Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
I rubbed my forehead with my temples, taking deep breaths.
Ellie. I thought of her smile, her laugh, the way her eyes shone when she looked at something she loved. When she looked at me.
My heart twisted. This must be so strange for her. What was she thinking about it? What was she feeling about it? Would she be able to accept something like this?
I inhaled again and settled down to my work for the day. I had a class to teach this morning and some papers to grade before the end of the week.
I was distracted. My mind insisted that I needed to decide now what to do about telling Ellie. It was like an itch I couldn’t ignore the feeling that I should go to her now and tell her. We could talk about it together. I should be there for her, whatever she was going through.
But I couldn’t rid myself of the nagging certainty that the fact that Ellie had not spoken to me for a couple of days meant she was pulling away from me.
This was too much for her.
The answer was no.
My heart ached. My mind spun. I kept trying to work.
Absentmindedly, I scanned through my new emails. My eyebrows lifted as I saw one from the chair of the business program. I clicked on it and read that my colleague who taught a business class in the early evenings was ill. The chair was asking me if I could teach her early evening class that day.
I felt a flutter of relief. This would take all of my attention all my free moments would need to be spent preparing to teach this class. It felt as if I could give myself permission to put off talking to Ellie.
My conscience nagged at me, but I ignored it. Wasn’t I falling into the trap that men were famous for putting off emotions by working too hard?
“Just until tonight,” I thought, opening the syllabus that had been attached to the email. “I’ll make a decision on what to do tonight, as soon as the class is over.”
I kept working. I focused well. But sometimes, when I closed my eyes for longer than a blink, I would see Ellie’s face.
The class I was scheduled to substitute for was located in the same lecture hall I usually taught in. I made my way there early, wanting to write out the agenda of the class on the whiteboard so it would be easier for me to teach it without clinging to my notes.
As I walked, my mind rushed back to Ellie. As if my work had been a buffer, a barrier against my worry, being finished with every task except teaching took that barrier away. My heart ached. I felt sure that this was the end. There were too many things stacked against us. Professor Spaulding. Both of our reputations. And now this.
The classroom was eerily silent and empty as I wrote down the class topics on the whiteboard. Even though there were no windows in the lecture hall, I could sense the lateness of the day. The lighting felt dimmer than usual, as if I knew that outside, the sun was setting.
Slowly, a few students began to trickle into the classroom. I smiled at them politely, answering their confused glances. I would explain my presence at the beginning of the class. I didn’t feel I had the energy to introduce myself every time a new student walked in.
I scanned through the class roster, which I’d printed. Only twelve students. I glanced at the clock. Class started in another four minutes, and we were only missing three students. This seemed to be a dedicated crowed of upper classmen.
I looked down again at the roster, carefully reading the names. It would be nice to get to know which name belonged to which student. I could manage that easily, with a class of only twelve.
Out of my peripheral vision, I saw movement in the doorway at the top of the classroom. I looked up, intending to offer my polite smile to another confused student when my heart stopped.
Ellie.
She was standing in the doorway, beaming down at me. I’d never seen anyone look so happy in all my life. She was wearing a white sweater covered in pink and red hearts.
Relief flooded over me. I stared up at her, feeling my heart swell with so much joy I thought it might burst. I felt an involuntary grin on my face. I forced myself to look away from Ellie. My heart was pounding and my blood was swirling.
We were okay.
Everything was going to be okay.
I taught the class. I asked everyone to introduce themselves at the start of it, and Ellie explained her presence by saying she was considering transferring into that section.
My mind was operating in overdrive. I was filled with energy and told so many jokes I soon had the whole room laughing often. I breezed through the material, barely needing to look at my notes.
Ellie was sitting in the same desk she always used to sit in, at the back of the room. I remembered the first day I’d seen her. Now the warmth I felt radiating from her was even sweeter and more intense. I could feel my heart beating rapidly every time I looked at her.
The class ended. Some of the students came to the front of the classroom to thank me for the lecture and to talk with me for a while. I could see Ellie still sitting at her desk, waiting until the classroom was empty to come talk to me.
I said goodbye to the last of the students, who exited the lecture hall through the lower door. The door swung closed. The air around me seemed to crackle with electricity. Ellie and I were the last ones left in the room.
I turned to her, grinning from ear to ear.
She stood up and ran down the stairs towards me. She flung herself into my arms, burrowing her head against my shoulder. I held her tightly, taking shuddering breaths. It felt as though we’d passed through a shipwreck and finally reached the shore.
“I know,” she said into my shoulder. “Annie told me. She says she’s fine with it, and us. She convinced me we have nothing to be ashamed of.”
My heart swelled. “We don’t,” I said, lifting her face up and kissing her forehead. “We have nothing to be ashamed of.”
She closed her eyes and smiled as if she was treasuring the feeling of my hands against her face.
“And we’re safe,” she said, grinning and opening her eyes again. “I talked with Professor Spaulding. I convinced him that we really love each other. He’s on our side now. He’s not going to say anything.”
For a second, my heart stopped. Relief swept over me.
“Ellie,” I said, wrapping my arms around her. “You’re wonderful.”
I felt her inhale and exhale against my chest.
“Now what?” she asked quietly. I could feel her cheeks move against my shoulder as she smiled.
“Now we go home,” I said.
And then?
The rest of our lives.
I was already spinning plans for another trip to Egypt, during the summer, involving just the two of us, and a diamond ring that I would keep hidden in a box until we reached Hurghada.
—The End