Page 9 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

Besides, this isn’t just lust. It feels like so much more.

It feels like everything I’ve been waiting for.

When I saw her on the mountain above campus, hair tendriling wild around her face, head thrown back and shouting at the sky, my heart felt like it instantly grew three sizes — and so did my cock. I wonder if she noticed that I was angling my body so she couldn’t see.

And I wonder what she would’ve thought if she had seen.

Imagining all the possibilities of that encounter has filled my nights and taken over my days.

I’m not mad about it.

Hell, I’m grateful for it.

Because no matter how things play out with Hollis, she’s already given me a gift I can never repay.

She’s made me start writing love poetry again. And this time, it’s all based on true life experience.

And that’s on top of her being the best student I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching.

Hollis is probably the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me. If only I could sweep her into my arms and tell her so.

But she’s still my student, and I’m still her teacher. Besides, I have no idea if she feels the same about me — or if she feels anything for me.

And even if she does, what will happen when she finds out the truth aboutSex, Love, and Other Cataclysms? Will she hate me for being the fraud that I am?

I ache to spill my heart out to her, and am terrified about what might happen when she hears what kind of imposter I am.

So I write my poems, and teach my classes, and never take my eyes off her when she’s near.

I tell Matthew as much over beers a few weeks after I run into Hollis and her friend on my hike, when the calendar pages have rolled over into October and the scent of our first snow is becoming ever heavier in the air.

“You, my friend,” he says after a generous swallow of his amber beer, “are a git.”

“Damn. Tell me how you really feel.”

He leans forward over the table we’re sharing in the farthest bar from campus we can find — fewer students that way, we always reason, with middling success in reality. “Look. You like this girl, right?”

“Woman,” I correct, “and yes, I definitely do.”

“Then you need to tell her.”

“But she’s a —“

“Student, I know, I know.” He waves his hand like it means nothing. “We teach writing, you and I. We’re practically free-loving hippies in the eyes of administration. As long as we keep our classes full, administration won’t mind a little consensual canoodling with a student.”

“I don’t want to canoodle with this student, I wantlifewith this student, all of it,” I say. “And how iscanoodleeven a word that you, a great fiction writer, would choose to use?”

Now it’s Matthew’s turn to correct me. “Mid-list,” he says, raising his glass. “I’m a solidly mid-list author, thank you very much. Please don’t go about calling me great and soiling my average name.”

I roll my eyes. If he’s mid-list, I’ll give up my Pushcart Prize. I’ve told him as much before and open my mouth to do so again, but he cuts me off.

“But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you and your tragical lack of a love life.”

“Which brings me to my second point,” I say, even though I never quite got to utter my first point. “Let’s say I profess my feelings to this woman, we fall madly in love, and all my dreams come true.”

“I see no drawbacks here,” Matthew says in a dry voice.

I ignore him and continue. “Sooner or later, I’m going to have to tell her the truth — that I’ve never known real love before her, and that the poetry collection that my entire career is built on is a lie.”

---