Chapter 42 - Lila
Lila
My response to the accuser was a simple one.
I tried to sleep, fighting the urge to check my inbox every five minutes. Instead, I checked it every ten. But they still hadn’t replied.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but the first thing I checked the next morning was my email.
The accuser had replied to my email with two words.
Come alone.
A shiver ran up my spine. After spending a week terrified of this anonymous person, getting a new message from them was like getting a phone call from a serial killer.
It was the longest Sunday of my life. I paced around my living room and checked out my window every ten minutes. I ran a load of laundry, vacuumed my entire house, then folded and put the laundry away. I tried grading papers, but my eyes kept reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over.
Without any other way to relieve my stress, I met Professor Galloway at the park for pickleball. I was awful at it, but so was Professor Du Bois, and it helped me release a lot of energy that had been building up.
“You look like the weight has been lifted from your shoulders,” Galloway mentioned as we walked back to our cars afterward.
“This helped,” I replied. Until you mentioned it again.
That evening, I got to Frankie’s an hour early and sat in a booth over in the corner where most people wouldn’t see us.
Brock wasn’t working tonight, and it felt like a personal betrayal for me to be here without him.
I ordered a beer, but only took a few sips.
Every time the door opened, I almost jumped out of my seat.
Would it be one of my students, or another member of the faculty? I couldn’t decide which scenario I would have preferred.
I wished I could text the guys about this, but I knew they would disapprove.
Worse, they would probably want to do something macho like show up and get in a fight with my accuser.
That would only make the situation worse, and it would potentially get them in trouble.
It would be deeply ironic if my students received an up-close tour of the Tennessee justice system thanks to their Criminology professor.
While I waited for the accuser to show up, I began catastrophizing about the entire situation. If I somehow got out of this with my job intact—a very big if—I couldn’t keep doing this. I would need to cut things off with Jace, Brock, and Cam.
Permanently.
Putting things on pause until after the semester was over wasn’t good enough.
Someone would connect the dots, especially if we ever stopped sneaking around.
They would discover that my boyfriend was a student, and it would be incredibly easy to trace back the fact that they were in one of my classes.
Questions would be asked. The suspicion would be there.
It would undermine my position as a professor.
The only alternative was to keep my relationships a secret indefinitely. And deep down, I knew I wasn’t willing to do that. It wasn’t what I wanted in a partner.
Which meant breaking up with them.
As that certainty sank in, a hole felt like it was forming in my stomach. I didn’t want to break up with any of them. I wanted to explore our relationships, to see where they would go. I wanted something long-term with them.
But it was becoming increasingly clear that wasn’t possible.
This was a wake-up call. If I got out of this, I would never be sloppy again.
The door opened, and a kid in a red Smokey Mountain State University sweatshirt stopped just inside the doorway. He adjusted the backpack on his shoulder, his gaze slowly sweeping across the room.
I held my breath until his eyes stopped on me. They widened for a moment, and then he approached my table.
Even though it didn’t help my situation at all, part of me was relieved that my accuser wasn’t another member of the faculty. I could handle the judgmental stare of a student more than a colleague.
“Are you him?” I asked.
“I’m him,” he said, sliding into my booth. He pulled back the hood of the sweatshirt. He wasn’t smiling in victory the way I had expected. He immediately started tapping his foot nervously, and his eyes darted in all directions like he expected an ambush.
“I came alone,” I said, searching his face. “Which of my classes are you in?”
“None,” he replied. “You’re a Criminology professor, right? I’m a Psych major.”
I stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I’ve got you, Lila.”
The way he used my first name stung. It made me feel more like a victim.
“How did you find out?” I asked.
He cocked his head to the side. “It was easy. You two have been sloppy. I’ve been watching you for weeks.”
Weeks. I thought about all the times Jace, Brock, and Cam had come to my house in the past month. Dozens of meetings.
I was screwed.
“It’s honestly kind of embarrassing,” he said, sneering at me. “A professor sleeping with one of her students? It’s so cliche. Like something you’d see on the news.”
There was something about his tone that was off. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was. Then it hit me.
A professor sleeping with one of her students.
Not three. Not several. One. That’s the word he’d used.
But if he had been watching me for weeks, he would have known about all three of them.
“What’s their name?” I asked.
The kid sneered at me. “Huh?”
“You’re accusing me of sleeping with a student. What’s their name?”
That nervous look returned to him, his eyes blowing wide. “I don’t…”
“What evidence do you have?” I demanded. “Tell me right now or I’m walking out that door.”
“Fine. You got me,” he admitted. “I don’t have any real evidence. I sent that email to every professor at school.”
I suppressed the urge to pump my fist. Yes!
“But,” he said, aiming an accusing finger across the booth, “you’re the only professor who responded.
The only one with a guilty conscious. And now that you’ve admitted it by coming here, I know the truth.
Even if I don’t have any evidence, I’m betting you don’t want me going to the head of your department with my accusation.
That would bring a bunch of scrutiny down on you.
And once a bright light is shone on your activities, emails, text messages… ”
He sneered at me, and I felt a whole new level of despair. Even though we had been careful, and had only sent encrypted texts through Signal, I wouldn’t survive a real investigation. And my reputation would still be damaged beyond repair.
“What do you want?” I asked in a small voice.
“I’m glad you asked!” He crossed his arms on the table lazily. “I looked up the salary for an Associate Professor. It’s kind of pitiful. The American education system really is in bad shape. But for now, I think you can afford to part with a thousand dollars a month. How’s that sound?”
“Fine,” I agreed. If that’s what it would take to save my career…
“That’s not all. I’m currently getting a D in my Calculus class because my professor is a piece of shit who has it out for me,” he complained. “I need you to convince him to change my grade before the final exam.”
I gaped at him. “How am I supposed to do that? This is my second semester here. I don’t know anyone in the math department.”
“That’s your problem to figure out!” he said cheerfully. “And while we’re on the subject of finals, I want copies of all your final exams. And all the ones in your department.”
“Why? You’re not a Criminology student.”
He shrugged. “I’ll find a way to trade those exams for some other favors. All you need to worry about is getting me the exams. This will be a recurring thing, by the way. Not just this semester. The good news for you is that I graduate next year, so you’ll be off the hook, then.”
Once again, I felt powerless. And it was my own fault for replying to his email.
I should have listened to Cam.
“Okay,” I said. “Congrats. You win.”
“No,” said a deep, familiar voice, “he doesn’t.”
There, standing next to our booth, was Brock.
And he had a huge smile on his face.