The Professor's Girl | 18+ | COMPLETE |

+ chapter 20 +

I couldn't deny it anymore. I had feelings for Kahlan Travis. The very idea of him leaving, of me never experiencing another moment together with him, made my heart hurt. But it was a different feeling than it had been with Jay. When I worried about losing Jay – which I often had especially during the last year we were together – it was with a desperate, frantic terror. It was with the fear of fulfilling all the ways in which he complained about me, the ultimate failure. With Kahlan, I feared the loss of his conversation. The loss of the intense, fiery way he looked at me. The loss of his commands, his firm and reassuring tone. The loss of the most exquisite pleasure I had ever experienced. The loss of never knowing if he was happy or satisfied.

I absolutely did not want to allow myself to think, even for one second, that I was falling in love with him. But that thought was indeed there, buried at the back of my mind, prodding me more and more frequently.

"Be a good girl for me," he had said before he left, giving me one last deep kiss to remember him by. I was tingly and dazed and endorphin high even when I returned to campus for work that evening. Customers passed by in a daze. I could not remember the last day that had gone by without worry, or anxiety. The last day I had looked at my hazy reflection in windows and been so satisfied with what I saw.

Now, the only worry that lingered was this: could I bring myself to tell him I wanted more? That I couldn't linger in this casual no-man's land? Did I dare? And what would happen then? I would soon have to send in my application for the Students Abroad program, and he had promised to write my recommendation letter. What would happen when I left to Europe for a semester, possibly for a year? Did I really want to put myself in a position of having to worry if someone was waiting for me?

"Oh you've got it bad, girl," Sarah said, shaking her head at me. I had invited her over to split the Ben & Jerry's after work, and I had yet to even say a word about Kahlan.

"What do you mean?" I said, feigning as much innocence as I could. It was a pathetic attempt. She gave me slow look, her eyes fluttering as she dramatically rolled them.

"Come ooonnn, Liz," she said. "You're crushing hard on this "casual" guy of yours. I can see it on your face. You're all distant and dreamy." She fluttered her hands. "And I can smell a man all over this couch. Which means he was here for a while."

What kind of super-human was she? Some kind of romance sniffer dog? I gave it up, and sighed the most dramatic, overblown sigh ever sighed.

"I don't know how this happened Sarah," I said. "It really was supposed to just be casual. Like a rebound from Jay. But he's just so . . . so . . . he brought this ice cream."

She stared wide-eyed, a spoonful clamped in her mouth. "Oh honey," she said, around a mouthful of Chunky Monkey. "You've got him in the palm of your hand."

Did I? That didn't quite seem to coincide with the orders, punishments, and disciplines, and yet it somehow meshed together into a perfect system of care and trust. Maybe I was being the same naïve girl I had been for the past two years, but I genuinely couldn't imagine Kahlan going out of his way to be nice just for the sake of getting what he wanted. He just . . . he wasn't like that.

He was sadistic, merciless, and absolutely perverted, but . . . he wasn't an asshole.

"Tell him how you feel," Sarah said simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world. "And tell him soon, before everything gets too confusing, before he starts thinking about having other options."

The conundrum bothered me the entire weekend. Every easy, flirtatious text exchange with Kahlan over the next several days had me itching to send a long message declaring how I felt. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I kept hovering uneasily between telling myself I was right to hold back, and screaming at myself for being tragically wrong, and risking losing the opportunity altogether. As Sarah had said, I knew Kahlan had to have other options. Just seeing the way the students looked at him told me that much. 

But maybe it was meant to stay that way.

I was still stressing over my options on Friday. Kahlan had been at work nearly the whole day, so I'd had plenty of time to worry without any of his usual distracting texts throughout the day. I had settled in to dinner when I heard a knock at my door. Sarah never knocked, but it was late enough that Kahlan could have been off work. Hoping for a surprise visit, I abandoned my dinner on the table to open the door with an anticipatory smile.

But it wasn't Kahlan at all. It was Jay.

I almost slammed the door. I should have. But forced politeness and shock took over. I stared at him, disbelieving at first and then, slowly . . . frightened. What did he want?

"Hi," he said, his voice almost mockingly cheerful. "Hope this isn't a bad time." He kept peering past me, into the apartment, as if looking for something.

"Well I was about to have dinner," I said, hating how quiet and uncertain my voice became. "So yeah. It's kind of a bad time."

"Can I come in for a little bit?" he said, although it didn't really sound like a question. I was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

I shook my head. "No. You can't. I really don't want to see you." I was about to close the door, but his foot very firmly stopped it. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to steady myself. What the hell was he doing?

"Liz, I'm worried about you," he said, and I almost could have believed he was actually concerned from the wide-eyed look on his face. Almost, if I hadn't known that Jay Maitland genuinely did not feel empathy towards other humans.

"Move your fucking foot," I hissed. "I said I don't want to see you."

His hand now joined his foot, pressing against the door with an unmoveable show of strength. What was I supposed to do? Scream? Call for help? My voice felt choked up within me with my own uncertainty.

"Come on, Lizzi," he said, shoving the door so that I had to step back. He let himself in, still looking around skeptically. "Don't be afraid to ask for help."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I began to think that this was the point at which I needed to call the police. But my phone was on the couch and Jay had me cornered against the wall next to the door. I desperately hoped someone would walk by, anyone, and see what was happening.

But no one was coming. We were alone. I was alone.