Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
I couldn’t explain myself to him clearly in words. That would involve discussing what had never been spoken between us. I couldn’t bring myself to just bluntly state the fact that we were in love. It felt like a sacred secret that would wither in the cold light of day.
The loudspeaker over our heads announced that our plane was now boarding. We stood up, being herded into motion by the female professors, as if worried that we didn’t have ears.
The flight was long. Painfully long. Annie and I sat next to each other and watched a couple of movies together in sync. Then we tried to sleep.
I should have brought a travel pillow. Or a sleeping pill. I hadn’t tried to sleep sitting up before. I couldn’t believe how many people around me were happily snoozing.
I was on the aisle. Every time I was about to fall asleep, someone would walk past and I would wake up again.
Finally, I decided to get up and use the bathroom, if only to stretch my legs for a little while. I stood up stiffly and walked down the aisle of the plane. I was careful to tip-toe through the tunnel of protruding elbows. I didn’t want to wake anyone up.
I reached the bathroom door just as it was being opened. A man stepped out.
Jackson.
I blinked. My first thought was how adorable he looked with his hair slight mussed up on one side. That must have been the side he was sleeping on.
“Ellie,” he said, smiling. His smile was sweet and secret. Just for me. “How’s the flight for you so far?”
“Good,” I said. I wiggled my toes inside my shoes. Now would be a perfect time to tell him what Professor Spaulding had told me. I should. I should at least hint at it. Give him some explanation for how distant I planned on being.
But standing here, so close to him, I felt I wouldn’t be able to keep myself distant from him. My skin was humming with warmth, as if I could feel him breathing against me. The distance between us seemed miniscule. I looked up into his eyes bright and warm and felt myself go weak at the knees.
“Have you managed to sleep at all?” he asked, taking the slightest of steps closer to me. I swallowed. My entire body reacted as though he had just run his hands across my skin.
“No, I haven’t,” I stammered. “I keep trying, but I’m to awake. It’s hard to sleep sitting up.”
“It is,” he agreed. “You’ll get used to it.”
I liked that he was assuming I’d take a lot more flights in my life. That I’d travel the world.
“Have you slept at all?” I asked.
“Like a baby,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve been on hundreds of flights. I take my melatonin and off I go.”
He trailed a hand through the air. I giggled. I couldn’t help it. He was being so endearingly dorky.
He beamed at me. “I like your laugh,” he said.
My eyes widened. I could feel myself blushing. “Thanks,” I said, but my energy had dropped through the floor, and he could sense it. We shouldn’t be doing this. Even me just standing and talking with him was giving him too much false hope.
“Well, I’ll let you get on with your night,” he said, stepping back. He smiled again, but the spontaneity had gone out of it. “Goodnight, Ellie.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
My stomach twisted with remorse as I watched him walk down the plane aisle just as carefully as I had done.
Ellie had looked adorable
sleepy, her hair mussed underneath her sweatshirt hoodie. My body hummed with warmth. It had been intoxicating to be so near her. I made it back to my seat and sat down. I put my travel pillow back around my neck and closed my eyes.
I shouldn’t have told her that I liked her laugh. It had clearly made her uncomfortable. I needed to remember that she hadn’t given me any permission to pursue her romantically.
She had blushed, though. I smiled at the memory. What an endearing, innocent thing. Blushing when someone says they like your laugh. And did it mean she was attracted to me, that she blushed when I said I liked her laugh?
Our flight landed in Egypt five hours later. It was early afternoon there, and we stumbled amidst fast-moving, clear-eyed travelers around us, drunk with the fatigue of a twelve-hour flight.
I hadn’t had it so bad as I’d gotten a few hours of sleep. But most of the college students had barely closed their eyes, and the other professors and I now had a troop of zombies in tow.
We made our way through the airport, collecting our luggage and passing through inspections. At last, we were standing outside the Cairo airport.
Professor Spaulding, who spoke Arabic, called a local taxi service and ordered a few cars to take us to our hotel. In another few minutes the first car arrived, and Professor Kittridge an art professor with red hair and a handful of students piled inside.
“No seatbelts!” Professor Kittridge shouted from the car, as if it was the most exciting thing in the world. She was grinning like a kid on Christmas morning.
I smiled. I’d remembered that, but a ripple of surprised exclamations passed through the students.
The next car arrived, and Professor Johnston got into it.
“You should go in the next one,” Professor Spaulding told me. “I’ll go in the last car. If you have any troubles, you can call me and I’ll talk to the driver in Arabic.”
His tone was brisk, matter-of-fact, as though we were an army and he was giving orders. I could tell that he was enjoying himself, however. His eyes were bright and his posture buoyant.
“Sounds good,” I said.
Professor Spaulding was an odd man, but I liked him. When I’d proposed this trip, I thought he might have asked me to marry him since he was so thrilled with me. But now I sometimes caught him watching me with a suspicious eye.
I decided it was nothing. Maybe just the way his face looked while he thought. He seemed friendly enough towards me still.
The next car arrived, and I got into it. To my utmost delight, Ellie climbed in directly after me.
The car was a jeep, with seats placed vertically against the back windows instead of horizontally in the center of the car. I sat in the far corner on one side, and Ellie sat right next to me. Annie climbed inside after her, and one other student a boy named Henry climbed in after her.
“Okay, here we go!” called out the driver cheerfully, his accent as charming as his smile.
We all looked at each other and smiled, feeling as though we were about to begin a ride at an amusement park. The comparison wasn’t unreasonable. Our driver wove through traffic so rapidly that Annie was clutching the edge of her seat and staring wide-eyed out the window.
“Why are there no seatbelts?” she whispered.
Ellie laughed. She was also staring wide-eyed out the windows, but her expression was one of pure joy. She seemed to be painting the air around her with the light of her happiness. I smiled. I’d done this for her. I’d given her this trip.