I would choose you

The Thorn Birds

The air in the classroom had turned cold, despite the radiators buzzing faintly along the baseboards. The windows fogged slightly from our breath, snow dusting the outer panes like frost on an old painting. The table beneath my palms was cold to the touch, and the tips of my fingers felt stiff as I flipped open my notebook.

Professor T. stood at the front of the room, his coat slung over the back of his chair, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He didn’t look at us at first. Just walked to the chalkboard and, without saying a word, wrote one word in large, slanted script:

Love

He turned and faced us, his eyes scanning the room.

“Romance novels,” he said, finally. “Airport fiction. Trash. High school diary entries. Candlelight. Confessions. s*x on the floor. We’ve buried ‘love’ beneath all of it.”

He paused.

“So today, we’re digging it up. We’re not talking about romance,” he said. “Romance is packaging. We’re talking about love—stripped, raw, unmarketable. Something you recognize only when you bleed for it.”

There was a murmur of shifting bodies and notebook pages rustling. He picked up a paperback from his desk and held it aloft.

“The Thorn Birds,” he announced. Emiliano picked up the battered paperback from his desk. “This book is ridiculous,” he said, grinning. “And that’s precisely why we’re going to take it seriously.”

Arthur groaned, dramatically.

Professor T. smirked. “Yes, Arthur. The pulpiest, most melodramatic book on your reading list. And that’s why it’s important.”

I caught Hannah smiling.

He began pacing slowly as he spoke.

“It’s about a priest who falls in love with a woman,” professor T. continued. “A love he never really acts on, until he does. Then regrets it. Then repeats it. There’s pain. Betrayal. Devotion. Shame. And one of the most beautiful lies ever told about what love costs. This novel is about obsession disguised as piety. It’s about denial wrapped in devotion. It’s about the slow erosion of people who fall in love the wrong way, but keep falling anyway.”

Nicole was already scribbling notes. I wasn’t. I was watching the way Emiliano moved, like he was telling a secret that got more dangerous with each word.

“Meggie loves a man she can’t have. A priest, no less. And instead of moving on, she devotes her entire life to pining after him. He, in turn, gives up everything: his god, his vows, his soul, just to keep her in his life. They punish each other for decades. And we call it love.”

He held the book up like an offering.

“What do we make of Ralph and Meggie?”

Maria raised her hand. “They’re selfish. Both of them. They drag each other into misery because neither is strong enough to fully let go.”

Violet added ".They let their love ruin everything around them - her family, his faith, their futures. And for what?”

Emiliano nodded. “Good. Selfishness. That’s one vote against love.”

He let the silence hold, walking slowly toward the window.

Arthur chimed in. “I think it’s cowardice disguised as sacrifice. Ralph wants both God and Meggie. He loses both.”

“That’s very Catholic of you, but I agree” Emiliano said. A few people laughed.

Then, from beside me, Hannah spoke "But Emiliano, they're in love. I think it’s about inevitability. The idea that some people are magnetized. That you’re doomed to love them, no matter how inconvenient.”

Did I hear that correctly? Emiliano?

“And that’s still love, in your view?” he asked. Looks like he didn't notice her mistake.

Hannah hesitated. “Yes. Just not the kind that’s easy.”

I looked at her.

She was glowing, just slightly, in that moment. Her cheeks a little pink, her eyes wide with the thrill of being heard.

“Well said,” Emiliano murmured.

Then, without looking away from her, he added, “Let’s just try not to let our metaphors get us expelled.”

The class laughed. Hannah was smiling.

After the discussion, Professor T. stood again.

“You were also asked to write something,” he said. “A short piece. A poem, a paragraph, whatever you wanted. The theme: true love. Don’t groan. This is the one thing we all think about but rarely say out loud.”

He walked slowly across the room, tapping the edge of a desk as he passed.

“I’m going to choose one of you to read.”

Then he stopped beside August.

“Let’s hear from you.”

August pulled a small notebook from his coat pocket, flipped to a page, and stood.

His voice was steady, quieter than usual, but each word landed cleanly in the silence:

The lake doesn’t speak, but I hear it.

The dark trees, bare-limbed, bow.

A hand on my back, once.

A voice saying I love you, once.

Love is not red or gold -

Not flowers or fire or blood.

Love is the bruised quiet of staying.

Love is purple.

There was a long pause.

Emiliano smiled faintly. “Thank you, August.”

August sat back down. His eyes didn’t meet anyone else’s.

Lunch that day felt quieter than usual. The snowfall outside was steady now, thick flakes drifting past the windows in slow motion. Nicole sat across from me, stirring her tea absently. Maria and Hannah were deep in conversation about a scene from The Bell Jar they had both reread the night before.

