CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

What I learned was that I could be alone but not lonely. I still preferred the company of my friends and my family, but if I had to be alone in my apartment, I didn’t feel depressed and like I needed to text and call and crank up music. I found that it wasn’t such a frightening thing, being alone in my head, with my thoughts. I found that sometimes I even had interesting things to tell myself.

I also found, in those weeks after Jonathon hung up on me, that I was stronger than I thought I was as I threw myself into studying and recovering my grades. When I told Jessica I was amazed that I could be so strong, she laughed.

“Kylie, you had your ex cheat on you with one of your best friends and you recovered. You got pregnant and were fully prepared to make that work. You lost your baby and your boyfriend and accused a professor of sexual harassment and you’re still here, smiling. You’ve always been strong even if you do it wearing a cute outfit and mascara. That’s you.”

And I actually believed her.

Even when the nights were long and quiet.

Even when the equations swam in front of my eyes as I tried desperately to understand chemistry and when I typed on my laptop late into the night on my essay for my British Literature class, words running together.

Even when the university interviewed me for hours about Professor Kadisch and the police were called.

Even when they suggested that I had an interest in ruining his career because he was flunking me.

Even when I got no texts from Jonathon, which, despite what I had told him, I desperately wanted.

Though I did get a phone call from his mother, who asked to meet with me. I had no idea what she wanted but I said yes, of course, too curious not to. We met at a Mexican restaurant right off campus and as soon as I walked in, I recognized her. Jonathon actually looked more like her than he did his father, and I felt an affinity toward her because she was the one who had raised him, nurtured him into the man he’d become.

“Hi, it’s so nice to meet you,” I said, sticking my hand out. “I’m sorry, I just realized I don’t know your last name.”

“It’s Fagenbaum, but please don’t be formal. Just call me Debbie.” She smiled warmly at me and squeezed my hand, gesturing for me to sit down across from her.

I dropped my bag on the floor. It was spring and I was wearing flip-flops with my skinnies for the first time, a decorative scarf my only concession to the fact that it was still only sixty-five degrees.

“Jonathon didn’t lie—you are very pretty,” she said with a smile. She had salt-and-pepper hair in a pixie cut and it was very flattering.

“Thanks,” I said, wondering why I had never made an effort to meet her when Jonathon and I were dating.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you here. It’s not to interfere, honestly. Whatever you and Jonathon are doing is your own business, though I do feel comfortable saying that I think you were good for each other.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Mostly, I thought she was right. “I just needed to be sure, you know, that Jonathon didn’t feel trapped by me. That this is what he wants.”

“Oh, it’s definitely what he wants. You’re all he talks about.”

My cheeks felt warm. “He talks about me?”

“Constantly. But that is for the two of you to discuss, not you and I. He doesn’t even know I asked to see you.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I accepted the water the waitress brought me right then. “Okay.”

“I wanted to say that I’m impressed and proud of you for blowing the whistle on Ben. It takes a brave girl to stand up and say what her professor is doing is unethical and inappropriate and I know it’s been a huge headache for you.”

Immense relief washed over me. “I wasn’t sure how you would feel. I felt horrible turning him in, but, honestly, I didn’t want a girl to find herself trapped or pressured or feel like she had to either drop the class or do what he wanted.” Professor Kadisch had been suspended for the rest of the semester pending the investigation and Jonathon’s mother was right—it had been time-consuming and embarrassing at times as they had picked through my texts and cell records, including that penis picture. Once they had gone through Professor Kadisch’s phone and computer, they had found I was not the only student he was talking to, which was shocking and made me glad I had gone ahead with contacting the university.

“But I worry about Jonathon,” I told her. “It must be horrible for him. All the talk. Knowing that this is his father. It’s such a betrayal.”

“It is horrible and I feel partly responsible for that.” She sipped her iced tea. “I should have told him the truth when he wanted to come to school here. He thought he was doing me a favor financially, and he was, but I would have preferred he had never seen his father. Ever. Because I never told him the truth, that I was one of those naïve undergrads who was flunking my class and Ben offered to help me study and, well, he raped me. He wouldn’t think of it that way, he would say I came there willingly, that I didn’t stop him, but I tried to stop him. Then I just froze and let it happen. I let it happen because I was eighteen and I was scared and I just wanted it to be over with. It felt easier.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” I reached across the table and took her hand in mine.

