William

Ethan bowed out of all my Sunday plans. I don't know if the other students noticed how much slower I walked, how much more taciturn I was while we were out. There was less joking, and I had less to say in general. There was a storm cloud over the day, and everyone seemed eager to get back to the hotel.

I feel bad for dampening their mood. I should have just told them to go see the city. They don't need a babysitter, they're adults. When I was their age, I was sleeping in a hole and getting shot at. As I help load luggage into the van, I wonder how it was that I grew so old as to see these kids as…kids.

The exception is Ethan. Except, this time, another student ends up sitting next to me and Ethan crawls into the back, to sit between Becky and Jennifer. The bad kids, as it were.

The drive back is grueling. I say little and am spoken to less. They end up falling asleep despite the unique odor of the van itself. Once we're back and everyone is unloaded and dispersed, Ethan stands on the sidewalk, garment bag slung over one shoulder, eyeing me.

“See you tomorrow morning, then,” he says.

Dread ripples through me but I nod, silently.

Exhausted from the drive and glad I didn't try to teach a class this afternoon, I trudge back to my apartment. I paid an education major to cat sit for me. Ebbie meows lazily at me without bothering to get up, acknowledging my presence by rolling on his back and showing his belly. I know it's a trap and I'm not falling for it.

He curls around my leg as I sit down, staring blankly into my own reflection in the television set, wondering what I'm going to do, how this is going to play out.

Some time later, after dark, there's a knock at the door. When I open it, Ethan is there, hiding inside a sweatshirt, the hood drawn up. I quickly usher him inside and close the door behind him. He sits right down on the floor and sweeps his hood back, and I just stare at him stupidly, rooted in place as Erebus trots over. My cat bumps Ethan's shoulder with his head and sits down next to him, sitting primly in judgment the way only a cat can.

After a time, I walk over and fall back into the chair.

“So how does this play out?” he says.

I clear my throat and blink my eyes a few times. It's easier to look up at the ceiling than to look down at him.

“We have the rest of this month, three weeks next month, owing to Spring Break, and the full month of April. Finals week is the first week in May, then the graduation ceremony the third week.”

“I know all that,” Ethan says.

I clear my throat. “The immediate problem is keeping things secret during that time, which we haven't been doing.”

“Right,” he says.

“The larger problem becomes, what next? What happens after that?”

“After that I'm not a student anymore and we can—”

“Can we?” I say, as gently as I can, maybe not as gently as I should. “I have my tenure application in the fall, and you'll be starting grad school. We need to talk about this.”

Ethan nods, a hint of sadness making his movements imprecise and jittery.

“I know, we can—”

He stops, takes a deep breath, then stands up.

He looks down at me in my bean bag chair and folds his arms, looking more mature than I've ever seen him, and more manly. It doesn't detract from my attraction to him. If anything, it grows more intense. When I stand up, too, I see him differently. I no longer feel like I'm taking advantage when I edge closer and he tips up his chin, lips pouting, somehow looking down on me despite my advantage in height.

“I love you,” he says, and words of comfort should be a lash.

I know the truth by the simplicity of it. He doesn't argue, doesn't embellish, doesn't try to persuade. He doesn't lecture me on how short of a time grad school will be or how we can make things work or if we make the effort, we will see each other through this. He just makes a plain statement of fact, like telling me the sky is blue.

The declaration shakes me to my core.

Even Erebus meowing for food doesn't break the moment.

“I love you too,” I say, the admission coming out of me like a great wave of relief. I almost sag on my feet and sink back to fall onto my chair.

“Now we just have to decide what to do about it,” he says.

I pace the room, thinking.

“I have an idea,” he says.

“Tell me.”

“There's no risk of us being caught doing something if we don't do anything. We stop. We stop right now and maintain a normal teacher-student professional relationship until the day I graduate. Then we have the summer. I'll be away next year, but I'm willing to make a long-distance thing work if you are. It won't be forever, and it'll even help us. Again, no need to worry about how things look during your tenure process if I'm not around.”

“So we take a break,” I say.

We both look at each other grimly.

“No,” he says. “I'll wake up tomorrow loving you as much as I do today. Every day that I have to avoid you will be torture. Every hour I'm working on grading papers for you in the library or my dorm instead of sitting in your office will be suffering. Every time I make sure I'm elsewhere and visible when you're alone will hurt. Every time I'm at some party or something on a weekend instead of with you, it'll be like stripping off my skin. But I'll do it, so you won't be hurt.”

I start to say something, and he puts his hand on my chest to stop me.

“And me, me too. I know it could hurt me if we're caught. I just…you made me question my priorities. It's hard to care about anything else, but I do have to care, don't I?”

“Yes,” I say, putting my hand on his. “If what I just said is true, I can't let you hurt yourself.”

“The same is true for me,” he says.

We stare at each other for a few moments.

“I think we need to start right now,” he says. “As much as it hurts, as much as I want to leap on you and get dragged back to that bedroom, it needs to start right now. Until I've graduated we keep it professional.”

“Yes,” I say, shocked at the raw agony in my own voice.

“It's not forever,” he says.

“It's not forever,” I agree.

