Chapter 9
JESSIE
I’m writing in my notebook, and I cannot stop smiling.
And this is a bit of a problem, considering I’m sitting in the common room and Becca is staring at me from the couch like a wildlife photographer who has just spotted a rare species that hasn’t been seen in years.
I should probably put the pen down and go talk to her, but I just can’t stop. I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor with my back to the wall, and the words are just pouring out of me.
They’re not academic any longer, either. They’re just sort of flowing out of my stream of consciousness.
He carried me to his bed and undid the buttons on my dress…
I felt like I was coming apart as the tension built inside me…
I was sure it wouldn’t fit, but I trusted him. And it did…
Now I am his.
I underline the last sentence, and it feels good. So good. I know how crazy it sounds. How quickly our whirlwind romance has spun me off my feet. But I don’t care. I feel how I feel, and I’m not questioning it.
“So, Jessie,” Becca says casually.
“Yes?”
“You’ve been writing for…forty minutes now.”
“Okay.”
“Whose shirt is that you’re wearing?” she asks. I look down. Yeah, I’m wearing August’s white button-down. I stole it this morning while he was in the shower because it smells like him, and I can’t get enough.
“She is gone,” Dani laughs from the doorway. “Look at her face!”
“Oh, I’m looking,” Becca says.
“And that’s not a crush-face. That’s not even a love-face. That’s the I-have-seen-God-and-he-has-an-amazing-body face.”
Everyone laughs, but I can only nod. “That’s…well, yeah. Accurate.”
“So…you did it?” Lourdes asks tentatively.
I take a deep breath as something hits me.
Despite the fact that the memories of what August and I did yesterday have been running through my mind all day, or the fact that I’ve been writing about it like a wannabe novelist, or the fact that I’m wearing his shirt, the reality of it all didn’t hit me until right now.
“Yeah…” I say slowly, my lips twisting into a smile. “We did.”
Silence. A pause that stretches on for what feels like minutes before Becca finally speaks. “And? How was it?”
Blush hits my cheeks like hot pins and needles. “It was good,” I reply. “It was so good.”
“How good?” Dani presses me like she’s a scientist on the verge of a major discovery.
A golden glow starts to expand within me. I set down the pen and look at my three friends. They’ve been with me since this all started. I can’t hold anything back from them.
Not like I want to anyway. I’m dying to share.
“He loved my dress.”
Lourdes nearly leaps out of her clothes, slapping her hands together. “I knew it!”
“He kissed me all over, told me I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and then he…” My voice trails off as the blush threatens to consume me. “Well…he taught me how it all works.”
“That’s a real polite way of saying you fucked your professor!” Becca remarks, causing everyone to laugh. Including me.
“God, that’s actually so hot,” Dani remarks. Becca and Lourdes both nod, and I am instantly taken back to August’s bed, lying beneath him as he looks down at me with those intent, caring eyes.
I can feel his thickness pressed against my entrance. I can feel him spreading me, stretching me past a point I never thought possible. The look on his face as he took me…
…the pleasure I gave him.
Lourdes leans in, curiosity painted all over her face. “Did he make you come?”
“Lourdes!” Becca gasps, but Lourdes just shrugs.
“It’s a legitimate question.”
She’s right. And I nod, thinking about our second session in the middle of the night when he woke me up. “Several times.”
“Oh my God,” Dani gasps. “I think I’m in love. You better watch out, Jessie. I might have to steal this man from you.”
“Yeah, you just try it.” I smirk, giving her my evil queen glare.
“So what’s the plan from now on? Think you can still be his student?” Becca asks.
“Plan?” I shrug. “There’s no plan. I’ll be a good girl—I mean, good student—”
My friends burst out laughing.
“Oh, you’ll be a good girl, all right,” Dani giggles. Becca reaches down and squeezes my shoulder. They group around me, giving off that friend-energy that you can only know with people who really care about you.
“So it’s love?” Becca asks softly.
Her question brings tears to my eyes, but I hold back. “Yes. It’s love.”
Still buzzing, glowing like a firefly, I’m crossing the quad for my afternoon seminar when Gerald steps in front of me.
