Page 40 of Damaged Professor

I like the sound of that a lot.

Chapter twenty-three

Abby

“Doyoubelieveinlife after love,” I sing at the top of my lungs as I twist my way through my apartment, picking up as I go. I’ve just finished laundry day, and there’s something about music that makes folding it go much quicker. The lightness in my chest pushes at me, surging with each high note in the song.

I’ve almost finished when my phone, which I have hooked up to my speaker, gives a beep. I pause, turning to look at where the device is laying on the coffee table. The screen has lit up. It’s an email.

I’m expecting an email from one of my professors, so I toss the shirt that I had been folding back down onto the loveseat. Then I head over and snatch up the phone. It only takes a moment before I’ve logged in but my mouth twists into a frown when I realize that it’s come from an address that I don’t recognize.

The headline of the email reads I AM WATCHING, which is maybe the most unnerving thing that any message could be titled. I’m instantly reliving every horror movie—good and bad—that I’ve ever seen. Isn’t there some sort of a real story that starts like this? The Watcher, out in the Midwest states.

For the longest time, I just sit there, staring at it, holding my phone. But then I take a deep breath, and I click on it.

The email opens.

I am instantly relieved, then instantly more upset.

On the one hand, it’s not an email from some sort of serial killer, which is absolutely awesome. On the other hand, it’s a message from Sara, who's apparently my new stalker. So, catch twenty-two?

The message box of the email itself is almost empty. It contains a single smiling face emoji.

It also has several image attachments. I click on the first one, waiting almost impatiently as it loads. When the image is fully formed, it’s enough to send a wave of ice cold through me. It’s a picture of me and Dylan in the classroom. The picture itself is actually really cute. I’m letting my head rest on his shoulder, glancing up at Dylan as if he’s the only thing in the world that matters.

Which is how I really feel whenever I'm with him. But my thumb clicks on the next picture, and the next one. And then I just shut off the phone and drop it onto the table.

My hands move to curl against the front of my face, fingers digging into my cheeks and the underside of my jaw. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this. When we spoke yesterday, Dylan had sounded so confident about this not being an issue.

It was just one confrontation with each of us, right?

But it isn’t just one comment in the hallway now. It is something else, something tangible. She has photo proof that I am in a relationship with my professor. If she gave this to someone—who knows what it could do to Dylan’s career?

It could tarnish him. He may never be able to get another paper published in a journal again, let alone a book.

Shit, this might even be enough to get him fired! The thought of it makes me want to puke.

Have I cost him his job? Am I being paranoid?

I should have called this off the first time that Sara showed up and tried to bother us. I knew then that this wasn’t going to end well for any of us, but I had been so swept up in how much I loved the way that Dylan looked at me, I had convinced myself that we might be able to make it work.

Now though, I see how that’s not going to be possible.

Calling things off with Dylan is the only realistic thing to do, it’s the only thing we can do to ensure his career is preserved. As for my heart… Well, I can already feel it breaking. The pain is enough to make tears spring to my eyes.

Taking a breath, I pick the phone up again. When I unlock it, I’m forced to look at that awful smiley face again. I’ve never seen an emoji that looks so mocking before. But this one is absolutely mocking me. I slam my thumb down on the home screen with more force than it deserves. It clicks over, giving me a chance to pull up my contacts. When times get rough, the first person I turn to is Nichole.

This is no different. I don’t put any thought into it, I just pull up her number and press call. The phone rings through the speakers, making me jump. I forgot that it had been hooked up to that. I hastily cut off the Bluetooth connection.

Once that’s gone, Nichole’s voice rattles into my ear at a much more bearable level, “Hey, girl. What’s up? Are you lost in, uh, what are you studying? Salem?”

“No, I’m not studying the witch trials,” I tell her. The fact that I’m crying comes across thickly in my voice.

Nichole’s tone changes instantly. She demands, “Hey, what’s going on?”

I swallow hard and wipe the tears from my cheek with the back of my hand. “Do you have plans tonight? I’m thinking about going out and getting a drink.”

“Consider any plans I might have been sporting canceled,” says Nichole. “You want me to drive? I’m going to drive. Let me get pants on and I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

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