Page 10 of You've Got a Place Here, Too
Guess I got my answer.
I stand and force my feet toward the exit.
“Ms. Wallace,” Dr. Lowe says, his voice even, firm. “Could you hang back? I need a word.”
The hummingbird beat of my heart is almost painful. Dread, embarrassment, anticipation, and—dammit—hope tumble inside me on a spin cycle of confusion. My feet are glued to the floor while I struggle to compose myself. A stream of students flows around me and out the door. I glance over my shoulder to find him moving papers on his desk, not looking at me. He seems relaxed and casual, like he couldn’t care less if I left or stayed.
If he can, I can.
I contort myself into the role of guileless student instead of the wanton woman who would fall to my knees right here if he gave me any sign he wanted it. That he wantedme.I walk slowly back toward his desk, pacing myself so I won’t reach him until the last student is gone.
“Yes, sir?” My voice comes out hushed, like the feelings I’ve been harboring for weeks. Months.
“Don’t…” He straightens and releases an extended breath. “You don’t have to call me sir, Ms. Wallace.”
“And you don’t have to call me Ms. Wallace, Dr. Lowe.”
His eyes snap to my face, and my heart stutters at the intensity there, like smothered flames. Like something barely held in check. Incongruous for someone who always exercises such restraint.
“Your poem was very good.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and frowns. “You’re a talented writer.”
It’s not the first time he’s told me this, but it’s always been in front of others—in front of the class. I’ve never been this close when he’s said it, and his approval spoken with only the two of us to hear feels intimate. It washes over me just as surely as if he’d breathed the words into my ear. Across my lips as sweet as a first kiss.
“Thank you.” I force myself to glance up, even though he has looked away again. He’s always looking away, never lingering long enough for me to see what’s behind those dark eyes. This is supposed to be my Hail Mary, my last-ditch effort before I leave Finley to discover if this could be anything beyond my imagination.
“It’s about you,” I blurt. “The poem, I mean. It’s about you.”
He stills, no part of him moving except for his eyes that lift and lock with mine. He’s a blinking statue and I almost shatter where I’m standing at the expression on his face. Is it frustration? Anger?
Desire?
Okay. That last one I may have made up.
“I picked up on that, yeah,” he finally says, his mouth creasing into an almost smile. “It was clever—the soldier thing. Playing on the complex situation with my father. How my choice not to enlist ruined my relationship with him.”
Ruined?
“I didn’t mean to…” I swallow. “I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t think.” His eyes bore into me. “You didn’t consider how I’d feel when personal things I shared with my students to help them find their way creatively were tossed back in my face.”
“But I—”
“You didn’t think about how it might endanger my job if someone figured out I was the ‘soldier’ and assumed I had been somehow…involved with you inappropriately.”
“You’ve never—”
“You didn’t think about the trouble you might cause foryourselfas a young woman who should be respected and hired on merit, and how you might be perceived if someone believed you got an A in this class because of a romantic relationship with your instructor, not because you’re one of the best writers in this class.”
I let his praise soothe the sting of his chiding. The sharp breath I draw into my lungs does little to clear my head.
“That was reckless, Ms. Wallace,” he says, for once not looking away. The mild reproach in his gaze almost makes me wish he would.
“Did you know?” I ask. “How I felt, I mean. Did you know?”
A muscle flexes in the squared line of his jaw and he smooths all emotion from his face.
“You did,” I breathe, satisfaction coursing through me. “You knew I had feelings for you.”
