Page 39 of Taming His Teacher

Erin

It’s been a month. A month since he’s been here, a month since he’s been avoiding me. He’s not rude. No, Shep wouldn’t be rude, but god, it hurts. I can’t catch him in his classroom—he leaves as soon as his classes are over—and he’s laser-focused as a coach so I can’t even make eye contact when they’re out on the soccer field. He won’t sit at a table I’m at in the faculty dining hall and if I sit down at a table he’s already at, he’ll make an excuse after a few minutes and leave.

I’m a pariah and I have no idea why. Not that he’s a barrel of monkeys with anyone else—he’s always been serious and earnest and that hasn’t changed. He’s not sunshine and bluebirds when he’s not with me, more like an overcast day, but whenever he sees me, or even when he senses me… I don’t know how he does that, anyway, but his shoulders stiffen and his face darkens without having to set eyes on me. I’m a storm cloud.

I gave up for a while, but that only made me feel worse. My appetite has suffered, my attitude has suffered. I am suffering. Aunt Tilly had asked me about it when I had dinner with her and Uncle Rett on Sunday.

“Is everything all right, Erin? You’ve seemed down lately.”

Down is an understatement, but I’d plastered a fake smile on my face, not showing my teeth. “Yeah. Getting back into the swing of things is a little rough.”

Maybe they’d speculated later that it’s because of the divorce, but they’d be wrong. I have fleeting moments of missing Will, but it’s overwhelmed with relief. That decision was absolutely for the best.

Tilly’d raised a skeptical brow before cutting into her duck à l’orange. It’s one of her specialties.

“How’s it having one of your old students teach next door? Mr. Shepherd seems to be doing well.”

I’d swallowed my wine before I could choke on it. “Yeah, the boys seem to like him.”

It’s a weak endorsement, but if I tell her how I sometimes sit in my classroom during my free periods to hear him through the wall, I might cry. He’s brilliant. Really brilliant. I love to hear him talk, love the way his mind works, the way he explains things in a way I never would. I wish I could sit in his classroom and have him teach me, instruct me, fill me. That’s when my thoughts start to wander away from his brilliant mind and on to less cerebral and more…corporeal thoughts. Fleshy, sweaty, sexy thoughts.

Luckily, Uncle Rett had jumped in, talking about how our thirds soccer team was crushing the other schools in the division under Shep’s leadership. My unfulfillable fantasies had puffed into the air, a victim of reality.

I’m tired of suffering. I’ve suffered enough. If he’s going to be like this, I at least deserve an explanation. So that’s how I find myself standing outside his door, poised to knock. The hand by my side is curled in on itself in sympathy and I steel myself, setting my jaw and my brow before I rap my knuckles against the wood.

When the door opens, it’s clear I’m the last person on earth Shep’s expecting. Was he expecting someone else? My stomach lurches at the thought, remembering knocking on Will’s door.

“Erin.” His dark brows crease while he takes a step back, his head turning like a horse’s yanked by reins. “What are you doing here?”

All my resolve deserts me, scattering in flimsy scraps all over the stained hallway carpeting. My shoulders collapse and I can’t meet his eyes. “I…”

“Is everything okay?” Just like that, he’s back. The Shep I remember who was always so concerned about me, offering me his fleece, walking me back from Turner at night, rushing me to the ER. His hands are braced against the doorframe like he’s trying to hold himself back. I wish I’d come here with some problem for him to solve, a crisis to manage. But all I’ve got is, “Yes, everything is fine,” and I hate the way a barrier gets drawn down between us, his expression shuttering. Why is he locking me out?

“I… Can I come in?” My voice is small and desperate.

He digs a running-shoed toe into the hardwood on his side of the threshold and looks down at it. It’s as if he’s expecting some unusual reaction, a cloud of smoke or maybe a secret hole to open that he can slide through. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Okay, then. I look over my shoulder to make sure there aren’t any little ears to hear what I’m about to say, but the hallway’s clear and silent. I gather whatever pieces of tenacity I can and wait until he looks me in the face. “Why are you avoiding me? Since you’ve gotten here, you barely speak to me.”

“I’m not avoiding you, I’m busy. You know how it is.”

His response is rote, like he’s practiced it. Is it the height of narcissism to think maybe he has in case I ever came around to call him on this?You’re so foolish and conceited, Erin. God.But then he scrubs a hand through his hair, and in the gap I can see through a doorway on the opposite side of the hall. Into his bedroom. At least I think it’s his bedroom. Tacked over a desk to the institutional-beige walls… Are those his drawings from his senior year? Along with one I haven’t seen before. A finely detailed portrait of heels lifting out of a pair of shoes. My shoes. I’d recognize those purple flats anywhere. Even from the back, even in greyscale.

The sight gives me the courage to stand firm instead of turning tail and running away, inflates the hope inside of me that this thing between us hasn’t just been in my head. It’s there. It has to be. Why else would he have pictures of me hanging in his room? When he notices me gazing over his shoulder, he raises his hand to the doorframe again, blocking my view. I’d like to push past him or duck under his arm to look my fill but I won’t invade his space. I will, however, give it one more try.

“I do. I’m busy, too. But, I thought…”

“What? What did you think?” I hate the bordering-on-derisive note of his questions. “Cruel” is not a word I would’ve ever dreamed I’d associate with Shep but that’s what this is. Downright mean. I could call him on it, set up evidence like we’re in the midst of some television courtroom drama.Exhibit A: You kissed me. Exhibit B: All the updates you sent into the bulletin. Exhibit C: You came back here.I could go on for days with all the small, unsaid ways he’s told me that he cares for me, is attracted to me. But the habit of not saying these things out loud, of keeping the pull between us a furtive secret we don’t even dare whisper, is a hard one to break. All I can do is gesture weakly behind him.

“What are those, then? Your drawings of me. I thought they meant something. At least they used to. I don’t understand. I just—”

“Stay away from me, Erin.”

His voice is hard but brittle. Like if I took a hammer and chisel to his words, they’d flake off in sharp slabs.Stay away from me, Erin. There’s a jagged warning there and it punctures any hope I had of us being together. Or being friends. Or being anything at all. He didn’t deny it but it doesn’t matter. My eyelids flutter, tears behind them, and my weak chin quivers.Don’t cry.He’ll pat you on the head and maybe hold you because you’re pathetic, because that’s what he’d do for anyone.

I’ve bared my expansive vulnerability to enough men and I’m not going to do it again to someone who doesn’t give a care about me or my feelings. My throat is tight and it makes my words come out tiny and weak. “Will do.”

I open and close my hands, which have been clenched by my sides this whole time, and turn to hurry down the hallway, hoping to at least make the stairwell before I start to cry.

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