My Professor's Secret

24|

twenty-four

"An explanation? For what? A few moments we didn't spend talking to one another during the job? Grow up. Hand me my keys so I can go." Trevor's anger was quickly festering. So much so that the step he took forward in pursuit of his keys radiated a different level of warmth. I'd been in worse situations. Unless he was planning to pull a gun from the pockets of that fluffy winter coat, or explain, he wasn't getting these keys back.

"No."

"No?" he replied, peddling back from the lounge exit. I only nodded my head in response to him. "Then I guess I better prepare myself for the long walk I have ahead of me. Goodnight, Ms. Castillo. Hopefully this mutinous behavior of yours would have sufficed by morning or else going to the dean about your insubordination might be the only solution."

Trevor shakes his head—full of disappointment before turning on his heels to leave the lounge once again. He couldn't be serious. Not only storming out of a room because he couldn't get his way, but threatening my college career in the midst of it? I bet his three year old daughter didn't throw tantrums at this magnitude. It was laughable, literally. I was laughing as he made forward until even that managed to get underneath his skin.

"Really?" I continue to laugh, stepping closer towards him. "Instead of behaving as an adult would by expressing your emotions, you choose to throw a tantrum, threaten my integrity, and decide that walking home in weather three degrees from zero is the acceptable route? Seems to me like the one that needs some maturing is you, Professor. You're nothing like that man I thought you were."

Suddenly ruffling his feathers meant nothing to me. If this was the way he wanted things between us to be, so they'd be. What more was there to hang on to? Nothing. Nothing but what I assumed was a spark here and there when in reality, he and I were nothing more than what we were supposed to be. Professor and pupil. That night in his apartment obviously ceased to exist within him. I must've resembled a fool. Desperately trying to convince him to reveal more of the man I'd gotten to know that night—the man I thought wanted to know me.

Maybe it was better this way. His resistances towards me and delving deeper into the emotional relationship that already begun forming between us. Maybe I was the immature one. Trying to force him into a position we never should've been in in the first place. My words must've struck the last of his nerves because he darted back around and walked back into the lounge.

He didn't even look the same anymore. Just a man I'd wasted so much time trying to get to know. A man that managed to wrap me in his web without even attempting to. I reached for his keys in my pocket, ready to fling them at him and storm out of the room directly after, but he approached me with unwavering irritation. And then a humorless laugh pushed its way from his chest.

"The man you thought I was?" He questions, swallowing the emotional pull clearly present in the anger that manifested in his voice. "You mean the man that gave you rides so you wouldn't have to walk everywhere you went? The one that spent hours working with you to help you prepare for a competition? Or let me guess, the man that cried on your shoulder in the midst of vulnerability about possibly losing custody of my child? I'm not the man you thought I was because I'm not trying to be who you want me to be and you can't handle that."

His voice bounced off these four walls like butter to a hot skillet. The more he spoke, the louder he became. Trevor took a few extra steps towards me, which in turn only pushed me further into the corner of the room leaving very little opportunity to step back much more.