I could barely see through the tears that engulfed my eyes as I stalked from Knight’s house to my car. The whole world turned into a quivering liquid mess of shapeless objects. It wasn’t long before I was bawling, causing everything in front of me to flicker like bad video footage.

I reached into my pocket to get out my keys and lurched forward to my car, poised to take me as far away from this dumb place as possible. The interior of my little care was dark and cold, mimicking how its owner felt. I just sat there, replaying what just happened, troubled about how quickly things took a turn for the worse. I went all the way back to when I was getting ready earlier tonight; I was feeling good and expected to feel even better once I got to Knight’s.

I never thought in a million years that he would betray me like that. He was so cavalier about it too. His callousness about the whole thing irked me to no end. How could he be so emotional and the suddenly so detached? I couldn’t believe how stupid I was to believe that there was something real between us. I should have known that it was too good to be true.

The more I sat here, the more miserable I became. I needed to get out of there before I lost the wherewithal to drive myself home. It was painfully quiet in my car, like there was a void surrounding me, so I turned the key in the ignition to puncture the bubble of lonely silence. It revved to life, and I turned on my high beams, which pierced the darkness of the evening. I glanced at the clock on my center console: 7:52. It only took less than an hour for Knight and me to crumble, after the amazing time we spent together.

That baffled me.

I shifted into drive and peeled away from the curb, leaving Knight’s house in the dust. My hands strangled the steering wheel. Naturally, my foot applied more pressure on the gas since I was upset, so I had to snap myself into safe driving mode and ease up a little. I was not going to let a no-good man like Knight be the reason for me getting into an accident. He was not going to be the death of me. I wouldn’t allow it.

The whole way, I was thinking about Evie and the conversation that we had not even half an hour before I left for Knight’s. To think that I had been neglecting my best friend for a guy who I never meant anything to infuriated me. Regardless of how long it had been since we had spoken, she still said that she was happy for me because I was happy, and that almost sparked another torrential onslaught of tears. Now what would I tell her?

Hey Evie, you know that guy who you said was taking up all my time? The one who I was secretly starting to fall in love with? Well, turns out he was a complete waste and never really cared about me in the first place. But sorry for leaving you hanging. By the way… he’s also my professor and I may have risked my entire career for him even though he’s a complete asshole.

Just thinking about how, even for a short time, I had let him dominate my life, devastated me all over again. The tears began to bubble up and what had finally cleared into decent vision was turning back into a watery mess. I only wished that I could rewind back to the night we met and make the decision to never go to Frankie’s at all. Then Knight would have just been some first-year professor, and I could have finished my time at Las Positas without a broken heart.

What have I done?