Taught by him

CHAPTER FOUR. yellow

I didn't expect to see him outside my dorm at 11:34 pm in the rain.

But there he was.

I had just come back from the library. My umbrella had broken halfway. My white sweater was soaked, my hair dripping, my books clutched to my chest.

And he was standing under the old oak tree in front of Whitmore Residence Hall. In a black coat. No umbrella. Soaked.

Professor Ethan Black. Watching my building like he had been standing there for hours.

I stopped walking.

He saw me.

For a second, neither of us moved.

Then he walked toward me. Fast. Determined.

"Aria."

"What are you doing here?" My voice shook, from cold or from him, I didn't know.

"You pulled your curtains."

"What?"

"Yesterday. After my email. You pulled your curtains. And you haven't opened them since."

He was standing in front of me now. Rain dripping down his face, his hair black with water.

"Are you insane? You are standing in the rain watching my window?"

"I told you I was trying to stay away from you. I didn't say I was good at it."

Water ran down his jaw. His coat was open. His black shirt underneath was soaked and sticking to him.

People were walking past, staring. A professor and a student in the rain at midnight.

"Professor, you need to leave. If someone sees us—"

"I don't care."

"You should care!"

"I cared for three years!" His voice rose, low and rough, over the rain. "I cared about being appropriate. About being the good professor. About not looking at a student the way a man looks at a woman. And then you walked into my life wearing yellow."

I stared at him.

"Yellow?"

"You said yellow is your lucky color." He laughed, breathless. "Clara hated yellow. She said it was too loud. But you... you wear yellow and you argue and you write about being angry and you have that tattoo that says you want to be free. You are nothing like her and everything I can't stop looking at."

My books slipped from my hands and hit the wet ground.

We both looked down.

He bent to pick them up. I bent at the same time. Our heads almost collided. Our hands touched over the wet cover of The Bell Jar.

He didn't let go.

His hand was cold from the rain.

"Professor—"

"Ethan," he whispered. "When we are not in class, when it's just us in the rain at midnight, my name is Ethan."

"Ethan," I whispered back.

His eyes closed for a second, like my saying his name hurt.

"Do you know what you do to me, Aria?"

I shook my head. I couldn't speak.

He stood up, pulling me up with him. My books in one hand, my cold hand in his other.

"You make me want to forget. For five minutes, you make me forget that I lost her. You make me feel guilty for forgetting."

"I'm not trying to make you forget her."

"I know. That's why it works."

The rain was getting heavier. My sweater was completely transparent now, I realized, and I crossed my arms. He noticed and immediately shrugged off his black coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. It was warm and smelled like him and was way too big.

"Go inside," he said quietly. "You're shivering."

"What about you?"

"I'll stand here a little longer. Make sure you get inside safe."

"That's... that's what boyfriends do."

"I know."

The word hung between us.

Boyfriends.

He wasn't my boyfriend. He was my professor. My forbidden professor who was haunted by a ghost that looked like me.

"Goodnight, Ethan."

"Goodnight, Aria."

I turned and walked toward my dorm entrance. I didn't look back until I reached the glass doors.

He was still there. Under the oak tree. In the rain. Watching.

And he was still holding my wet books.

I went inside, up to my room on the second floor. I pulled back my curtain.

He was still there.

I opened my window, just a crack, rain spattering my face.

"YOUR BOOKS!" I shouted down.

He looked up and smiled. The first real smile I had ever seen from him.

"KEEP THEM!" he shouted back. "YOU'LL NEED TO RETURN THEM TO MY OFFICE!"

Of course. He had found a reason to see me again.

I closed the window, his huge coat still around me, and slid down to the floor, heart pounding so hard it hurt.

Tomorrow at 4pm, I would have to go back to Room 312.

And this time, I wouldn't be wearing yellow.