Page 58 of Marrying My Professor

He takes a step toward me, and Georgia immediately pulls out her phone. "I'm calling security."

"But no," Taylor continues, ignoring her. "You had to interfere. Had to play hero. And now I've lost everything. My scholarship. My housing. My future. All because you were such a nosey bitch you couldn't mind your own goddamn business."

"I was trying to help you," I say, my voice shaking. "I saw what they were doing to you at that party. You looked miserable. Ashamed. I thought⁠—"

"You thought wrong," he snarls. "You don't know anything about me. About my life. About what I'm willing to sacrifice to make it out of poverty. And now, because of you, I'm going back to Vermont with nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing."

Campus security appears then—two officers in uniform, alerted by Georgia's call. They move between us, and one of them—a woman in her forties with kind eyes—gently takes Taylor's arm.

"Son, you need to step back."

"She ruined my life," Taylor says, but the fight has gone out of him. He looks deflated now, broken. "She ruined everything."

"Let's go," the security officer says firmly, guiding him away. "Come on. Let's get you somewhere you can calm down."

Taylor lets himself be led away, but he looks back at me over his shoulder. "I hope you're happy," he says. "I hope whatever you were looking for was worth destroying me."

They disappear around the corner, and I stand there frozen, my heart hammering, my hands shaking so badly I have to press them against my thighs to make them stop.

"What the hell was that?" Georgia asks, but her voice sounds far away, muffled like I'm underwater.

"I have to go," I hear myself say. "I'm sorry, Georgia. I have to—I need to⁠—"

"Elara, wait⁠—"

But I'm already moving, already climbing into the Mercedes, already slamming the door and starting the engine with hands that won't stop shaking.

I pull away from the curb without looking back, leaving Georgia standing on the sidewalk with a confused, worried expression that makes guilt twist in my stomach.

I make it two blocks before I have to pull over.

The tears come fast and hard, blurring my vision, making my chest heave with sobs I can't control. I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles go white, and I let myself break down in a way I haven't since Brandon died.

I ruined his life.

17

ALEXANDER

"—which brings us to the fundamental question of whether institutional ethics can exist in spaces designed to protect institutional power," I'm saying, mid-sentence, when the classroom door opens.

President Morrison walks in, flanked by two campus security officers.

The room goes silent. Forty students swivel in their seats, conversation dying mid-word as they take in the scene: the university president, grim-faced and formal in his navy suit, standing in the doorway of my classroom like he's about to deliver a death sentence.

Which, I realize with sinking certainty, he probably is.

"Professor Draven," Morrison says, his voice carrying that particular tone of administrative disappointment I've heard directed at students but never at faculty. "We need to speak. Privately."

I set down my marker with deliberate calm, even as my pulse kicks into overdrive. "I'm in the middle of a lecture."

"Class is dismissed," he says, addressing the students directly. "You're excused for the remainder of the period."

There's a beat of stunned silence before the scramble begins—bags hastily zipped, notebooks shoved into backpacks, a chorus of confused whispers as forty bodies file toward the exit. Some students glance back at me with expressions ranging from curiosity to concern. Rachel Adams looks particularly worried, her hand half-raised like she wants to ask a question but doesn't dare.

I don't blame her. I want to ask questions too.

The last student leaves. The door clicks shut.