Taught by him

CHAPTER FIVE. office hours

I did not wear yellow.

I wore black.

A black sweater, black jeans, black boots. My hair down. No makeup except red lipstick that Lila said made me look dangerous.

"Are you trying to seduce your professor or kill him?" Lila asked when she saw me.

"Neither," I lied. "I'm trying to prove a point."

"What point? That you own a funeral outfit?"

That I am not her ghost.

I walked to Whitmore Hall at 3:58 pm with his books in a tote bag. The Bell Jar, The Art of Ruin, and his own annotated copy of Mrs. Dalloway that he had left on my desk in the library. Still damp from the rain.

Room 312. Door closed this time.

I knocked.

"Come in."

He was behind his desk. Today he wore a dark grey shirt, top two buttons undone. His hair was dry, neat. But his eyes — his eyes went straight to my black sweater and stayed there.

He didn't speak for a few seconds.

"You didn't wear yellow."

"You told me not to make it difficult."

"This is more difficult."

I placed the tote bag on his desk.

"Your books. Thank you for... rescuing them."

"Thank you for returning my coat."

He stood and walked around the desk. He was holding his coat, my coat now, folded neatly. He had washed it. It smelled like laundry detergent and him.

I took it, but he didn't let go right away.

"You wore my coat home."

"You gave it to me."

"You kept it on in your room. I saw your window."

My face flushed hot.

"You were still watching?"

"I told you I was failing at staying away."

He was too close again. The office door was closed. The blinds were half-drawn. Anyone walking past would see a professor and his student standing too close.

"You need to stop watching my window, Professor Black."

"Ethan."

"Ethan, then. You need to stop. People will talk."

"Let them talk."

"You don't mean that. You could lose your job."

"And what if I told you I don't care about this job anymore? What if I told you I took this job at Blackwood because Clara's mother begged me to leave Oxford? Because every building there smelled like her? And I came here to disappear and then you walked in?"

He said it all at once, like it had been trapped inside him for years.

I stared at him.

"She was your student too?"

"Yes."

The word was quiet. Heavy.

"She was in my 19th Century Poetry seminar. Brilliant. Soft. She laughed at all my bad jokes. I told myself I would wait until she graduated. I waited eleven months. I proposed the day after her final exam. Two months later, she went hiking in Scotland with her friends and never came back. They searched for nine days."

His voice broke on the last sentence.

I didn't think. I just reached out and touched his arm.

He flinched, then covered my hand with his.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered.

"Everyone is sorry. Sorry doesn't bring her back."

"I know."

We stood like that. My hand on his arm, his hand over mine. The rain had started again outside.

"Why do I look like her?" I asked quietly.

"You don't. Not really. Not when I look properly." He finally looked at me again, really looked. "She had a mole here." He touched the corner of my own mouth. "You don't. Her eyes were lighter. Her voice was softer. She never argued with me. You argue about everything."

His finger traced from the corner of my mouth to my jaw, barely touching.

"But from far away... in my classroom... for a second my stupid heart forgets."

I should have stepped back. A professor touching a student like this was wrong. Every rule at Blackwood said this was wrong.

But I didn't step back.

"I don't want to be a replacement, Ethan."

"You're not. God, Aria, you are the opposite of a replacement. You are the first thing that has felt real since she disappeared."

He dropped his hand. Like he remembered where we were.

"This is inappropriate," he said, more to himself than to me.

"Yes."

"I could be fired."

"Yes."

"Do you want me to stop?"

No.

The word was so loud in my head I was sure he heard it.

"I... I don't know," I lied.

He nodded, like I had answered honestly.

"Then let me ask a different question. If I wasn't your professor, if we had met in a bookstore, in a coffee shop, anywhere else — would you have let me take you for coffee after I stood in the rain with your books?"

My heart hammered.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I would have."

A slow, real smile spread across his face. Not cold. Not haunted.

"Then we have a problem, Miss Vale. Because I am your professor. And you are my student. And I want to take you for coffee so badly I can't think about anything else."

The clock ticked. 4:17 pm.

Office hours ended at 5pm.

"There is a coffee shop off campus," I whispered. "On Elm Street. The one with the green awning. They don't ask for student IDs. And no one from Blackwood goes there because the coffee is terrible."

"Terrible coffee sounds perfect," he said.

"Tomorrow? After your last lecture? 6pm?"

"6pm."

He was still holding my hand.

"Now you need to go, Aria. Before I do something that will get us both expelled."

I pulled my hand away, picked up my tote bag, and walked to the door.

At the door, I turned.

"Ethan? For the record, I hated wearing black today. Yellow is still my lucky color."

"I know," he said. "Wear it tomorrow."

I left Room 312, his coat over my arm, the taste of forbidden coffee already on my lips.