Page 39 of For You & No One Else (Say Everything 3)

Ten

“I think I love him.”

Eliza kept her expression smooth even though she was screaming a little on the inside. She was used to this feeling after all these years—Lake Placid on the outside, Mount Vesuvius on the inside. She’d had to practice thisI’m listening, not critiquinglook in the mirror when she was in grad school, after a mentor had mentioned she had too expressive a face.“Every one of your emotions is right there,”Dr. Geir had told her.“You’d lose every hand of poker—and you’ll lose your clients’ trust. It’s okay to feel things—normal—but you can only show the reactions that will be therapeutic for the client.”

Kinley, the nineteen-year-old client sitting on the couch across from her, was giving Eliza a lot of practice with her Lake Placid face. Eliza set her pen down on top of the pad in her lap. “Okay. You think you love him. Tell me what that means for you.”

Kinley smiled a dreamy smile and pulled her legs up onto the couch to sit crisscross-applesauce style. “I mean, how do you explain love? I just feel happy when I’m with him, and he makes me feel like…I’m the only girl on earth. And the sex is like…whoa. Way better than any I’ve had with other guys.”

Eliza narrowed her eyes slightly, just enough to conveyI hear you, but aren’t we ignoring some parts of the story?“But we know you’re not the only woman in his life.”

Kinley huffed at Eliza’s gentle reminder, the move making her thick, dark bangs flutter. “He doesn’t love his wife. He’s told me that.”

Eliza set her notepad aside, empathy for Kinley filling her. This young woman was so smart. She was acing her classes and on the way to a microbiology degree. Yet, she was getting duped ten ways ’til Tuesday by a master manipulator—a thirty-six-year-old English professor who knew how to woo just-old-enough-to-be-legal students with his British accent and some softly whispered Shakespeare.

Eliza didn’t doubt that Kinley believed she was in love and that this was the start of something real, so she had to tread carefully. If she came at Kinley directly with the obvious truth, Kinley would stop coming to sessions. But Lord, she wished she had a magic wand that let people step outside themselves and their situations for a minute to see what everyone else could see, to clear the fog that feelings breathed on the glass.

“Has he told you he wants a long-term relationship with you? Or that he’s seeking a divorce?” Eliza asked.

Kinley picked at the piping on Eliza’s bright-red couch, averting her eyes. “Not exactly. But he’s told me he cares for me.”

Eliza nodded. “That may be true. That he cares. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s looking to change his situation. He has a wife and child. Leaving them would be a major life change. And going public with a relationship with a student could get him fired. From what you’ve told me, he’s working toward tenure.” She tried to catch Kinley’s gaze but couldn’t. “Tenure is the brass ring for professors. Most would do anything they could to not jeopardize that opportunity.”

Kinley watched her own fingers plucking at the sofa piping. Eliza was trying to appeal to the sharp, scientific part of Kinley’s mind. Lay out evidence, let her brain work its way to the most realistic conclusions.

For a moment, she thought she’d gotten through, but then Kinley turned her head and met Eliza’s gaze. “Maybe he’s just waiting for tenure. Then his job will be secure, and I’ll be out of his class, and they won’t be able to fire him.”

Inside, Eliza deflated. No epiphanies were coming today. Not that she was giving up. Therapy was an exercise in patience, like sculpting stone with a butter knife, gently chipping away little bits over a long period of time to find the best, healthiest version of that person beneath. Kinley may figure out in time that this was a doomed path and that this drunk-on-male-attention feeling was what she was in love with, not the professor. That years of being the awkward, ignored girl in high school, not to mention having major issues with her dad, had set her up for a man like this to take advantage.

Or,she’d get her heart broken. Either way, she’d learn something. Eliza could only be a guide, not a dictator. Sometimes, no matter how she tried to help soften the fall, people had to crash hard to grow.

“Are you protecting yourself from pregnancy and STDs?” Eliza asked, deciding to focus on practical matters and aiming for ways to keep the situation from having longer-term consequences.

Kinley pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yeah, I’m on the pill, and he uses a condom since I know he still…has to sleep with her.”

“Good.” Eliza gave her a small smile. “Protecting yourself is important. You have big career plans.”

“I know. I do.” Kinley looked out the window, a pensive look on her face.

Eliza watched her, keeping quiet. Maybe there were a few seeds sinking in. Maybe.

After a few silent moments, Kinley started talking again and spent her last few minutes discussing a tiff she was having with her roommate and actively ignoring the I’m-sleeping-with-my-professor elephant in the room.

Eliza was used to the elephants. Her office got crowded with them daily. She wrapped up Kinley’s session and walked her out a few minutes later. She left her door open and went back to her desk to send the bill for the session to Kinley’s parents. If they only knew they were paying for their nineteen-year-old daughter to process her feelings about her affair with her much older professor and not the mild depression they’d originally sent her here for, they’d have a fit.

Beckham’s words about secret relationships drifted back to her. Kinley was definitely tapping into that forbidden vibe. If she had to actually start dating her thirty-six-year-old professor out in public, the mystique would probably wear off quickly.

Eliza opened another screen on her computer and made her notes about the session.

A light knock had her looking up a few minutes later. Beckham was standing in her doorway, a shoulder against the jamb, looking like he was made to lean casually and smile sardonically. Like that was the purpose God had assigned to him:lean and look amazing. “Hey.”

For privacy reasons, she minimized her screen, even though her computer didn’t face the door. “Hey, yourself.”

It’d been almost a week since their Star Wars co-watch, which had been more fun than she would’ve anticipated and had made a great entry in her secret book project, but since then, they hadn’t had much time to chat. They’d exchanged a few texts over the weekend, but once Monday came she’d been slammed with appointments and he was deep into a difficult project.

“How’s the penetration testing going?” She wrinkled her nose. “I literally can’t keep a straight face when I say that. Couldn’t they name it something else?”

“And miss out on all the dirty jokes about entering back doors and all that? No way,” he said. “And it’s…going. It’s a big network so there’s still lots of testing to do. Solid challenge.”

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