Page 32 of Damaged Professor

I close my eyes, pulling in one breath, then another. I know that I’m going to get a red mark on the ledger for not showing up, but I just can’t go in there right now. I take one of the back exits for this floor, stepping out into the cool morning air. The sun is up, there are white clouds in the sky, and by all intents and purposes, it should be a perfect day to spend time outside. And yet…

I quicken my step, trying to get far away from the building, and don’t stop until I reach the old oak tree. It’s still on campus property but it will do. I throw myself down onto the ground with a groan and let the dappled sunlight wash over my skin.

Whenever I've worried over our situation, the worry has been about Dylan having a problem with the other teachers. I didn’t even think about other students giving me shit.

It’s like I can hear her words again. It’s insane that she just happens to live across the street from his house and that she spotted me at that precise moment. But the most insane thing is that she cares so much. Not to mention that she jumps right to that conclusion. Do people actually sleep with teachers for their grades? I figured it was just one of those weird porn things, like getting laid when the pizza guy shows up and you don’t quite have enough cash on hand to pay him.

It doesn’t matter. That’s what Sara believes.

I take a few more deep breaths, trying to calm down my shaking body.

I know this could turn into a much bigger problem. If so, will there be a way to prevent it from getting too out of hand?

Well, sure.

The easiest thing to do is to just stop seeing Dylan. To put it back into the professional realm of teacher-student so that Sara doesn’t have anything to base her accusations on.

It's a hard pill to swallow, but I'm not going to be the reason that he loses his job, or the reason his name gets tarnished.

No, I just can't justify ruining his life like that.

Chapter eighteen

Dylan

Thecallgoesstraightto voicemail again.

Frowning, I hang up, and then flick through my call log. I’ve tried calling Abby three times today, and I've texted her twice.

But the texts are all left sitting on ‘delivered’ rather than ‘read’.

I slide my phone across the desk and try to tell myself that it doesn’t matter. Though I’ve been calling her since late the night before, class is going to start in an hour, and I’ll be able to talk to her then.

I shouldn’t be worried. She’s a college student, and she has an insane amount of homework to do each day. I’m sure that she’s just studying.

Trying to distract myself from the fact that she’s not answering, and the building sense of unease in the back of my chest, I start shuffling through a few of the papers on my desk. It’s not a very good distraction, and I keep glancing at my phone.

“You’re acting like a teenager,” I grumble to myself in scolding, snatching up my phone and with one last double check to make sure that Abby hasn’t tried to get back in touch, I toss the thing into the top drawer of my desk. That at least makes it a little bit easier to focus on the task at hand.

I’ve got a good bunch of students this year, which is always nice, but there’s only one student on my mind when the bell rings and people start filling in for their lesson.

I watch with more attention than I probably should as everyone comes in and takes their seat. Abby doesn’t show up.

“Alright, everyone. I hope that you all made it through yesterday’s lesson in one piece,” I say, standing up and trying to recover. I move over to the door, which I have propped open with a large, leather lion statue.

I move the statue, bracing one hand on the door and leaning out into the hallway, looking first to the left and then to the right. There’s no sign of Abby.

One of my other students, Sara, asks, “Everything okay, professor?”

“Everything’s fine,” I tell her. “I thought that I heard someone calling me, but I suppose not.”

One more look, and then I have to close the door and get back to my class. I rally quickly. When you’ve done the same job for so many years, it’s easy to let the routine of it take over, even if your mind is elsewhere. And damn, my mind sure is elsewhere.

I keep wondering if I’ve done something wrong. Is this just because I stayed over at her place? No, she was happy about that. Even if she had a reason to ghost me, I don’t think that Abby is the sort of woman to pull a shtick like that anyways.

Unfortunately, deciding that she isn’t ghosting me or ignoring me out of spite, or anger, doesn’t actually make me feel any better. It just makes me worry that something serious has happened. How sick would she have to be, to decide that she was going to stay home and not come to class? Is it just this class that she is skipping, or her whole day’s worth of lessons?

If it isn’t that she’s sick, could something else have happened? We are close enough to where she lives that Abby could have walked to the college if it was a problem with her car—I know it’s not the most reliable car. Plus, Nichole could have helped her get here too if that was the issue.

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