My Professor's Secret

36|

thirty-six

"Alex? That was your cue," Wyatt sighs, as he begins pacing the confines of our secluded corner in the library. It was practically vacant this time of day. The distaste in his tone isn't hard to miss considering I'd shown up two hours past the time we originally scheduled to rehearse our lines.

Since arriving, my mind forbade a single thought that hadn't belonged to Trevor, or my meeting his daughter. It was mythic. The sensation of our liplock still erupted through every nerve ending in my lips as I sought to concentrate on the script. His hands around my waist—mine around his neck as the world ceased to exist around us. I yearned for more of him. The euphoric sensation of his skin pressed against mine and the enticing potency of his scent. Though truthfully, nothing between him and I had changed. Our circumstances, predicaments—nothing.

After realizing an hour had passed between the time my call with Wyatt finished and the start of our tea party slash puppet show at Trevor's, I realized lingering around much longer would affect our study time even more. Trevor sent me away with a smile and an embrace he used to whisper in my ear that no one could find out about our illicit behaviors. 

"Right!" I say, snapping myself out of thought. "Sorry, I'm just really trying to channel Hester's aura."

According to the events playing out in my life at the moment, it technically wasn't a lie. I thought.

"Touche," he says. "I'll begin again from my last line. "'Do not deny that wholesome cup to him, perhaps without the courage for himself to take it in his hands and drink it down this bitter draught presented to thy lips!'"

"I will not name the man," I say, clutching a sack of flour meant to resemble a crying Pearl.

Though despite the lingering distaste spread on Wyatt's face, I'm fully aware that nothing has changed with my delivery of the lines. Flat and emotionless. As much as I willed myself to focus on this script, I couldn't. Especially not with the adrenaline surging through me. Trevor lit a blaze within me that felt difficult to conceal. Something I no longer cared to resist and while I've been pretending to care about this stupid play—that I did care about—he plagued my thoughts.

"Can we try more emotion this time?" he contends, placing his script across the table. "Imagine being ridiculed in front of your peers, a religious council—essentially an entire town of people meant to judge you for your discretions. Being forced to recall moments of intimacy before the crowd. Reduced to a fate brought about by one lousy decision—if it could be genuinely referred to as that. She assumed her husband was dead. Was she expected to wait the rest of her life for him to return? It's pressure even the best would collapse under."

Ignorance is bliss, they say. It was. Up until now, I would've shrugged my shoulders at his suggestion and found some way to move on from the lack of emotion I'd been exhuming. Now, I truly understood a shred of Hester's predicament. Granted I wasn't pregnant, nor in a sexual relationship with Trevor, but his position made the possibility of us working out slim to none. Not to mention the revelational shock it would have around campus. Even though we wouldn't be doing anything illegal, It wouldn't change the way a situation like this would be interpreted by an outsider looking in.

I trembled.

The reality of a scandal like the one between Trevor and me spreading around campus flashed before my very eyes. Putting myself in the shoes of Hester Prynn shouldn't have been difficult considering I'd been stumbling along the wrong side of acceptability myself. Imagining the reactions of my peers, my professors, my family, and friends could've paralyzed me where I stood.