Then Violet arrived.

Uninvited, tray in hand, she slid into the seat beside Maria .

“You heard August’s poem, right?” she asked, voice light, too casual.

“It was beautiful,” Hannah said carefully.

We looked at her.

“It was about me,” Violet said, beaming.

Nicole raised an eyebrow.

“I mean - 'Love is purple’?” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Violet? He made it obvious on purpose.”

No one replied.

“He’s been writing to me a lot lately,” she added.

Nicole frowned slightly. “Did he say it was about you?”

Violet waved her hand. “He didn’t have to. He’s been writing to me for weeks.”

She opened her bag and pulled out another folded letter, just like she had last time.

“Do you want to see what he wrote last week?”

“No,” I said flatly.

She ignored me and unfolded it anyway.

“He said my poem feels like dancing with me in some field. That my writing makes him feel ‘weightless.’” She laughed. “He’s so sincere. It’s sweet, if not a little naive.”

“You still haven’t told him, have you?” Maria asked.

Violet looked up. “Told him what?”

“That you’re engaged.”

She waved a hand. “He hasn’t asked.”

“That’s not the point,” Nicole said.

“I’m not leading him on,” Violet said. “I’m just enjoying his attention. And it would just… ruin the letters. He’s so romantic. I’d hate to disappoint him”

Hannah blinked. “You don’t think that’s cruel?”

Violet tilted her head. “No. He’s a grown man. If he’s falling in love with someone based on letters and poems, that’s his problem.”

Nicole looked away.

Violet stood up, brushing invisible crumbs from her coat. “You all take things so seriously. It’s just flirting. No one’s getting married.”

She left.

That evening, as we got ready for bed, I finally asked.

“Hannah... about earlier. In class. You called professor T. by his first name, Emiliano.”

She looked embarrassed for a moment. Then nodded.

“He told me I could,” she said. “In private. I didn't mean to, guess I just got used to it."

“You’ve been seeing him?”

She hesitated. “Just for academic help. He offered to tutor me beyond the syllabus.”

“And?”

She smiled. “He says I have an unusual way of thinking. That most students just repeat what they’ve been told, but I, he said, 'look for the ache between the lines.’ He said I have a unique mind. ”

“That sounds intense.”

“He’s intense,” she said. “But kind. I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like maybe he likes me. Not in a bad way. Just notices me. I know what you're thinking and it's not like that.”

I didn’t know what to say. I trusted Hannah, but this attention to her from a professor just felt wrong. Especially after the way he looked at her in class. Not after the way her voice had faltered when she said his name.

After a pause, I asked, “What about August?”

“What about him?”

“Do we keep waiting? Or do we tell him?”

She sighed, brushing her hair behind her ear. “He needs to find out eventually.”

⸻

The next evening was study group in the boys’ dorm.

Abraham sat cross-legged on his bed, explaining existentialism using an extended metaphor about pizza toppings and the absence of meaning in crust choices. Arthur added jokes between every serious point, making Hannah laugh so hard she almost spilled her tea.

August sat in the corner, as always, quietly strumming his guitar. And then he played a familiar melody - Ocean Eyes. Slower than the original, almost mournful. The melody floated between our voices like a ghost.

After the game, as people packed up, I walked over to him.

“That was beautiful,” I said.

He looked up, a little surprised. “Thanks.”

“Would you walk with me?” I asked. “I need to return something to the library.”

He nodded, sliding the guitar back into its case.

The snow had deepened, crunching softly beneath our boots. The lamplight glowed gold on the path.

When we reached the steps, I stopped.

“There’s something you should know.”

He turned, calm. “Okay.”

“Violet’s been showing people your letters. She’s read them to us. And she’s engaged. She’s never told you, has she?”

August was quiet for a moment.

“No,” he said. “She didn’t.”

“I thought you should know.”

He nodded, slowly. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I didn’t want to meddle, I just...”

“You didn’t meddle,” he said. “You helped."

“I’m sorry to be the one to say it.”

“She’s not... she wasn’t someone I was interested in romantically. And the letters weren't confidential, so don't feel bad about knowing what's in them. We just discuss poetry. I guess I thought she liked writing to me. But it hurts that she’d use it as entertainment.”

There was a pause. I hesitated.

“And the poem?”

He half-smiled. “Wasn’t about Violet.”

“But the color —”

“My grandparent were married fifty-three years. Grandpa planted purple flowers on her grave. I wrote it for them.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling small.

He looked at me. “I don’t write letters to get attention. And I don’t care if she’s engaged. Now I know not to trust her.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “Now I know.”

And in that moment, August didn’t seem like a mystery anymore. He seemed like someone who’d been trying to say something real all along.