Bitter (wlw) (teacherxstudent)

fifty-eight

"Let's get this over with, please. Just go ahead and tell me everything you need to say" Mei said once I greeted her and sat at the table she was already sitting at, as I'd entered the cafè.

I could tell she was nervous, her leg was bouncing up and down under the table. And I was honestly not feeling great either, but tried to ignore that.

"Okay..." I cleared my throat. "Uhm...I just wanted to clear the whole situation up. I know you probably felt betrayed and lied to when you discovered that, you know..." I still couldn't quite get myself to say it in front of her.

"Yeah, kinda" she just said.

"And you probably got the wrong impression. Maybe if you let me explain how things went everything will be more clear" I went on, earning a single nod from Mei. "So...here goes. First of all, I met her before I knew she was going to be our professor. She moved into her apartment around the same time I moved into mine, and we casually met before college had even started. By the time I discovered, we'd already spent some time together a few times"

"And you didn't stop spending time together once you learned she was your professor?" Mei asked, looking something between disgusted and confused.

"We tried to...it all just got really complicated, I think it was inevitable for us to happen at some point. It would have been impossible for the both of us to go on with our lives knowing we were gonna have to see each other everyday " I felt all of the self-confidence I told myself I'd show to have slowly fading away. Talking about Sam in front of Mei just felt wrong. "I know all of this might sound insane to you"

"Yeah, kind of. I just feel like you're telling me a not so funny joke. Like, I'm happy for you but... I don't know. How did this even happen? What do you have in common with her? She's ten years older than us, and I'm sure her life is completely different from yours. How the fuck is this working? How long have you even been officially together? "

"Just over five months... but we'd been, you know... going on, since at least two months before" I said, so anxious that I even started to forget stuff about me and Sam's timeline. "Look, I'm perfectly aware that you might be extremely confused right now. But trust me when I tell you that she makes me really, really happy. She's done more for me than you could imagine. And if you need to ask more stuff to make things clear, I'll answer whatever you want me to, I think I owe it to you"

"I remember you didn't come to class for like a week soon after they even started, and you said you were sick. Was it really about her?"

"I- Yeah" I lowered my head feeling guilty for some reason, thinking she wouldn't even remember that happened.

"Okay" she maintained a dead serious face. "And when I kissed you at the Halloween party and you suddenly ran away without any justification...was that about her?"

"Uh, yeah, it was" I wiped my extremely sweaty palms on my pants as I struggled to say anything with more than two syllables in it.

"And are you gonna finally tell me why the fuck you told my girlfriend and Maya before you told me?" she asked, almost looking as if she was trying to challenge me.

"Yeah, uhm, this may sound weird but...Maya's her ex" I looked back up, trying to decipher her reaction to what I'd just said.

"Her what?" she emphasized the second word, almost choking on the coffee she'd just taken a sip of.

"They were together for a few years...and they broke up a year ago, more or less"

"No fucking way"

"I told you it sounds absurd..." I said, still confused by her reaction.