While You Were Teaching

Chapter 8- Don't Stand So, Don't Stand So Close to Me

Two weeks have passed since my unfortunate encounter with Dominic Brown.  I am surviving, though somewhat haphazardly. I've done my part to disappear quietly from his classroom.  I try and sit more in the middle back of the room instead of front and center like I usually do in classrooms.  I don't raise my hand, and I always leave in a hurry to make sure that I am not the last person out the door again. I keep to myself and haven't made any friends in the class, which is coming back to bite me in the ass because Calculus is actually really  hard and I'm not understanding half of what Dominic, or I guess I should call him Professor Brown, is teaching.

Normally I would be involved in a study group, similar to the Economics one Reina and I started, but I just can't get up the courage to talk to anyone in that class. So I have been falling more and more behind in his class and I'm running out of options.  Blake thinks I'm being a big baby and should just suck it up and talk to him because my grades are more important than a little awkwardness.  Blake doesn't know that "Dominic" is Professor Brown.  I haven't told her.  I haven't told anyone.  Instead I told her a white lie about being intimidated by the man as my reason for avoiding his office hours.

I have kept this secret bottled up inside for weeks and I've almost blurted it out at least twenty times over the last few days.  I feel so guilty hiding it from her.  Blake has told me everything about her family: from her lonely Christmas mornings because her parents were too busy dealing with a client's drunken Christmas Eve faux pas to every single one of her hookups from the past 5 years.  The girl hasn't left much to my imagination. And yet I have been radio silent on my end.  I tell her the big stuff but I don't tell her the little things, like the little fact that the man she walked in one me kissing was soon to become my math teacher.

It's not that I think she would tell anyone if I told her. But I don't know her well enough to really determine if she would tell someone.  Even if I determined that she wouldn't tell anyone, I still don't think I would tell her.  Keeping my mouth shut is the only way I can make sure that my secret never gets out.  Because it can't get out.  I can't let my future be ruined over one stupid misguided kiss.

"Hey, so whatever happened with Dominic? I have a date tonight with a guy from my History class. We could double date and then I could finally get the chance to meet this mystery man." Blake says, while flipping through the latest copy of Vogue.

My heart flip-flops but I answer back casually, "You've already met him, remember? At the Alumni Gala?"

"That was for like two seconds.  That doesn't count!"

"Well it's as good as you're going to get because I am not going to be seeing Dominic again." Except every other day in class.

"Why not?" Blake pouts and opens a flap for a perfume ad. She sniffs it and scrunches up her nose. "Ew, Dior really needs to step up their game."

"I told you this before. After I told Dominic that I was still in college, he told me he wasn't interested.  He said that he wanted to date someone who was more mature and had the same interests that he did."

"What an asshole!"

"Yup, so can we please stop talking about him?" Every time Blake brings up Dominic, the guilt inside me increases  just a little.

"Okayyy, fine. But one of these days you're going to tell me the real reason."

"Real reason?" I ask, surprised.

"Mhhhm." Blake gives me a knowing smile. "You are as mature as my elderly grandmother, Avery. It's quite sickening actually. No man would ever in a million years break up with you because you weren't quote-unquote mature enough for him. So whenever you're ready to tell me the real reason why you're no longer seeing him I'll be here waiting."