I went still.
“I told him no matter what he thought of me, it was wrong to do this to you. You’re innocent. I’ll have other jobs, other opportunities to not f**k up fantastically, but this is your one and only senior year.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. But I think he understood.” Evan sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I think he really does care about you.”
“He’s a stalker and a traitor. He can go f**k himself.”
Evan raised his face. He looked so exhausted. He looked, for the first time, old. “Well, for what it’s worth, he promised he wouldn’t say anything.”
Not that it mattered, thanks to Hiyam.
“You know what’s been bothering me most?” Evan said. “This is a measure of how f**ked up my reality is right now.”
“What?”
“Telling you to leave class.”
I swallowed, not looking at him. The fumes in my throat mellowed into burnt sugar. “I get it. I was disruptive. You had to be the teacher.”
“It felt wrong.”
It was comforting, that it had also made him uncomfortable.
I took another long sip, filling my chest with fire. When I breathed I tasted all the winter decay, the sweet rotten leaves and pulped wood that lay under the ice outside. I was suffused with a sense of things ending. Louis the pony sat on the couch beside me, and I wrapped my arms around him.
“I can’t believe I f**ked this up,” I said.
So cocky. So sure of myself. Not realizing—not in a visceral, gut-twisting way—how much danger Evan was in. How could I let this happen? I should have guarded him. I should have been the one protecting him.
He kicked my foot beneath the table. “You didn’t f**k it up. We’re here, aren’t we? It sounds weird, but it’s almost relieving. We couldn’t have kept doing this, Maise. And I don’t like what it was doing to us.”
I didn’t like that he apparently agreed with Wesley. “It’s relieving that you might be fired?”
“Listen.” In the dark all I could make out was glass and shine. Moonlight filtered through the whiskey, casting eerie maple stains on the carpet. “I made a decision today. One way or another, I’m quitting.”
“What?” I said. “No.”
“Yes.” His socked feet bounced against mine. “They need a permanent sub at Carbondale Community. One of the teachers was diagnosed with cancer. Tragic, of course, but such is life. Go Terriers.”
I put my glass down. “Which class?”
“Who cares?”
“Which class?”
“Speech.”
I wrinkled my nose.
“The point is,” he said, “I won’t be your teacher anymore. No more f**ked-up power imbalance. No more hiding.”
“And what, we’ll see each other on weekends? Carbondale’s like an hour from here. Your commute will suck. Why bother? You should stay and I’ll just—”
“Move in,” he said, touching my hand on the table.
Flatline.
Neither of us spoke. Then we both did at the same time.
“I know it’s kind of soon—” he said, while I said, “Are you f**king serious—”
He laughed. I didn’t.
“I am serious,” he said.
“No, you’re not. You’re insane.”
“Insanely serious.”
I stood up, Louis and the blanket slipping to the floor. I started to walk—not toward the door, necessarily; I just needed to move. Evan was up and after me in a heartbeat. He grabbed my shoulders. I wrestled away. Now I was heading for the door.
“Maise,” he said. “Wait. Please.”
I waited.
“Did I freak you out? Too much, too soon?”
“No,” I said. “Jesus. God. I don’t know.”
He stood behind me, pressed his body against mine. Slid his hands around my waist. His touch was light, tender. I could have easily stepped out of it.
He didn’t prompt me. He didn’t say teacherly things: What do you think? (This is a mistake.) What do you feel? (Terrified.) What’s the theme of this conversation? (Bad decisions.) He just held me. Supported me. Loved me.
And I started talking.
“I’m afraid,” I said to the shadows. “I’m f**king terrified. Other people know about us. Even if you leave Riverland, they can still come after you.”
“Who knows?” he said against my hair.
I shook my head, unwilling to explain. “It doesn’t matter. Even if they didn’t, I’d still be afraid.” Okay. Here it comes. Here is the hardest thing I am going to say. Be a f**king lion. One two three roar. “I love you, Evan. I know I’ve already said it a million ways, but it’s really hard for me to accept and actually say out loud like this. I love you. God, I love you, I love you, and it’s scary and overwhelming and when you say you’re quitting your job and want me to move in, I panic. Because I’ve never grown up. I’m stuck, like Peter Pan. I don’t know how to have a grown-up relationship, I don’t know how to live with someone, I don’t know how to be with you outside of this teacher-student thing, and today proved how much I fail at that. I pretend to be this person I’m not when inside I’m a scared little kid, waiting for someone to tell me it’s okay.”
He turned me around and I wouldn’t look at him. He touched my jaw.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“I’m f**king terrified. I’m just a kid inside, Evan.”
“So am I.” He stroked my hair. “Maise, so am I. Nobody knows how to be a grown-up. We’re all just pretending for each other. It takes some people their entire lives to figure out what you already know.”
