Chapter 24
Taylor pushed open the door to the psychology department.
Mid-January drafts sweeping through the corridor chilled the faint layer of sweat at the nape of her neck.
Classes had resumed two weeks ago, and a strange, stiff distance had settled over Charlotte ever since.
Taylor tried to write it off as new-semester stress.
She knocked and then stepped into Charlotte’s office for their usual Friday afternoon routine of locking the door and whispering weekend plans, expecting a quick kiss against the bookshelves.
Charlotte sat completely rigid behind her desk, hands folded over a stack of printouts. She didn’t look up right away.
Taylor closed the door. The silence in the room possessed a heavy, suffocating quality that pressed against Taylor’s eardrums.
“Hey, are you okay?” Taylor asked, hating that Charlotte hadn’t smiled when she’d come in.
Charlotte visibly swallowed. “Yeah.” She shifted her focus to a spot on the desk, then back up to Taylor’s eyes. “I don’t think we should see each other this weekend.”
Taylor forced herself to fake a lightness she didn’t feel. “Oh? You have plans?”
“No.” Charlotte lifted a hand and wiped her palm roughly across her face. “Taylor, I can’t do this anymore.”
Taylor opened her mouth. The air in the room felt too thin. “Did something happen?”
“I’m just…” Charlotte pressed her lips together. “I hate lying to everyone I know. And I know how important this degree is for you.” She shook her head gently. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
A flare of heat sparked right behind Taylor’s sternum, burning away the numbness.
Anger clawed up her throat, but she clamped her teeth together to trap it inside.
They had just spent three and a half months wrapped in each other, surviving the holidays in a perfect, secluded bubble.
None of this made sense. Charlotte was hiding something.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said. “I don’t want to do this, but I feel like we’re pushing our luck here. I didn’t want to tell you like this, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to say it, and there’s no good way.”
The muscles in Taylor’s thighs twitched with the urge to step backward. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say it. Charlotte had been planning this. While Taylor sat in her lectures grinning like an absolute idiot, Charlotte had been drafting a breakup speech behind that professional mask.
“Can I come by your place in the morning?” Taylor asked. She focused entirely on keeping her vocal cords loose and even. “Just to talk?”
“Please don’t make this harder than it already is.
I’m so sorry, Taylor.” Moisture gathered along Charlotte’s lower lash line, catching the gray light from the window.
“Sam nearly saw you at my house. On New Years Day. And it’s just been one thing after another.
All near misses. Like a lie I mixed up about why I couldn’t go to dinner with a colleague.
I just can’t handle the stress of this situation. ”
Taylor bit down on the inside of her cheek until the sharp sting of pain grounded her. She stared at the ceiling for a fraction of a second, blinking aggressively against the moisture gathering in her own eyes.
“You’ve been thinking about this for a while then?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah.” Charlotte let out a ragged exhale that deflated her rigid posture. “I’ve been struggling with the guilt and my responsibilities as a professor. As your professor.” She gripped the edge of her desk. “I’m out. I can’t play this game anymore. I’m sorry, Taylor.”
The urge to cross the room and demand a real explanation pulled at Taylor’s chest. She wanted to fight.
She wanted to throw the months of uninhibited intimacy back in Charlotte’s face.
But arguing required leverage she didn’t possess.
The only ammunition she held were three dangerous words she kept locked behind her ribs, and she absolutely refused to hurl a confession of love at a woman currently treating her like an inconvenience.
“I’ll show myself out then,” Taylor said. She corralled her tone, offering a smooth, flat delivery free of bitterness. “If you’re done playing this game.”
Taylor turned the knob and walked out into the corridor. She put one foot in front of the other, making it across the parking lot purely on muscle memory. She unlocked her car and slid into the driver’s seat.
Before she even got the key into the ignition, the first sob tore its way out of her throat.