Kendal
Prepare for end of life? How the fuck did someone do that?
I hadn't told Damon or anyone else about my conversation with Dr. Lewis. I just couldn't handle the sympathy that would come from such a conversation, especially from Damon. Bethany had ignored me on Tuesday when she showed up for her TA duties, which was fine. It was easier than having to talk about bullshit when the real stuff that mattered sat on the tip of my tongue.
I needed to get the dark emotions rolling inside of me out, but I wasn't quite sure how.
Having lunch with Damon and dinner with the pretty young nurse from the hospital would help. Maybe.
Eliza was waiting outside of my office as I approached that morning, a smug look on her face.
"There you are." She lifted her watch and tapped it. "Late. Late. Late."
"I'm fashionably late." I shrugged and dangled my keys between us. "Move and let me open the door. You can come in and give me hell while I take a load off."
"You do look like a man with a lot on his mind." She moved back as I got the door opened and unloaded my stuff.
I turned and motioned for her to take the seat across from my desk. "I'm a single thirty-one-year-old professor with a pretty face and a motorcycle. Why wouldn't I have a lot on my mind?"
She laughed and dropped down across from me. "You missed our department meeting yesterday. Why?"
"Ahh shit. Did I really?" I turned and looked up at my calendar. The meeting was written in red handwriting and circled four times. "Did I write that?"
"No, I did." She chuckled. "Yesterday while you were out of your office, after you missed the meeting."
"I did it on purpose." I gave her my full attention as I rested my forearms on my desk. "I couldn't handle another room of people staring at me."
"I get that." She tilted her head to the side a little. "Tell me what's up with you and Heather. Are you seeing her?"
"What? Hell no." I leaned back in my chair and tried to figure out where Eliza was going with the conversation.
"You should. She's beautiful, young, funny..."
"We fucked in college. A lot." I blurted it out before I lost my nerve. "Like more than you'd want to know about. We're both pretending not to know each other, but I fucking can't stand seeing her, Eliza. It's like having someone dig up your worst memories and slash them in your face over and over."
"Oh. Wow." She crossed her legs and stared at me for a few seconds before speaking again. "She talks so highly of you."
"She wants to get together again."
"Like, sex?"
"No, well, I don't know. Whatever she wants, I'm not that boy anymore. I'm a different guy altogether. That bastard was buried when I got my diploma." I brushed my fingers over my lips wondering why the hell I felt comfortable enough to blurt out my darkest shit to a colleague, especially an older woman like Eliza. She was all I had at the moment and it was eating me alive.
"I see. Have you told her all of this? That you're not at all interested anymore?"
"Yes." I stood and slipped my hands into my pockets before I started to pace the small space behind my desk. "She's not going to take no for an answer."
"She said that?"
I glanced over at Eliza. "Yes. She did."
"Go tell Mark, Kendal. That's sexual harassment."
I snorted. "Very funny. As if anyone would take my word over hers."
"All of us would." She stood as well.
"No, you would, but no one else would. I have two strikes against me. One more, whether it's my fault or not and all my years of working hard to come teach right here at UT are gone. Lost." I started to pace again as I studied the carpet beneath me. "She's going to cut my legs out from underneath me unless I give in to her."
"And you really believe this?"
"Hell yeah. I'm half tempted to just give in, but some part of me believes in love. What she and I would have..." I pointed to myself and to the door, "it wouldn't be anything but two people using each other. I just can't do it."
"Good for you. Most men would fall over themselves to get a woman like Heather to notice them."
I snorted. "And they would soon realize the error of their ways."
"Maybe." She walked to the door and paused. "You need to talk with Mark, Kendal. This isn't something to play around with."
"Maybe so. I'll think about it."
"Is there someone else? Another woman who has your attention?"
Dana fluttered by my mind, but I released it quickly. She was a young nurse with a boyfriend who was headed halfway across the country in a year. She was off limits too. It was almost concerning how bad the idea of not getting to invest any of myself in her felt. She wasn't a pupil who needed training or instruction.
No, she seemed like a woman who needed a man. A good one. Something I wasn't.
"Kendal?" Eliza spoke softly.
"Hm? Oh, sorry. No, there is no one else. I'm not that lucky, my friend. Not yet at least."