“Then I found out I was pregnant and I decided to fight for child support, but I wasn’t brave, Kylie. I didn’t stop him and I didn’t speak out. I kept my mouth shut and I kept the peace and I raised my son alone, thinking that was the end of it. I never dreamed that he was, well, a sexual predator. I just thought that I had given him signals, I had been in awe of him and attracted to him. Not that I’m suggesting I deserved what he did, because I didn’t, but I thought I should have been more forceful in making it clear that I didn’t want to have sex with him.”

“I’m so sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. We all deal with situations differently, and it pisses me off that people shift blame to the victim. I wasn’t personally violated here. It was much easier for me to speak out, and even that was hard, because I knew I would be hurting people I care about. Everyone is going to have an opinion and I’m sure there are people right now on campus saying terrible things about me, calling me a slut, with every guy I’ve ever been involved with crawling out of the woodwork, but that’s okay. I know the truth. And you know the truth about what happened to you and you don’t have to keep that burden to yourself anymore.”

She nodded, her grip still in mine. The corner of her mouth turned up. “And here I thought that Jonathon said what worries you is that you’re not smart enough for him.”

“I do.”

“Honey, there are all kinds of smart, and you just spoke the wisdom of compassion. Give yourself a little more credit.”

I sucked in a breath. She was right. I did need to give myself more credit.

“And I also want to point out that like you, I was failing chemistry, and Jonathon has never made me feel stupid or inferior to him. He loves me for the whole package, for being his mother, not for my ability to do equations. That’s the thing, Kylie—we have different people in our lives for different reasons.”

“I never thought of it that way. I think you have the wisdom of compassion yourself.”

She laughed. “Maybe I can flatter myself that Jonathon chose a woman like his mother.”

We ordered lunch and ate, talking about random things, her telling me stories about Jonathon as a little boy, and it was nice to get to know her, to see where Jonathon had gotten his personality, his warmth. When it was time to leave, she gave me a hug.

“I’m having a graduation dinner for Jonathon on Thursday. Why don’t you surprise him and come?”

“Oh, that’s probably a bad idea to surprise him.” It was ridiculously tempting, but wow. Talk about blindsiding him.

“Just think about it. You can come early before my family arrives.”

I nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

But it turned out I didn’t have to think about it.

As I left my final exam for chemistry on Thursday morning, palms sweating, temples throbbing, shoulders tense, but feeling like I had passed, Jonathon was in the hallway.

“Oh!” I stopped, confused, not sure why he was there. Probably to speak to the interim professor. “Hi.”

I started to move away, down the hall, but he touched my arm. “Kylie.”

“Yes?”

“How did the exam go?”

I couldn’t read his expression. I nodded. “Okay. I think I passed.”

“Good. I knew you could do it.” His eyes swept over me. “You look good.”

“Thanks.” I wasn’t sure I could say the same about him. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes. He was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Mm . . .” then had the symbol for pi next to it. It showed that he had started a second tattoo sleeve on the opposite arm, with something that looked like coding.

I wanted to hug him. I wanted to breathe him in. I had missed him so much, painfully so, but never more than right then, when he was in front of me and I had no right to touch him. I ached.

“Congratulations on passing your thesis.”

“Thanks. How did you know about that?”

His mother. “I just assumed you would pass.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Do you have another exam now? Can I walk with you?”

“No. And yes. I was just going to go sit outside for a while. The warm sun feels good.”

He put his hand on the small of my back as we went down the stairs and out the door. I sat on the concrete steps outside and leaned against the retaining wall. He dropped down beside me, digging in his messenger bag for his phone. He held it up to me.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” I told him. It was an e-mail, some kind of acceptance letter.

“I got accepted to Northwestern’s post-doc program. It’s one of the best in the country for theoretical chemistry.”

