My Professor's Secret

16|

Call me when you make it back. Spilt this amongst the both of you.

Read the letter. Next to it, a thousand dollars pressed in perfect hundred dollar bills.

To say the least, a rush of relief sat into my skin once Marcus' pulled into the park of my dormitory. For the first time in days I finally managed to gasp a mouth full of breath that no longer felt foreign. The nights sky welcomes me back and that's when it hit me. This had become my home away from home. A place I could escape to when I didn't have the energy to fight against the guilt demanding a reaction from me back in Dreycott.

My brother helps me wrangle my bags out the trunk—complaining once again how my need to overpack benefitted no one. Though it had as I watched him haul a bag I'd stuffed with a few of my mother's old shirts that her scent still clung to. Lorelei wouldn't be able to take these away from me too. Chris holds the bag all the way until we make it to the outside of my room, sitting it at my feet before giving me a chance to fish out the key I should've already had ready.

"Well," he says in a slight whisper. "I'll see you around, he ends with a shrug that suggests this will be our last conversation until one of us had the balls to apologize to the other. Clearly he had no intentions of being the one to.

Before he scurries away, I pull the note and wad of cash from my pocket and show it to him. A distasteful crease finds its way in the middle of his brows and honestly, I await the lashing out he must've been scripting in his head, but he says nothing. Instead he pulls them both from my hand, reads the letter, then counts the cash silently in his head, splitting it equally between us both. He nods a goodbye then hands the note back to me before disappearing down the corridor and into the elevator without a single word.

A steady silence almost disrupts what I expected to be a welcome home gathering set by Lynn and Taylor, but there was no one here. I couldn't stand to be alone in a room anymore after meeting Taylor but instead of partaking in any further sulking, I don't. I line my luggage neatly in front of the closet, toss the note in the bin beside my desk and collapse onto my bed. It's stiffness almost more comforting than the memory foam mattress in my room back home.

On my walk to work the next day, I find myself appreciative of the slightly warmer breeze Wyoming had to offer. A week of breathing out clouds of air and attempting to conjure heat by rubbing my hands together would not be missed, though I knew it was only weeks until the weather shifted here as well. Still, it'd never get as cold as Minnesota and that was something to look forward to. Tomorrow I'd go to the Student Center to rent my bike back.

Hinkhouse was barren when I arrived. Well, apart from Josh lingering in the kitchen preparing to feed the hungry bellies our customers would arrive with in less than thirty minutes. He greets me with a smile, even halting his work to pull me into a hug more secure than the one he left me with before I went home. His lips hold a steady upturn in its corners long after he releases me and its evident that the frown he used to wear to work had retired. We work in quiet for a while. I prepared over a dozen trays of uncooked doe for rolls before Josh thinks to break the silence.

"You were right," is all he says before being engulfed in another smile that's way too large to be credited to the slab of beef he was precutting.

I give him a brow furrow in return. Words being too much of a hassle as my body tries to get over the thirteen hour ride fatiguing my joints. Josh nearly gushes on for fifteens minutes, indulging me in aspects of Sawyer's personality that I knew would mesh well with his. Tales of their kindling relationship and Josh's excitement about the first official date they'd have tonight is enough to pull a smile on my face. Anyone could sense the attraction between the both of them when Sawyer scooped me from nights I'd grown too tired to ride a bike home.