Out of everything I ever learned from Evan Wilke, I think that lesson was the most important: that none of us actually grow up. We get bigger, and older, but part of us always retains that small rabbit heart, trembling furiously, secretively, with wonder and fear. There’s no irony in it. No semantics or subtext. Only red blood and green grass and silver stars.
“Don’t be afraid,” Evan said. “We’re in this together, hand in hand, against the world.”
He was holding mine, and I thought of that moment in August when we teetered a hundred feet above oblivion, my fear spread out across the night, waiting to devour me. The way I’d held his hand and laughed in its face.
“Here’s looking at you, kid,” he said.
And he kissed me.
And we lived happily ever after.
Until the next morning.
I woke early, told him I had errands to run, and left the warm heaven of his bed for the rough cold world outside. I didn’t mention Hiyam. How I couldn’t trust her to keep mum even if I did her bidding. How the thought of him ever having to step into a courtroom because of me made me sick. I’d put him in enough danger.
The right thing to do now was to walk away. Sever it cleanly.
I didn’t let myself think of it as the last time, or I never would’ve been able to step out the door. When Ilsa got on that plane, I don’t think she thought of it as the last time, either. We never do. If we did, the airlines would go out of business. It’s always goodbye with the mouth and until we meet again with the heart.
I walked home, my chest feeling weird, heavy and light at the same time. I stood in the living room doorway where Mom had stood homecoming night, looking at the couch. I knew I was in love with him that night, but he wouldn’t let me say it. People know their feelings much sooner than they consciously accept them.
When did you realize you were in love with me, Mr. Wilke?
Mom’s bedroom door opened soundlessly. I had years of practicing my ninja skills on her. She lay facedown on the pillow, her snore like a saw going at aged oak even through three inches of cotton. I padded over to the nightstand and picked up her phone.
Five minutes later, I had a brunch date.
“Pleasure to see you again, Maise,” Gary Rivero said.
I let him take my hand and squeeze. Cool bluish light fell over us, bright but heatless. The white tablecloth glowed like snow. Quinn sat at an adjacent table and nodded at me, his scalp shining through his crew-cut.
“Thanks for sending a cab,” I said.
Gary waved it off. He wore a charcoal gray suit and pink shirt today, his hair a wave of brushed metal. His seawater eyes always seemed to be smiling even when his mouth wasn’t.
“I was surprised, and delighted, to hear from you,” he said.
Silverware clinked musically across the room. Rich aromas of frying butter and bacon grease drifted from the kitchen. We’d been seated in an empty area; Gary had some understanding with the staff.
“I’ve been thinking about our talk,” I said. I knew I shouldn’t be too specific. Discussing business with these people was an art of subtlety and double-speak. “And I may have a solution to that problem you mentioned.”
“That’s fine,” Gary said, sipping his coffee. “But we can talk about that later.” He smiled, put his cup down, and peered at my face searchingly. “I’d like to know more about you, Maise.”
I stirred sugar into my cup. “What is it you’d like to know, Mr. Rivero? What I look like nak*d? How much it’ll cost you to sleep with me?” I tapped my spoon, set it down. “Those things are never going to happen. That’s where my boundaries are. Are we clear?”
“I don’t think you understand. If I wanted those things, they would happen, sweetheart. But I don’t. All I want is to get to know you as a person.”
I hoped he couldn’t see me swallow. I took a sip of my sugar-and-cream coffee.
“So,” he said, “let’s talk to each other like human beings. What kind of person are you?”
“Trustworthy.”
Gary’s mouth quirked wryly. “Everyone says they’re trustworthy. You may as well tell me you’re breathing.”
I thought of Wesley betraying me, the sinking weight it had left in my stomach. “In my case, it’s true. I can prove it.”
“And how is that?” Gary said, signaling for the waiter.
“By showing you I can keep a secret.” I took a breath. “I’ve been keeping a big one for the past few months. A dangerous one. It could send someone to jail.”
Gary lifted his hand again, this time to tell the waiter to back off. His eyes stayed laser-focused on me. “What secret is that, sweetheart?”
I could not believe the first person I would legitimately tell about this was a f**king druglord, but exactly which part of my life so far has been anything near normal?
“I’m having an affair with my teacher,” I said.
And I told him the whole thing. It just spilled out of me, as if I’d been waiting, dying, to tell someone, and although I was slightly horrified at myself, it felt so f**king relieving to finally get it out. This man had no actual interest in my life. It was like talking to a psychiatrist, or a priest. A blessed unburdening. I omitted Wesley and Hiyam, of course, and when I was done Gary drank his now-cold coffee and sat back with a new look in his eyes.