“Wow, then definitely congratulations.” My heart started to race. He was here to say good-bye. This was it. For real. He was here to tell me I was never going to see him again. “That’s a huge accomplishment. You should be proud of yourself.” I meant that genuinely, even when I was suddenly gripping the knees of my jeans with my fingernails. “Where is Northwestern?” I tried to sound casual, but my voice sounded far away, tight.

“Evanston, Illinois. Just north of Chicago.”

That was far away. Not the other side of the country, but seven hours by car. Two states away. Near Chicago, where all the attractions of the city, where being twenty-six and trendy and smart, with the potential for making a large income, was all within his reach.

“It’s beautiful there. Right on Lake Michigan. You couldn’t ask for a better place to live, really. Conveniences of Chicago, but more of a small-town feel.”

“Oh, wow. It sounds . . . wonderful.” Far away. It sounded far away. I felt sick. This was what I wanted for him. I did. I wanted him to choose the path that would make him happy. But it still hurt. I widened my eyes so I wouldn’t start crying.

“So you asked me to think and I thought. I decided I wanted to complete my post-doc. And Northwestern is where I want to do it. It’s a great program. A fresh start. A beautiful town.”

“Uh-huh.” My lip started to tremble. Damn it. I bit it to stop the trembling.

“But what I want to know, what I came to you to discuss, is if you would be willing to come with me. Because none of it means very much to me if I don’t have you.”

“What?” I stared at him blankly. I wasn’t expecting him to say that.

He took my hand and he swore under his breath. “You really didn’t think that I would want to be without you, did you? You thought that you were giving me some goddamn gift of freedom from you, didn’t you?”

I nodded.

“Except that’s not what I want. It’s never what I wanted.” He took my hand. “Kylie, I did spend the last two months respecting your wishes and thinking about the rest of my life and you know what I realized?”

I shook my head.

“That I want to spend it with you. I want to live with you. I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up every morning with you. I want to marry you someday, with you in a white dress and our families there. I want babies and a house and you building a home with me. What is so wrong with that?”

“Nothing. God. Nothing.” I was crying now, my vision blurry. “That’s what I want. I want nothing more than that. I just needed to be sure that you wouldn’t regret it.”

“I want a life partner, not a lab partner, do you understand? The day I met you was the best day of my life.” He cupped my chin and stared into my eyes. “I never believed in destiny, fate, soul mates. It was illogical to me. Then I met you. And I realized that in this infinite universe with its massive complexity of matter, that two people could be destined to find one another and make sense out of what is otherwise a meaningless micro-existence, a mere nanosecond of cosmic time. That you and I were drawn to each other not by evolution, but by something that can’t be measured. Love.”

Oh, God. I lost it. The tears rolled down my cheeks and I closed the gap between us and kissed him. “I love you. I want the exact same things you do. I want us. A home. A future.”

He kissed me back, soft, delightful brushes of his lips over mine. “This is right. This is meant to be.”

“So it was written in the stars?” I whispered.

He laughed. “In a manner of speaking. Though never, ever repeat I admitted that.” Then he was pulling me onto his lap. “I love you so much. The last two months have been hell. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and breathed in his scent. “I’m glad you want to be with me.”

He laughed. “Kylie Ann. You put me through hell, but I get it. I hope the time was useful to you.”

“It was. I learned to respect myself more. Does that make sense? I learned that I could dig myself out of an academic hole. And I learned that there is nothing wrong with wanting a domestic life some day.”

“Well, you’ll get to put some of that into practice if you move to Evanston with me. I’ll be really busy with the program, and I know you’ll have school, too, but you won’t have to work. We can live off the grant money. If you’re saying yes, that is, that you’ll go with me.”

“Duh. Of course I’m going with you.” Nothing could make me stay behind, not when I knew that he wanted to be with me.

He laughed. “That’s my girl.”

“I doubt I can get into Northwestern, though. Most schools don’t let you transfer for your final year, and certainly not when your grades suck like mine do.”

“There are a million colleges around there. We’ll find one that is right for you.”

I laid my head down on his chest. “I trust you.”

His arms wrapped around me. “I know that’s hard for you. But yes, trust me. Trust me to take care of you without dominating you. Trust me to respect you. Trust me to love you.”

Tilting my head so I could stare up at him, I said, “I do.”