Dirty Professor (13 page)

I knew kids whose parents literally stood over them barking while they did their homework. I knew people who would never, ever have been able to even think about Portland State as a place to get their bearings. I also knew kids who would kill to have the money to go to Portland State, let alone a private school like Noland.

I'm spoiled. I know it. I've been so lucky, and so fortunate to grow up in a family that can send me to college at all. And then loan me their extra car they had sitting around, and let me use a credit card linked to their account so I can go to places like the Green Tavern, and about a million other things. Even now, after what's happened, my mom is talking about getting me the best counselor money can buy.

But does all of that mean I have to commit to an entire career that they want me to have? One that I know would make me miserable?

I love my mom and dad. I appreciate so much of what they've given to me. But I can't bring myself to let think continue thinking business school has a chance with me. I just can't do it.

"I know what I want to do." I look at both of them. "What I want is to be a writer."

"Oh, God!” my dad says, running his hands through his hair as he begins to pace the room. “That bastard's really gotten into your head."

"Dad, no. I'm good at it. And I actually enjoy it."

"Maybe what you enjoyed was being in his class," Mom suggests gently. "I can see how an admired, famous author would get people inspired to do what he does. Or maybe you just liked being around him."

"That's not it! I'd want to write even if I never met Chase. But he's the one who made me see it."

"Of course he is." My dad sounds defeated. "Of course he is."

"I'm sorry for disappointing you." I squinch my eyes, which only makes the tears fall faster. "And I'm sorry for scaring you. But I can't be sorry for not wanting to finish business school. Or for making my own decisions from now on."

My parents don't say anything. They just look at each other, shocked.

“I have to go,” I say, grabbing my keys back off my desk. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“Where are you going?” my mom says.

But I don’t answer her.

I’m sick of answering to anyone but myself.

C
HASE

"Shit," Abigail, my publicist, spits into the phone.

"I'm sorry," I say, digging the Ibuprofen out of my bathroom medicine cabinet. I have a raging headache, and I down two without bothering to get a glass of water.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Chase?"

"I wasn't," I mumble. "Clearly, I wasn't." How can I explain to Abigail that I couldn’t stop it? That I couldn’t have stayed away from Addison even if I’d tried?

"Jesus H. Fucking... this is going to be pretty impossible, Chase. Not going to lie."

"I know. Just... anything you can do. Anything at all."

Abigail hangs up and I stare at my iPhone for a minute, as if it can tell me what to do or what's going to happen. I don't know how much of this mess she'll be able to minimize, but I've seen her manage to keep the lid on some pretty gnarly shit for her other clients, so maybe there's hope.

Students tried to stop me when I walked out of the Liberal Arts building. They didn't know. They just wanted to say hi to Chase Brooks. That meeting with Dr. Wilkes was hard. But having to smile at those college kids who said hey and told me they love Bryce, and look so happy to talk to me? That was brutal. I felt like an even bigger fraud doing that than I ever did writing a dickwad character whom I can't stand.

My iPhone clock says it's almost one. I've been hiding out at home since getting shitcanned a few hours ago. I've been trying to do damage control, but now that I don't have anything to keep my thoughts occupied, I keep catching myself staring out the window at the forest on the edge of the property, wondering what I'd need to survive there, and wondering how many people have set off into that forest to escape something, with the intention of actually making a life in there somewhere, somehow. I'm sure in the old west days, people did it all the time.

I have millions of dollars in the bank, and I'm standing in a luxury rental contemplating taking off into the backyard wilderness and never coming back.

I heft my suitcases out of my walk-in closet and lay them open-faced on my bed.

This fucking blows.

I open my dresser drawers and get to work, grabbing stuff out of the hamper to toss in the wash. That's what I'm doing when I head downstairs and see the movement outside the glass double doors through my foyer.

Fucking Luna, back again?

No. The person's wearing light blue and I know that silhouette.

She shouldn't be here. I've gotten her into enough trouble. That's why I haven't been responding to her messages, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

She knocks, and I think she sees me through the designs in the glass, because she stops still.

My heart thuds and my jaw tenses. This is going to be difficult. Beyond difficult.

I open my front door and gesture for Addison to come inside.

A
DDISON

My heart catches when he opens the door.

Despite everything that’s happened, he still looks sexy as hell.

His hair is slightly disheveled, and the stubble peppering his strong jaw casts darkness over his face. He's holding an armful of clothes. "Hey."

"Hey," I say. It comes out as a squeak.

Chase leads me away from the door. "I don't know if anyone's keeping an eye on this place," he says. "But I'm done taking chances."

I
was a chance he took.

"Doing laundry?" I ask as he pads toward the laundry room with his clothes.

"Yeah."

This conversation is painful. I hope he comes over to hug me when his arms are free, but after he dumps the clothes into the washer and turns it on, he just turns around and walks past me, to the stairs. Not knowing what else to do, I follow him.

"I did it," I inform him as we ascend the stairs.

"Did what?"

"Stood up to my parents."

"How?" Chase doesn't turn around when he reaches the second floor, so I'm forced to keep following him down the hall.

"They came to my dorm. And I told them. I said I'm done with business school. And now we can do it. They weren't happy, but now we can really do it."

"Do what?"

"Be together." I can't stand talking to his back. "Chase, look at me."

He glances at me, then enters his bedroom with me at his heels.

I freeze in the doorway. There are suitcases on his bed. "You're packing?"

"Yeah," he says. "I guess I am."

I watch open-mouthed as he calmly marches from his dresser to the suitcases and back again. "Why?"

"Addison." Chase's voice is sad, beaten. It reminds me of how my dad sounded when he realized I was done with business school. "Don't, okay? Just don't."

"Don't what?" My throat catches. "I'm not doing anything."

