Together
T HE PROFESSOR WAS, once again, reduced to cursing the girl in his mind .
Damn her for coming here, thinking she could escape unscathed, and damn him , for letting the sight of her big scared eyes get to him.
"Do you have something to say, Ms. Leventis?" he asked icily.
"No." The answer was barely audible.
"Then I can only surmise your unreasonable interruption is either due to your vanity or brain needing attending to. Whichever the case may be, I'd strongly advise against making the same mistake."
Not waiting for an answer, the professor went straight back to addressing the rest of the class, leaving the other students to follow suit, albeit reluctantly and with not a small amount of confusion. From what they knew of T-PILF, he was not the type to let go of such infractions lightly. Perhaps the professor was in an unusually good mood today?
The students had their answer to this a minute later, with the professor dropping a bombshell of an announcement on them. They were to propose a novel therapy for the prevention and/or treatment of suicide - keeping in mind their target demographic - and joy of joys, they had fifteen minutes to work on this.
Clearly, if the professor had any kind of mood today, then it was the sadistic type, and more than a handful seemed to blame her for this. They threw dirty looks in her direction, and Pepper, unsurprisingly, was the worst of the lot. "Great going, idiot," the redhead sniped under her breath. "If you hadn't pissed the professor off, we wouldn't find ourselves in this shithole."
Diana was taken aback at the venom in the other girl's voice. "I didn't mean..." But there was no point continuing, with Pepper having already turned her back on Diana in an intentional snub.
A sandy-haired TA named Bernie came in a short while later, distributing reading materials they were given permission to use for related literature.
This form of extra service seemed more fitting for a university chancellor, and Diana's brows furrowed as she absently thought of the other little things that made the professor's tenure exceptionally well-compensated. His office was spacious and luxuriously decorated, and he even had his own secretary. Wasn't that unheard of for someone who only taught a single class?
The whole thing smacked of mystery and intrigue, but because it was also a distraction she could ill afford, Diana managed to set this aside and try once more to concentrate on the problem at hand.
Let's do this, Di.
But time continued to tick past, and Diana's nerves started to fray again when her mind remained a blank. By the time all fifteen minutes were up, her anxiety had hit the panic button, and she was a trembling, paranoid mess in her seat.
It's just going to get worse from here.
An admittedly fatalistic thought, but she couldn't help feeling increasingly jittery when the professor reached for his clipboard. The class was supposed to share their proposals one at a time, and as soon as the professor finished speaking, Pepper quickly raised her hand, volunteering to be first.
"Very well," the professor murmured.
Seeing the redhead make another hair flip, Diana tried her hardest not to wish for the other girl's proposal to go horribly, and sadly enough it didn't.
"It seems to me that the problem of these millennials—-"
Brows shot up at the reference, with many wondering if Pepper had perhaps forgotten she , by virtue of her age alone, was also one of the so-called millennials.
"It's that they've forgotten how the Church still perceives suicide as one of the mortal sins. People must be reminded of this crucial fact as well as eternal damnation being its inevitable consequence."
The whole class seemed to wait in bated breath for the professor's reaction, and when he finally spoke, it was exactly what Diana had dreaded expected.
"While I would caution you against further limiting your scope than what's required—-" The professor's lips curved ever so faintly. "Your approach is commendably novel, and since that's what this class is designed for - well done again, Ms. Lowell."
Breaths were expelled when the curve of his lips remained, the sight transforming the professor's cruel beauty into one of slightly more approachable but no less appealing proportions.
If she didn't think it so daft, she could've even sworn that the professor's smile had the hearts of every girl in the room skipping a beat. It was that split second of tingling silence following a stolen glimpse of perfection, and the more she thought about this, the more she became convinced of a reality that should've been glaringly obvious from the start.
Every girl in this room wanted him, too.
A second student was called, but Diana's attempt to listen to her proposal was futile, her mind and heart both distracted by the strange, stifling sensation gripping her chest. It took her several moments to recognize what the feeling was, and a few more to accept it was real.