I haven’t seen him since the last time, when August came over and made him retreat like a member of a weaker army. My heart jumps, and not in a good way, as he looks at me with that same thinning hair, those odd glasses, and the trying-too-hard jacket.
He smiles at me in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Miss Monroe, glad I caught you.”
Caught me? What am I, a fish?
Every instinct I have tells me to just walk around him. Keep moving. Pretend August is here to look out for me. I even glance over my shoulder, hoping to see him walking toward me.
But he’s not. And I’m alone.
“I have class—” I say.
“I just need a minute,” he interrupts. His voice has an odd, oily quality about it that makes me feel like I need a shower. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his phone. Is he going to ask for my number? “I debated on whether I should show you this…but my conscience won’t let me stay silent.”
His voice has that tone of I’m doing this for you that parents always use when they’re scolding you.
I’m about to just walk away, but then he turns his phone screen around, and what I see freezes me.
It’s a photo of a place I instantly recognize: the outside of August’s office. The door is partially open, and through the gap, I can see August. He’s leaning against his desk in that sexy way he does, his sleeves rolled up, revealing his spectacular arms crossed over his chest.
Pretty normal. But across from him is a girl. A girl that’s not me.
She’s young, blond, and twisting her hair around her finger as she laughs at something he said. She’s also sitting on the leather chair. My chair.
I try to tell myself it’s nothing. But my body takes over, and my heart starts racing. “Her name was Megan Ashwood,” Gerald says. “She was a freshman three years ago. Best student. Always sat in the front row of his class.”
My chest tightens, and the ground seems to move beneath me.
“August offered her what he called ‘supplemental tutoring.’” Each word lands like a rock dropped onto a frozen lake. “Private sessions. In his office. She was valedictorian at her high school, so it’s not like she needed the help. But he took a…particular interest in her.”
“Stop,” I say, but my voice comes out soft, unbraced.
“Next spring, she transferred to another university. Never said why, but…people talked.” He tucks the phone away delicately, like he’s handling something fragile. “I’m not telling you this to hurt you, Miss Monroe. I just want you to understand—”
“I said stop.”
My heart is on overdrive. My forehead is hot. I can feel my legs starting to tremble beneath me. He may have put the photo away, but it’s fried into my mind. Even as I look up at Gerald, I see it.
And it feels like a hot knife plunged straight into my chest.
Always sat in the front row of his class.
Just like me.
“If you feel like talking,” Gerald says, adjusting his glasses, “my door is always open.”
With that, he walks away, leaving me standing in the middle of the quad as students flow around me. My feet feel like anchors, rooted in the concrete path.
Something is growing in my chest. Not anger. Not yet.
Doubt.
What if I’m not special to him? What if it’s all just a lie?
August is peak. He could get any, or as many women as he wants. Maybe I’m just the latest one on the menu with the physicality he was looking for. He saw my innocence and decided to take advantage of it with his dashing good looks and his charming competence that makes him so sexy and alluring.
There could have been countless other front-row girls. Countless tutoring sessions.
Oh God. I think I’m going to throw up.
Slowly, I turn and walk back to my dorm, dragging my feet like they’re sealed in cement. I don’t cry. Not yet. Not out in the open where people can see.
God, I should have seen this coming. A know-nothing girl like me with an older man like August? It’s something out of a fairy tale, and life is not a fairy tale.
I’m numb as I make it to my door and take the stairs up to my room. I drop face-first onto the bed and lie there silently, trying to calm the countless questions plaguing my mind.
My phone buzzes, nearly shocking me out of my skin. It’s a text from August: Thinking of you. Thursday?
My fingers start to move on their own, but I stop them. No, I’m not responding.
I lie on the bed for another hour, doubting every decision I’ve made since I came to this school.
It buzzes again: Jessie?
Again, I don’t answer.
On my bedside table, my notebook sits open to the page I was writing on earlier: Now I am his.
Tears drip from my eyes, blurring the ink. I snap the cover shut and fall back.
This is the first time I’ve actually fully closed the notebook since the day he called me a good girl in his office. Back when I was innocent and na?ve and every cell in my body believed that his words actually meant something.
How could I have been so stupid?