Ethan pulls his hand back. I release it, and he wipes it against his chest once and strokes his fingers over his thumb.

“I'm going now,” he says.

I grab his arm.

“Wait.”

He stops.

I don't want to make this harder than it already is. If it takes too long for him to leave, we'll be in the bedroom, and right back where we started.

“After graduation,” I say. “When it's all over, we're on again.”

“That day,” he says. “I'll probably have to go to some parties and stuff, but after that…”

I nod and let go.

Ethan walks out of the room with visible effort, shuddering to himself.

He stops in the door.

“I can't…”

“You can,” I say, calmly. “You can and you will, because you'll always know that no matter how cold I seem, I'm doing it because I love you, and it hurts me just as bad. Maybe worse.”

He nods without looking at me and I hear a hitching sound that rips in my chest as he pulls his hood up and leaves, pulling the door shut behind him.

Erebus looks up at me and meows plaintively.

“Don't try to make me think you're sympathetic,” I admonish him, “you just want food. Oh, the hell with it.”

I feed him far too many treats until he gets bored of me and goes off to sleep.

The next day, Ethan reports to my office. When I see him, it feels like I'm floating in a fishbowl. I hear my own voice, muffled, as if it were coming from outside of the glass as I give him instructions. The first day is awkward. I make an effort to keep him out of sight, send him running errands for me or give him work to do elsewhere.

When I return home, I'm exhausted. Erebus merely notes my condition with his usual reserve.

The next day, though, is easier.

The one after that, easier still.

By March, we have a system in place. He times his appearance in my office to the presence of others so there's no temptation. I don't keep my ear to the ground, I ignore any rumor mill forming. Ethan was right: We don't have to worry about rumors leading to us getting caught if there's nothing to catch.

Spring break is the hardest, but Ethan scrapes together the cash and the sponsorship of friends to leave for the week. I avoid campus entirely, driving down to a different beach to spend the week sitting in a beach chair going over my lectures instead of in my office.

The clock ticks. This is the longest three months of my life, more like three years.

By the end of it all, it's almost easy. It makes me wonder.

During all this time, will he find someone else? Will his feelings cool?

If he's acting, he's doing a masterful job.

The only crack in the facade is one eager look while he's grading parts of the final exams for me. I had him move from my office to one of the conference rooms to do that. Carol's TA is doing the same thing for her.

Ethan already knows he's graduating with highest honors, and he's been accepted to grad school. I was afraid, since he'd applied as far away as Oregon, that he'd be on the other side of the country soon, but he's enrolled at George Washington University, only two hours away. I can meet him nearby, in a place where I'll just be me and won't have to worry about word getting back to the wrong ear.

When he brings the graded papers back to my desk, where I'm much more laboriously evaluating the essay sections of the test, he leans over the desk and stares down at me.

He doesn't say anything. He just licks his lips, a quick flash of tongue before he almost dances out of the room. It's everything I've got not to chase after him and show him who's boss.

Between finals and graduation there is one week. The students who live nearer to campus are moving out. Ethan, as an RA, will be one of the last to go, the day after graduation. Every day of it is torture, so I avoid campus once my grades are turned in and take long drives, see movies by myself, put Erebus in a harness and take him on walks. I mostly end up carrying him.

The wait…the wait is just excruciating.

I thought that would be the worst part, but then the day of graduation comes.

My formal robe and tam 'o shatter are much heavier than the cheap robes the students wear. It was one of the first things I bought after I completed my Ph.D., and I much anticipated wearing it to graduations. Being a history professor at a small institution like this sometimes feels like being a glorified high school teacher. Wearing this, I feel like I'm carrying on a grand tradition of intellectual enlightenment stretching back to the dawn of civilization.

If I don't get it off I'm going to keel over. I'm going to sweat to death.

The ceremony, as they usually are, is interminable. I don't have to fake looking grumpy, I am grumpy. Ethan is one of the first twenty or so students to be called, owing to having a last name starting with BA. Yet I can't leave.

So I sit through the long parade of students collecting diplomas, the commencement address from some local politician, and so on, and so forth, for three hours that feel like seven in baking heat on the school football field.

Finally, it's over. I drift about, offering congratulations to some of the other seniors. Ethan stops in front of me and I offer him a lame congratulation. He texted me earlier. I haven't read it yet. He doesn't tell me where he's going any more than he'd tell any other professor where the night's drinking will take place.

I check my phone on my way to get out of this absurd outfit, and my hand trembles from anticipation.

Home. Shower. The world blurs. Somehow I remember to stop and feed Erebus before I head out. I put a fresh tank of gas in the car and pull into the parking lot to wait.

Ethan hops out of another car—he got a ride—and runs over. Without a word, he pulls open the door and hops in, in the same motion leaning over the console to kiss me, hard. I kiss back, and it breaks into a full make out session with his legs still hanging out the open door.

“Get in here,” I say, and he does. The door slams, I start the engine, and…

It coughs, sputters, and dies with a sharp rattle.

Grimacing, I turn the key again. Then again.

After kicking the clutch a few times and some percussive maintenance, the car rumbles to life, and then we drive off into the sunset.