She had always been an easily contented person, never having felt the need to covet what another person had. She had readily accepted she would never be as interesting or vivacious as other girls, had never thought to ask God when it would be her turn to fall or why she couldn't even have a mother's love.
She had never felt jealous before until—-
"Ms. Leventis?"
Diana started in her seat, and when she lifted her head, it was to find everyone staring at her. Again. And by the looks of it, this wasn't the first time the professor had called her name.
Oh, Saint M, pray for me .
"If it is not too much to ask," the professor asked in a glacial voice, "would you care to put your daydreams on pause for the rest of the class?"
Diana felt her eyes sting in mortification and fought hard to keep her composure. "I...I..."
"Save us from unnecessary explanations, any of which I highly doubt will be the truth." When she didn't speak, the professor dealt her an impatient glance, asking irritably, "Well? Your proposal then?"
Oh!
Since she had nothing written on her proposal sheet, Diana could only blurt out the first half-baked idea that came to her mind. "I was thinking, umm, since depression is one of the leading causes of suicide, then perhaps we could use faith to cure depression—-"
The professor's lip curled. "I've heard enough."
He had?
"And I think you're better off dropping my subject."
Diana found herself clutching the edge of her desk as shock reverberated in the entire class in palpable silence.
Cut your losses and go.
It was the voice of reason again, but try as she might, she couldn't make herself listen to it.
"I s-sincerely believe in what I'm saying, professor."
"Good for you, but that's not why I'm asking you to drop the subject."
"What I'm saying makes sense—-"
"If I only wanted my students to make sense," the professor snapped, "then I should've opted to teach in kindergarten, do you think?" The words were intended to hurt, and hurt it did. The girl was now trembling and visibly fighting back tears, but just as before, the sight of her distress did not bring him any amount of gratification.
Damn her. Damn her. Goddamn her for forcing him to make her bleed, and because this had to be the last time, he knew he couldn't leave it this way. He had to see it to the end, no matter what.
When she started to sit, he saw his opportunity and seized it mercilessly, saying sharply, "I'm not finished."
The girl flinched, and so did most of the class. That he was a pitiless bastard was a widely-known fact, but couldn't the professor see he was already beating a dead animal in this instance?
"Remind me what this subject is, Ms. Leventis."
His words were like a noose tightening around her throat, and while she didn't know how or when it would happen, the one thing she was certain of was that this was the beginning of the end.
"Ms. Leventis?"
"Novel Therapy—-"
"Finally," the professor mocked. "A correct answer." It had a few students laughing, causing the girl to flush, but he forced himself to get past this. "Do you think you could properly define this as well?"
"It c-can be any method or technology that could be considered breakthrough or radical—-"
"In other words," the professor murmured silkily, "it could also be the first of its kind."
"Yes—-"
"That being said, do you genuinely believe you're the first person who thought curing depression with faith would help prevent suicide?"
He saw her jerk, saw the first tear fall, and he knew it should be enough.
"Because if you do, then you're an even bigger idiot than I gave you credit for."
But instead he found himself pushing the knife deeper.
I'm sorry, but there's no other fucking way.
Diana could feel everyone staring at her. She knew she should at least say something, but the humiliating flow of her tears had robbed her of the ability to speak. All she could do was remember how this man destroying her was also the same man she had willingly taken her clothes off for, and this truth...it broke her, to the point that for one second she found herself tempted - oh, how she was so shamefully tempted - to be the subject of her own study and surrender herself to oblivion.
But eventually the feeling passed, a hitherto hidden core of strength ultimately prevailing, and Diana's fingers slowly loosened its deathlike grip on the desk.
Dark eyes that neither hated nor judged met eyes that burned an inscrutable shade of gold.
He didn't have to hurt her this way, but he had.
He could have done this differently, but he hadn't.
This, finally, was the end.
Not inevitable, but not salvageable either.
It was the ending he chose, the ending he wanted, and she was just so tired now that she let it be.
Goodbye, Professor .