"Yes, you are. And it's not going to work. I think we both know what has to happen."

"No," I say. "This is rash. You're just panicking a little, is all."

"I'm not panicking, believe me. I might have done that at first, but what happened, happened. I have to go."

"But... your book."

“It’s finished." Chase closes one suitcase and zips it. "Bryce Bowker is done, and my time here is done."

I perch on the edge of the bed, the panic rising in my throat. "Chase, can we talk about this?"

"Isn't that what we're doing?"

"I mean really talk."

"Addison, no." He runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up even more. "It's over."

"What's over?" I ask, fighting to stay calm. He isn't. He won't.

"This." He points at his chest, then at me. "This... thing. Whatever you call what we did."

"This whatever thing," I repeat. "Is that what we are? Some whatever?"

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't." Damnit, I
cannot
cry again. "Chase, please, just sit down and talk to me."

"I think the time for that has passed, don't you?"

"When were we supposed to, then?"

"Anytime prior to this shitshow. We could have ended it and avoided this. Could have. But didn't."

"So you'd have been fine with ending it?" I can't wrap my head around this. "You would've been okay with... breaking this off, and still seeing me in class?"

"I would have dealt with it." His tone is dismissive, like I was nothing more to him than a distraction, like he’s talking about losing a favorite shirt or a twenty-dollar bill.

I stare at him, remembering the things we’d done, the way he talked to me, the conversations we’d had, the dirty things I let him do to me.

My hands clench into fists by my side. “When did you turn into such a dick?"

Chase flinches, and for a moment, I think he’s going to take it back, everything he just said, that he’s going to wrap me in his arms and tell me we can be together, that he loves me like I love him. But then his eyes harden. "I guess Bryce rubbed off on me. Or maybe I had it in me all along, in order to write him in the first place. I don't know."

I If I felt my insides were being torn up when I talked to my parents, now I feel like a small bomb has gone off in my stomach. I grip the footboard because I feel sick. "So this is it? We're over? Just like that?"

"It wasn't just like that. This can't work, Addison. It just can't."

"Why not?"

"You can't honestly be asking that question."

"What would you know about
honestly
anything, Chase?"

He winces. "I made a mistake getting into a secret... thing with a student. I have to own that. But I also have to wake up and realize that it won't work. We won't work, Addison."

"You don't know that," I sniffle.

"I do. Even if we weren't surrounded by whatever scandal this is going to cause. Your life is here, and mine is in L.A. and New York."

"If you can flit between those two places, why can't you just add one more? And if I want to do a different degree, it doesn't have to be at Noland. I could apply to NYU, or UCLA, and--"

"No. Addison, no." His voice is firm, but there's a note of kindness in it, which makes it worse. Why bother being nice when he's breaking my heart? "I think we both know it, deep down. My career is now in jeopardy, or will be as soon as this gets out, which will be soon. My book is off to my agent. Because of my... indiscretions, it's better this way. It's better for you. Better that I'm out of your life."

"You can't possibly mean that."

"I'm no good for you, okay? You're going to have to just accept that."

"Well, I don't."

"You'll have to. You need to just move on."

I didn't think I could hear anything worse than what I've already heard these past few hours. But Chase telling me to move on? It clocks me right in the chest. I actually put my hand over my heart, like that will fucking help anything.

"You're a coward," I say. He says nothing, just keeps folding clothes and putting them into the suitcase. "I know you love me. I know it. And you're just being a giant fucking coward."

Chase sighs. "A coward?"

"Would you rather me call you a pussy? Because you're being that, too."

"I didn't want to say this," Chase says. "Because I thought we both knew it. But this was never a real relationship."

My entire body hurts.

"It was a fling." Chase finally stops packing and looks at me. "Just a fling, for both of us."

I catch a glimpse of yellow in the open suitcase. He's packed the scarf, the one he used to tie me to the headboard.

I turn around and run down the hallway, down the stairs, and out his front door.

C
HASE

Every part of me is screaming to go after her. That look on her face, when I told her it was just a fling. Jesus, that look. This was never just a fling, not from the first time we were together. She was always more.

Every part of me wants to follow her, to tell her she’s right, that I am a coward, that I’m in love with her, so deeply in love with her that I’m scared out of my mind.

But it’s better this way.

I’m not good for her.

It would never work.

I could only cause her destruction and heartache.

I already have.

So even though I feel like I want to puke, I finish my laundry.

I finish packing.

And then I climb into the car and pull out of the driveway, leaving Noland and Addison Simmons in the rearview mirror.

A
DDISON

Two days.

I sleep for almost two days.

I don’t go to the dining hall.

I don’t shower.

I don’t go to class.

I sleep and lay in bed, watching reruns of the Real World and subsisting on tacos that Kensie procures for me from Green Tavern.

“Addison.”

On the morning of the third day, I open my eyes to see Kensie standing over me, holding some paper.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes. What time is it? The clock says ten in the morning. I instinctively panic that I've already missed my first class today. Then I remember I’m not going to class anymore, ahahahahaha.

"Add, you need to see this." Kensie hands me the paper she's holding. Now that my eyes are clear, I see it's a copy of our college newspaper, the Nighthawk News.

"What is it?" I ask, a lump forming in my throat. I take the paper from Kensie and there it is, right there on the front page.

CHASE BROOKS FIRED

Renowned Author, Visiting Instructor Busted for Relationship with Student

"Oh, no." I guess I knew the shit would hit the fan, but seeing it in print just drives the stake in further. "No, no, no."

"I'm sorry," Kensie says. She sits down next to me and pats my back. When I got back the other day, I broke down into a crying mess and told Kensie what happened – all of it. She was super nice about the whole thing. She could have been upset with me for not telling her, but she never made me feel bad. I think she knew there was nothing she could say that would make me feel worse than I already did.