Page 27 of After Class

"Calm down Cass," he said gently, and I was relieved to hear the faint amusement in his voice. "Everything is fine. I'm in the Quad getting coffee, can you meet me there?"

"Yeah, of course." I had nearly an hour and half before my next class. There was a long walkway between the parkinggarage and the science labs that would take me to the Quad, so I turned and took that path. The moment I did, I heard someone call behind me.

"Cassandra!"

I glanced back, and my stomach clenched. It was Ethan.Sophia was no longer with him. No one else was walking this way. I turned away quickly, walking faster.

"Ethan is following me, Adrian," I said softly.

"Where are you?" His voice was immediately serious.

"The walkway next to the parking garage and the science building," I tried not to sound afraid. Ethan wouldn't try anything in the middle of the day, and on the university campus. At least, I didn't think he would.

"Cass, would you stop walking and fucking talk to me?" I didn't turn around. Didn't look at him. Just kept walking, head down.

"I'll be right there, Cass," Adrian said. He sounded so calm, still in control. In the distance, I saw him round the corner to the walkway.

At the same moment, Ethan grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face him.

"Would you stop running away from me like some freak?" Ethan was right in my face, his voice exasperated, his grip still squeezing my arms. "You ready to talk to me yet? Now that your little boyfriend has run away from class?"

"Get away from me, Ethan," I said, jerking myself out of his hands and backing away.

He scoffed. "No. I have as much right to walk here as you do. You're just-"

His voice died in his throat, and I felt another arm go around me. Protective. Possessive. Adrian had his other hand in his pocket, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. I shrunk againsthim. Ethan looked him up and down skeptically, and then grinned.

"Is there a problem?" Adrian asked, and Ethan shook his head with a curled lip.

"Of course not, Mr. Blackwood," he said. "I mean, I guess now that you're not her professor anymore, it doesn'treallymatter that you're fucking my ex less than two weeks after we broke up."

"It's been three weeks, Ethan," I muttered.

"Shut up, Cass," he said, stepping forward aggressively. "Why don't you just admit that you're a nasty little ho who couldn't wait to get away from me so you could go fuck your teachers?"

I started to answer, to protest, to yell at him and ask why the hell he should even care when he didn't want to be with me anyway, but Adrian squeezed my shoulder and quieted me.

"I think you need to leave, Ethan," he said softly. "Just turn back around, and walk away."

Ethan spread his arms, pacing on the sidewalk. "It's a free country. I can walk where I want. I'm not gonna have this bitch-" he jabbed his finger at me "- and her pervy-ass professor tell me where I can't-"

Before I realized what was happening, Adrian had stepped away from me, closed the gap between him and Ethan, and punched him in the mouth. For a second both Ethan and I stared blankly, stunned, and then Ethan fell flat on his back, mouth bleeding as he stared dazedly at the sky.

Adrian turned back to me, a pained expression on his face, wiping his hand on his shirt. My mouth was hanging open.

"Probably shouldn't have done that on school property," he muttered, coming back and putting his arm around me again, leading me away as if nothing at all had happened. I was shocked into silence on the outside; on the inside, I was cheering. Adrian mused, "I really think possible suspension was worth it. How didyou put up with that asshole for two years? Wait, no." He held up his hand. "Don't answer. You're going to say the reason was stupidity and then I'm going to have to spank you for calling yourself stupid."

***

I was pretty sure Ethan dropped our class altogether after that.Sophia continued to show up, alone. I tried to smile at her if I ever caught her eye. I honestly hoped that whether they were still together or not, she wouldn't have to go through the same bullshit I had.

"I left the teaching course on my own," Adrian had told me. "That's why I had that meeting with my professor. I figured since I felt like things were getting more . . . serious, despite what you said you wanted, that I should admit it to someone up front. So my professor arranged for me to do the course next year. He said it wasn't the first time this kind of thing has happened."

I was relieved, in every possible way. Ethan was no longer bothering me, and Adrian and I were no longer sneaking around campus. We met for coffee between classes, and Maya finally met him without being a drunken mess. She almost screamed when she walked by Starbucks and happened to see us sitting together.

"Oh my goooddd, you two are socute," she said, giving me a suffocating hug around my chest. "Hold on, hold on, let me take a picture."

She stood back and snapped a photo of us with her phone, smiling over our cups of coffee, Adrian holding my hand across the table as I furiously blushed. It was the same photo we used later that semester to make our relationship official on Facebook.

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