Page 28 of The Exception to the Rule

I knew everything that she’d said. And he knew I knew. And now I think he’s proctoring an exam on Friday morning, and I definitely want to feign illness.

Help.

T.

PS: Since we’re talking about meeting up ... should we finally exchange names? Numbers?

Chapter Seventeen

FEBRUARY14, 2024

Callum

Ido not thinkdisbeliefis the right word. I don’t even know what the right wordis.

I read T’s email again, and then again, and I really think that no matter how badly I want to lie to myself right now, there is no universe in which we just happened to experience two sides of the exact same encounter in different places in the country.

T and Terra are both first-year graduate students.

T and Terra were both hiding in a closet earlier.

T and Terra both overheard her TA being propositioned, and I was propositioned, and I am a TA of a graduate class.

T is Terra.

Her name is Terra.

A class list crystallizes in my mind, and I mentally scan down toward the bottom.

Terra Solace.

t.sol.

I just met her, but she has no idea she’s just met me.

I set my phone down and sit at the edge of my couch cushion, back straight, eyes fixed on the wall of my living room, trying to remember every detail of her face.

Large dark eyes, full lips, small, pointed chin. I think she has freckles, but I’m not sure; all I can see now is the way she looked up at me in shock and mortification from the floor of the closet. Her hair is chin length, dark brown, straight, and smooth. She’s on the taller side, but thin, long limbed.

My weakness is tall women.

She played lacrosse. She was raised by a single mother. She has a younger brother.

And since I was sixteen, she’s been part of my life.

I’ve noticed her, of course, but only in the way heterosexual men notice all women who are generally off-limits: fleetingly, without lingering perusal. Because Terra has been off-limits: Stillisoff-limits. I wouldn’t ever date someone in a class I’m TA’ing. I’m not trying to sound like a moral douchebag; I was sleeping with a peer whose anger at me could have a direct impact on my doctoral research. But Kristen and I are on even footing. First-year grad students are in a uniquely vulnerable situation: they’re all stressed, overworked, fatigued, and hoping that they get picked to work in their first-choice lab after a year of grueling rotations.

But seeing Terra through new eyes ... a piece of my life clicks into place. It’s a strange, solidifying feeling, and I don’t know how I’ll pretend to not know it’s her. I don’twantto.

I rub my knuckles over my sternum. My chest aches. I want to email right now and ask her where in Philly she lives, whether she’s close to the Penn campus, whether I can come over and meet her in person all over again.

She’s single. Shewantsto meet me. But, shit, it isn’t so easy anymore.

Because Terra is a student in a class for which I do a majority of the grading.

Terra overheard a private conversation I was having with an ex.

Terra thinks I’m intimidating.

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