After stopping at Addison’s house and finding it empty, I storm into the administration building, fifteen minutes late for the appointment. The secretary outside the Dean’s office asks me to have a seat, but I pace the floor, too angry to sit still.

She steps outside the door and nods at me. “She’s waiting for you. You may go in, Dr. Hill.”

I stride inside to see Mrs. McBride sitting across the desk from Dean Armstrong, balancing a cup of tea in a dainty china cup in her lap. I don’t know why I’d expected she might actually be so concerned about her daughter’s whereabouts that she might’ve cancelled this appointment. But no, she’s sitting there, smiling charmingly at the dean, looking like she has all the time in the world.

When she sees me, she stops in the middle of a sentence and her smile dissolves. Then she says, “Perhaps now we can get some answers.”

“Answers as to what? Why you had your daughter arrested?” I challenge.

The dean raises her eyebrows, but Mrs. McBride takes a slow sip of her tea, suggesting she doesn’t seem surprised at all by this information. Meanwhile, her own daughter is sitting in a jail cell, probably scared to death. The thought of it makes the rage erupt inside me.

“Are you going to get her out of there?”

She calmly says, “No. I may even press charges.”

I clench my teeth. “She’s scared to death.”

She looks at the dean, as if I’m not worthy of talking to, and explains, “She’s a danger to herself at this point. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She used to be so good, so well-behaved, but this semester, all that has changed. She’s been fed all these lies, indoctrinated by this man. ” She waves a hand at me.

Dean Armstrong volleys a look a surprised look at me. “So this goes deeper than the issue you had with his unfair grading system, Mrs. McBride.”

“Oh, much, much deeper.” She frowns. “I’ve had my suspicions, which were only just confirmed recently. This professor has been taking advantage of his position of authority.”

Armstrong blinks and looks at me. “Is that true, Dr. Hill?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I clench my fists at my sides since they’re dangerously close to grabbing the nearest thing and hurling it across the room. “No, it’s not true. I’ve been trying to help her.”

Mrs. McBride sets her teacup on the edge of the desk. “Help her? Dr. Hill,” she asks pointedly, drawing out the words for effect. “Are you fucking my daughter?”

I stare at her for a long time. They’re both looking at me expectantly, and a deafening silence prevails. The only sound is the ticking of the large grandfather clock behind me. It ticks for what could be a minute before I answer, “No.”

I’d said I wouldn’t lie, but right now, that feels like the truth. Fucking, from Mrs. McBride’s mouth, sounds like something cheap, and sick, and prurient. I never just fucked Addison.

She reaches into her bag and pulls out a large manila envelope. From it, she extracts several large black-and-white photographs, which she spreads across the blotter in front of Dean Armstrong. I see a picture of myself, taken from quite some distance, crossing a busy street. I recognize the building in the background, the revolving door and stately entrance, as the Four Seasons in Boston. Another, of me, standing in an open door at the Patio Court Motel, two slender feminine hands draped around my neck. Another, too blown up to recognize the location, but it clearly shows the side of my face, veiled by a swath of Addison’s blonde hair. It looks as though it was taken through a keyhole. Or between a stack of books in the library.

She’d fucking hired someone to spy on us. On her own daughter.

“Explain these,” she says.

“Yes, Dr. Hill,” Dean echoes, standing and lifting one of the photographs. “Explain.”

I could lie. I could say they aren’t her, to try to protect her for a little longer. But that wasn’t what Addison wanted me to do in this meeting. She wanted the truth to come out. And I intend to deliver it. “I don’t call it fucking,” I say. “I’m in love with her.”

More silence. When I look at Armstrong, she’s closing her eyes. She opens her mouth to speak, to reveal the consequences, but I hold up a hand.

“I know. I know that means I’ll be terminated, and I’m fine with that. She’s worth it to me.”

Dean Armstrong nods and murmurs and “All right,” but Mrs. McBride jumps to standing before she can say more. “No, it is not all right. This man is indoctrinating my daughter, making her think that up is down and wrong is right. Before, all she wanted in this world was to become a doctor. Now, she’s so confused, she’s a different person.”

“She’s being herself,” I spit out. “Before, she wanted what you wanted because all she wanted to do was please you. But now she knows that you’ll never be happy, no matter what she does.”

Addison’s mother recoils as if I’ve slapped her in the face. “How dare you try to tell me about my own daughter.” She looks at Armstrong and her tone changes. “You see, that’s why I’m not going to bail her out right now. I really think jail may be the safest place for her now.”

“The safest place?” I fire back, incredulous. Then I sigh. “Well, I guess she’s safer there than she is with you.”

Her eyes, two pits of black, focus on me, narrowing into slits. “What are you trying to say?”

“You know.” I look at the Dean, then back at her. For the first time, there’s fear in her eyes. She’s afraid I’m going to reveal what she’s been doing to her daughter. “But more importantly, I know. And it stops now, do you understand? Right. Now.”

Mrs. McBride’s eyes don’t leave mine.

“If you want to continue, you will have to go through me,” I tell her. “And I will not be so easily pushed aside.”

She continues to stare at me, for what seems like an eternity. Finally, she swallows. She nods.

“If it ever happens again, you’ll have to deal with me,” I warn. “And I promise you, I will find out.”

She nods again, struck silent.

Dean Armstrong doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t try to. She simply says, “Well, Dr. Hill, it’s a bit of a stretch for us to find a new professor to take over your class, so late into the term. I’ll have to—“

“Let him finish it out,” she says softly.

The dean and I swivel our heads toward Mrs. McBride at the same time. She is looking at the ground, looking very small, and for the first time, I can see Addison in her posture. She says, “I know she loves the class. I knew she would. I’d hoped she wouldn’t, but she does.”

I open my mouth to say something, but she holds up a finger.

“I see so much of her father in her,” she says, almost in a dream, her voice barely a breath. “As much as I tried to deny it, it’s there.”

The dean and I both stare silently at her. Finally, she stirs from her reverie and realizes she has an audience. “So let him finish the term.”

The dean sighs. “All right, but if your concern about grading—“

“There is no concern. His grades are fair.”

Then she stands up, straightens her dress and the scarf around her neck, and steps outside, closing the door behind her.

I look at Dean Armstrong, who just shakes her head disappointedly at me. “Obviously this raises concerns about your ability to continue with us next term.”

I nod. “I understand.”

And I do. Because whether or not St. Martin’s Press accepts my book, it’ll be fine. I’m meant to be a writer. And I’m going to write. Goddammit, from now on, I’m going to fucking write.