Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
Some of the students had thought that was odd shouldn’t the professors be on the same floors as the students? They were our chaperones, after all.
I knew in that moment that Professor Spaulding had organized the rooms that way on purpose. He didn’t care what the students did with each other. He wanted to keep an eye on Professor Steele. He would know that any students on this floor didn’t need to be here.
Especially not at seven in the morning, barefoot, with their hair mussed up and their mascara from the night before smeared under their eyes.
I knew that he knew. I didn’t try to lie. I just stared back at him.
“Ellie,” he said.
I swallowed. I wanted to cry. I didn’t feel any shame, just fear and remorse. Fear for Jackson. Remorse that I hadn’t been more careful. This was my fault.
“Ellie,” Professor Spaulding said again, slowly. His eyes were on my face but not on my eyes, as if he couldn’t talk about the subject and make eye contact at the same time; he was too embarrassed. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything this time. I care about my students and want to protect your reputation. If anything ever happens again, he will be fired. I am not threatening that idly. Do you understand?”
Tears burned in my eyes. I was determined not to let them out, so I nodded.
“Be sure that no one else finds out about this,” Professor Spaulding said. “I would advise ceasing to interact with Professor Steele altogether. You don’t want it to show on your face.”
He paused for a moment, and then kept walking past me, down the hall to his room.
Had I been blushing? His last words rang in my ears. I knew he’d meant them kindly, but they had stung me. They felt condescending, controlling as if I would give away what had happened simply by looking at Jackson.
And maybe I would, I thought, hurrying down the stairs. Maybe my love would show in my eyes when I looked at him. Maybe I had been blushing. Maybe I would blush whenever Jackson spoke to me for the rest of the trip.
Tears were spilling down my cheeks now. My body felt cold, turned inside-out. I wanted to run back to Jackson for comfort, but instead I had to face a day where I wasn’t allowed to speak to him.
Not just a day. The whole rest of the year. All my college years.
I bit my lip, fumbling with my room key as I unlocked the door of Annie’s and my room. I stepped inside, shutting the door hurriedly behind me.
“Ellie?” Annie called from inside the bathroom. The door was open. She stuck her head out, her hands moving quickly as she braided her hair. She grinned at me. “Who was the lucky guy?”
I shook my head. Annie’s smile vanished.
“It was bad?” she asked, dropping her braid. It unraveled a little. “He was bad? Do I need to beat somebody up?”
“I can’t talk about it, Annie,” I said, my voice quiet. I just wanted to curl up under the covers and go to sleep. I hadn’t slept much.
“Okay,” Annie said. “Was…was it somebody in our group?”
I hesitated. I needed to protect Jackson. Maybe she literally meant our student group, and it wouldn’t even be a lie.
“No,” I said, “it wasn’t.”
“Okay,” Annie said. She was watching my face carefully, alert to every flickering expression of distress. “Well, we’ll be out of here by tomorrow morning. You want to come get breakfast with me?”
I nodded. “Let me just shower first,” I said.
And curl up under the covers and cry.
“Okay,” she said. “I think I’m going to go for a walk on the beach for a while. I’ll meet you in the lobby in half an hour?”
“Perfect,” I said, smiling at her. “I’ll be there.”
She ducked back inside the bathroom, where she finished getting ready. I walked into the main part of our room as if in a trance. Slowly, as if all my limbs were made of lead, I pulled a clean set of clothes out of the closet where I had hung them.
“Sounds like it’s beach day today,” Annie called from the bathroom. “That’s what everyone was saying last night. That should be nice and relaxing.”
I knew she was trying to make me feel better. I was grateful for it. I’d been looking forward to wearing a bikini in front of Jackson. Now it just felt like a hazard. Would he look at me long enough that Professor Spaulding would notice?
It didn’t matter. Professor Spaulding already knew.
“He thinks he’s creepy,” I thought, the tears starting again. They were hot in my eyes. “He thinks he’s some lascivious predator trying to sleep with younger women, just to have sex. He doesn’t know he’s in love with me. He doesn’t know it’s just me.”
I blinked back my tears rapidly as I heard Annie step out of the bathroom. She didn’t come back into the main part of the room, though. Did she know I was crying?
“I’ll see you soon, Ellie!” she called. I heard the sound of our door opening and closing.
I lay down on my bed and pulled the sheets over me. I curled up into a ball and let the tears come out. My crying was silent, as if mourning Jackson had to be as much of a secret as loving him was.
When I closed my eyes, I could feel him against me. His head resting on top of mine. The feeling of him breathing against my back. The way he’d run his hands down my legs and over my feet as if every inch of me was precious.
I cried for ten minutes. I didn’t have time to cry longer than that. I took a deep breath, stood up, and got ready to take a shower.
I didn’t look at Jackson when he sat down to breakfast with us. Hearing his voice made my blood rush and my heart twist. I wondered if I was blushing just by listening to him. It was like he was a bright light that I couldn’t look at. Not without giving myself away.
And this was the best way to protect him. To make sure he kept his distance from me for the rest of the trip.
And when we got back to the states.
I lay on the beach, feeling the warm breeze against my body, listening to the sounds of my friends laughing and making jokes, knowing with every particle of my being that Jackson was behind me, hurt and confused. But Professor Spaulding was also behind me. I didn’t dare talk to Jackson. I didn’t even dare text Jackson. What if the college could legally insist on viewing his text messages? I didn’t want there to be any evidence against him. What we’d done hadn’t been illegal, but it had been against Flynn’s rules. Professors were not allowed to sleep with students. So far, Professor Spaulding “knew” but he didn’t have any proof. I needed to keep it that way.
All the students finished out the trip at the resort by star-gazing on the beach. Jackson didn’t join us. He probably didn’t even know we were out here. I was able to forget my grief for a while and just enjoy the cool air and the smell of the Red Sea and the way my friends kept laughing at things that were barely even funny. I was glad they were happy. And until that morning I’d been happier than I’d ever thought was possible. I was still lucky to have had what I’d had.
“I love you, Jackson,” I mouthed to the stars, my lips barely moving. “I love you.”
On our last night in Egypt, we stayed at the same hotel where we’d started the trip. After dinner, the students congregated in the lobby for games and messing around. Everyone was planning on staying up late or even all night. Most people claimed they were going to sleep on the plane. I doubted I would be able to, but I hadn’t been sleeping well anyway. I might as well stay up and try to enjoy some of the fun.
We’d been hanging out for about a half an hour when someone appeared in the doorway. Jackson. I swallowed and looked down at the book I’d brought with me. He looked so handsome, standing there, silhouetted against the light in the hallway behind him.
He joined our circle, and everyone started a game of Truth or Dare.