Love Lessons by Cassie Mint

Four

Ellis

Distance. That’s what I needed. Some space from the way Avery nibbles on her plump bottom lip when she’s thinking. A reprieve from her cherry scent wafting past me in the corridors. Two weeks into the semester, and I’ve barely looked in her direction. Barely heard her voice at all.

I feel better already.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I lean back in my office chair, scrubbing my face and groaning at the ceiling. It’s late to still be on campus. The evening sky is bruised, the light fading, and outside my office window, campus is almost empty. The old-fashioned street lamps that dot the sidewalks flicker on one by one, and I stare outside without really seeing anything.

Who am I kidding? She doesn’t have to be near. She doesn’t even have to be within a ten mile radius.

Everywhere I look, I see Avery.

Every sound I hear reminds me of her. Her soft footsteps over the floorboards; the whisper of her hair over her bare shoulders; the hitch in her breath when she laughs silently at a joke in her head.

I could never look in her direction again and she’d still be imprinted on my mind. Would still be the face I see when I go to sleep.

Avery Jennings.

Fuck.

How is she doing? Does she like her other classes? Does she like my class, or have I ruined it for her?

All questions that I can’t seek the answers for.

“God help me.” This is what it’s come to: talking to myself in my office at night. I stifle a laugh, rolling my head on my neck.

“Professor Kent?” Her knock is so quiet, her knuckles just brushing the door. For a crazy second, I think I’ve done it. I’ve finally gone mad; pined for Avery so badly that I’ve started hallucinating her. But when I glance at the doorway, expecting only shadows, there she is. Hovering anxiously on the threshold, fiddling with her hair.

“Avery?”

Did I make this happen somehow? Did I email her, summon her here, then conveniently forget about it, wiping my memory with shame?

“Hi.” We’re alone, the English building empty for hours now, so her whisper comes out louder than it usually does. It echoes across my silent office, undeniable. “I, um.” She coughs quietly. Her hand twitches. “I have a question about the assignment.”

Disappointment roars up in me, sudden and overwhelming. It’s crushing and violent; it squashes the air from my chest.

I force a smile. Gesture to the chair opposite.

“Of course. How can I help, Miss Jennings?”

“Avery.” Her cheeks pink as she crosses to the chair. Her cut off shorts rustle as she walks. “Please don’t go backward. You called me Avery before.” She settles down, always so delicate. Her ankles cross below her seat, her legs smooth and bare and tanned from the summer, and when she inhales sharply, I tear my eyes back to her face.

“Excuse me.” I don’t know which part I’m apologizing for. All of it, I guess. “How can I help, Avery?”

Her mouth twitches in a shy smile. “That’s better.”

A reluctant grin cracks my cheeks. The moment stretches between us, taut and thrumming; there’s no sound except for our shared breaths and the breeze tickling the window. Her eyes are so wide, so blue, and I couldn’t look away if I tried.

So I don’t try. And heat blooms under my skin, my body warming up for something that can’t happen.

“So.” I clear my throat. “The assignment?”

“Right.” Avery ducks her head, the flush deepening on her cheeks. I want to round this desk, crouch in front of her chair, and cradle her face. I want to kiss her forehead and tell her not to be embarrassed. “I just, um. I picked Macbeth for the essay. And I—”

“Not Romeo and Juliet?” I tilt my head, watching her closely. Her breath catches in one of her silent laughs, the corner of her mouth tugging up. She sees the irony too.

“No. I don’t like that one, professor.”

“Why not?” I’m drawing her off topic, but I can’t help it. Avery Jennings seems like exactly the sort of girl who’d love Romeo and Juliet. She paints her nails a pretty pearl color; she takes time weaving elaborate braids through her hair. Last year, when she took my class, I came to the lecture hall early a few times and found her reading romance novels.

It was so fucking cute. I could barely tear my eyes off her.

Avery shrugs one shoulder. “There’s no one reason. I mean, the misunderstandings are pretty dumb. And the family feud thing is so unnecessary. But I guess the real thing is that I prefer happy endings.”

I lean forward, bracing my elbows on my desk. Clasp my hands and watch her over the top of my knuckles. “Macbeth isn’t exactly a fairy tale.”

Avery smiles at me properly then, her wicked streak flashing through.

“Maybe not. But you can’t deny that he really loved his wife.”

I tip my head back and laugh, the sound bouncing off the ceiling. When was the last time I laughed—really laughed? It feels alien, out of practice, and I’m immediately lighter. Like I’ve shaken something loose.

“You’re right, as usual.” Avery bites her lip, pleased, as I grab a spare sheet of paper. “Let’s go through the assignment.”

If someone had asked me two weeks ago whether I could sit—alone—in my office after hours with Avery Jennings and not make a huge mistake, I’d have told them no. That she’s too much of a temptation. My shy, blonde kryptonite.

But here I am, doing my job. Acting like the professor I’m supposed to be. We go through her assignment plan, point by point, and I don’t even look at her bare legs again. We keep it professional, on topic, and if I have to stop breathing through my nose halfway through because her cherry scent addles my senses—well.

It’s adapt or die.

“Does that help?” I ask at last, leaning back in my chair. I’m grateful for every spare inch between us. She flips her hair over one shoulder, fiddling with the ends absentmindedly, and I fist my hands beneath the desk to keep from reaching for her.

“Yes. Thank you. Um.”

We’re done. I made it. I kept my messed up desires for my student to myself. Yet she’s still sitting there, blinking at me wide-eyed, and I peer around my office like an idiot.

“Was there something else?”

Avery nods and stands up. Balls her hands into fists. Fixes her gaze on a spot on the wall just above my head.

“I-wish-you-would-look-at-me-again.” She says it so fast, the words jumbling together, that it takes me a second to work out what she said. Then I frown at her, my heart thumping harder in my chest.

“I’m looking at you now.”

“No.” She swallows. “In class.”

“I can’t look at you in class, Avery.”

“Why not—”

“Because everyone will see!” I’m talking way too loud, my voice bouncing around my silent office. Anyone walking through the shadowed corridors; anyone wandering past the window—they’ll hear it all. But the words burst out of me, desperate and vicious, because how can she not see this? How does she not understand? “I’ll take one look at you and every fucker in that room will know how I feel about you, Avery. I—I can’t—”

I break off, chest heaving, staring blindly out the window. She’s holding her breath, she’s so quiet, but then the floorboards creak as she shifts her weight.

“How do you feel about me?”

“Avery.” I tear my gaze away from the window. Level her a look. “You know. You’ve always known.”

I’m right. I know I am, and Avery confirms it with her shaky inhale. She nods once—a truce. And when she grabs her bag and crosses to the doorway, I don’t know if I’m more frustrated or relieved.

She turns on the threshold. “Thanks for your help, Professor Kent.”

“You’re welcome.” A thought occurs to me, and I frown. “You’re not walking home alone in the dark, are you?”

“No.” She smiles at me softly. “I’m meeting my friend Paige.” She taps lightly on the door frame. “Why? Would you have walked me home?”

“Yes. I would.”

It’s a confession. Because though that may sound noble, we both know what it means. What would inevitably happen at the end of that walk, when the last of my control ebbed away.

“Goodnight, Professor Kent.”

“Goodnight, Avery.”

I wait until her footsteps fade down the corridor. Then I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes, like I can gouge her gorgeous image right out of them.