“I wanted to ask about the syllabus,” I say, which is a lie so transparent that we both know it’s a lie but the fiction of it gives us both something to stand on.
He doesn’t look up.
His pen continues its path across the paper and I stand in his doorway feeling entirely out of my depth, and the silence between us is different from the silence in the classroom – like the air in the room has thickened around the fact that we’re alone and the door is open and his cologne smells like woodsmoke and something darker that I can feel settling into my clothes the longer I stand here.
“The syllabus is on the course portal, Ms. Cross. Is there anything else?”
His voice is even and professional and completely devoid of anything I could point to as inappropriate, and that’s what makes it so devasta
