Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
“And when we did, it was my idea,” I said. “I’m twenty-one years old. I have not been seduced. He did not pursue me. This is not a situation of lust. Jackson and I have a connection as two independent, intelligent individuals, and we are no longer able to deny it.”
I said the words confidently, impressed by my own articulation. I sounded as polished and poised as if it was a speech I had been rehearsing for days.
Professor Spaulding swallowed.
“Look at his track record,” I said. “He’s not a playboy. A man like Jackson could be sleeping around as much as he wanted to, and you can bet the tabloids would have picked up on it. The only gossip out there on him is the question of whether or not he’d going to get back together with his ex-wife. The magazines only wonder about it because sometimes she comes back into town and insists he take her out to dinner.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Ellie,” he said, in the patronizing tone of someone who did not understand at all, “but a professor having a sexual relationship with a student is against college rules. I can’t let it continue.”
For a moment, I wished I hadn’t confessed. Maybe it would have been better to try to avoid Professor Spaulding’s notice and carry on in secret. There wasn’t anything he could do without proof and I’d just given it to him.
“Professor,” I said. “We’ve been very discreet. We intend to keep being discreet. My own best friend didn’t even know that Jackson and I had become involved until today.”
Professor Spaulding raised his eyebrows. “I find that hard to believe,” he said.
“It’s true,” I said, an edge of defiance in my voice. “You can ask her yourself.”
Professor Spaulding looked at me, chewing on his lip.
“Jackson is a wonderful professor, Professor Spaulding. I’ve heard you say so myself,” I said. “You know he’s done a great deal of good for the college already. Like the higher enrollment rate and free publicity for the school.”
“And the Egypt trip,” Professor Spaulding said.
I froze.
“What?” I said.
“The Egypt trip,” Professor Spaulding said slowly. “He paid for it.”
“He did?” I said, tears springing into my eyes.
For me. He’d done that for me.
“You didn’t know?” Professor Spaulding asked me, frowning with surprise.
I shook my head. “I had no idea,” I said. “I thought he’d just wanted to come along as a chaperone.”
Professor Spaulding chewed on his lip again, more rapidly than before. I could tell he was thinking; I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. I was managing to get him to see Jackson and me in a different light. If Jackson had been a predator, he would have used paying for the trip to ingratiate himself to me. The fact that I still hadn’t known, months later, proved that Jackson actually loved me. He’d just done it for me, not to get me.
I clasped my hand together tightly and held my breath. This was the moment, I felt sure of it. Professor Spaulding was at a crossroads: whatever decision he was going to make, he would make it here.
He inhaled. I listened to the sound, my heart pounding, knowing he was about to speak.
“Ellie,” he said slowly. “You’re a very intelligent young woman.”
I clasped my hands together more tightly.
“And I know that Jackson is a kind man,” he said. He paused. I could hear my blood rushing in my ears.
“You and I have never had any conversations about Jackson Steele,” he said. “I don’t know anything about his romantic relationships, and I don’t know anything about any school rules being broken. If I hear anything about it in the future which I trust I won’t I will let someone else deal with it, and consider it to be none of my business.”
He winked at me.
Hot tears filled my eyes, and a smile I could not suppress lit up my face. I held my hand out to him, and he reached out and took it.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m glad you came to see me, Ellie,” he said quietly. “I would have been making a mistake, I think.”
I nodded, trying to hold in my tears of happiness.
Professor Spaulding waved me away, a genuine smile on his face. “Go tell him,” he said.
M
y emotions became a
tempest. Cold, downpouring fear like a rainstorm was something Ellie would not be willing to accept. Then flashes of lightning like warm, radiant joy.
Annie was my daughter.
We’d talked about how to tell Samantha. Annie begged me to let her tell her first, and I was more than fine with that. I hadn’t spoken to Samantha in so long that I wouldn’t know where to begin.
I’d called Annie as soon as I’d gotten the email from the testing center that morning. I hadn’t opened it. I’d asked her to come down to my office so we could look at it together. We’d sat behind my desk, and I’d clicked on the email, my heart was shaken with a thunderstorm of conflicting emotions.
Probability of paternity: 99.9998%.
I’d felt a huge grin on my face before I processed anything else. Annie had whooped and hugged me tightly. She’d been shaking a little, with laughter on the verge of happy crying.
Then we’d talked for a while, and I’d only felt happiness. I didn’t tell her right then, but I intended to pay for her tuition, and her tuition for grad school if she wanted to go. My mind was already wondering when her birthday was, so I could buy her a present.
And then I felt a stab of regret I’d missed her childhood. There were so many memories I could have had with her that were lost forever.
I suppose Samantha had wanted it that way. Annie told me that she hadn’t even known her stepdad wasn’t her real father for a long time.
We’d talked until she had to leave for class. I’d watched her go, an irrepressible smile on my face.
As soon as she’d closed the door, however, my fears about Ellie rushed back, as if the rain had picked up, sweeping through me with a cold deluge. I knew Ellie would reach out and tell me how she was feeling when she was ready to. But I should tell her that Annie was definitely my daughter.
I swallowed. I felt torn. I was afraid to tell her. Was I avoiding that conversation out of consideration for Ellie’s readiness to process, or because of my own anxiety?