud. She peeked over the top of the couch, looking from one side of the room to the other to make sure we weren’t overheard, then dropped her and said, “I saw you two kissing, okay? What happened with Professor Ellis? Whitney, please. You gotta tell me. I’ve known you for years, and I’ve never seen you so out of your element like you were this semester.”
I rested my forehead on my knees and chewed my lip, willing myself not to burst into tears. “I slept with him.”
She sighed heavily and rubbed my back. “Obviously. You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“What the hell? Jessica! No, I’m not pregnant.”
“Well, that’s good.” She patted me on the head like a little dog.
I turned my head to look at her, glaring.
She rolled her eyes and turned to face me, crossing her legs. “What’s the deal, Whit?”
“The deal?” I sniffled, angry with myself for crying. I didn’t think I had shed a tear my entire college career until a few weeks ago. “The deal? I fell in deep, Jessica. I can’t get him out of my head.”
“And? What is the big problem?”
“The big problem?” I shook my head. “Everything about this situation is against the code of ethics. I could get kicked out of my program and he—he could get fired.”
“Is it really that serious?”
“It is.” I wiped my eyes. “Here at Gatlington, at least. I thought that was going to be our biggest hurdle, but I think—I think Christian knows about us. And if he knows about us and hasn’t done anything about it by now, he’s plotting something bigger than telling the administration that Professor Ellis and I are involved in an elicit relationship.”
“Elicit relationship?” she snorted, leaning back against the couch cushions. “What makes this inappropriate? The fact that the two of you are in love?”
“We’re not in love,” I said with force.
Jessica gave me a look.
“That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it? And why are you worried about Christian? You broke up with him.”
“Christian and I never loved each other, but he had something to gain from being with me. That’s gone now, and he’s pissed about it. My parents are upset, too.”
“You think he’d blackmail you?”
“I know he would. He would do whatever he thought would get me back with him, including hurting Professor Ellis’s reputation and career. I won’t let that happen.”
“So you’d get back together with him?” Jessica looked shocked, her eyes widening. “Whitney—”
“In a heartbeat if it meant Rhys—” I hadn’t said his name out loud in so long, and the sound of it ringing in my ears felt like a knife through the heart. I stumbled over the words. “If it meant he got out of this situation without it coming back to haunt him.”
“That sounds a lot like love to me.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “I messed up, Jess. I just had a crush on him, you know. Like everyone else on campus. But we—we took it too far.”
I felt her arms come around me, and I leaned into her touch, my throat tightening against a sob.
“We both knew it was wrong, and we did it anyway. And then it just—it just fell apart. I started to think maybe we could pull it off. He said he couldn’t do it because he was trying to protect me from—from losing everything I’ve worked for. Jessica, I’m losing my mind. I can’t study. Nothing I used to like to do feels like it matters anymore. That future I envisioned for myself feels so empty.”
Her fingers stroked my hair as I fell to pieces in her arms.
