Teach Me (25 page)

I
wouldn’t have been
able to stay, of course. My classes at the University of Penn start
up again in three days, and I’ll
need to sleep off the jetlag for two of those.

But
I would have been able to kiss him one last time. I’d
have been able to leave England knowing that I wasn’t
completely delusional. That our connection was as real as I believed.

Even
if, yet again, it won’t
work out for me.

Way
to go, Harper. Fell for the completely wrong guy AGAIN
.

I
just thought it was different this time. I thought
he
was different. Like, yes, he was the wrong person to sleep with
initially; I guess that’s
always going to be my type. But he didn’t
act like I was just an inconvenient hookup. The way he talked, in his
kitchen when he finally told me everything about his father, and what
was going on with him . . . He
sounded like he was serious about me. Like he felt more than just a
physical connection.

Guess
I’m just even more
naïve than I thought.

I
sidle into my seat on the plane—the
window, so I can nap—and
rest my head against the glass, staring out as we take off, watching
England recede beneath me, and the Atlantic Ocean rise up to separate
me from the city where I left my heart behind.

#

February
in Philadelphia will bite your face off. I’m
bundled up five layers deep in coats, scarves, sweaters, and my hat,
but I can still feel the wind tearing at my cheeks, making my eyes
water and my skin redden. It’s
past goosebumps territory, straight on into the
skin-cracking-in-half-like-a-lizard zone.

It’s
been a month since I got back, and I still walk around campus like a
zombie. The only thing keeping me going is the thought of my plans
for next semester.

I
spent most of the last month planning for it, to be honest. There
were a lot of long-distance Skype sessions with the grant committee,
and a whole lot of researching colleges and universities all around
the globe, both inside and outside of the US.

Two
weeks ago, I handed in my final request. I’ve
still got a week left until the due date, but I don’t
need to wait. I’m
sure about this.

I’m
not going back to Merton.

I
duck inside the student center and go straight to my mailbox. Sure
enough, I’m right
about the date. It came.

I
tear into the letter eagerly, feeling like a kid on Christmas—or
me, way back in high school, tearing open the letter from Penn.

Sure
enough, there’s a
big fat “Congratulations”
on the first line of the letter. The letter emblazoned with Balliol
College’s logo.

So,
yeah, I’m not going
back to Merton, but I am going back to Oxford. Just, a different
college in Oxford. Because when I started researching the best places
to study poetry, both as an analyst and as a poet myself, I stumbled
across a professor named Maria Smith, who has worked on some crazy
unique theses with her doctoral candidates and undergraduates alike.
She believes that in order to analyze poetry, you should practice
writing it, and vice versa.

In
other words, going there won’t
just further my academic career. It’ll
give me a chance to focus on my own writing, too.

Also,
with Professor Maria Smith, I am in no danger of making yet another
career-endangering fuckup, so that helps.

I
wrote to Maria over email a few weeks ago, talking about my studies
and the paper I worked on with Jack. Not only did she completely sell
me on Balliol’s
program, but she also offered to be my thesis advisor if I study
there. Between the grant and already having a publication credit to
my name, she was impressed.

She
was even more impressed when she realized that she’d
already read the Eliot paper I co-authored. The publisher that it was
submitted to apparently asked her to review it for their journal, and
she eagerly endorsed it. She had no idea I was only a third-year
undergraduate working on a paper of this level.

I
suppose I owe Jack a thanks for that much, at least. Whatever
happened between us, he kept his word about the paper. He listed me
as a co-author, and submitted it to a really well-known publisher.
The publication credit looks amazing on my resume, and it couldn’t
come at a better time to help boost my career standing.

It
boosted it fast enough to get me this acceptance, after all.

Smiling,
just a little, I tuck the letter into the pocket of my coat and brace
myself to face winter’s
onslaught once more.

As
I push through the exterior doors from the campus center, ready to
race the four blocks to my apartment complex, another gust of wind
nearly blows me off-balance. I fight my way through it, head bent
against the freezing air, and finally, three blocks of burning face
skin and aching legs later, I duck into my apartment hallway,
gasping. For a moment I just stand in the foyer hopping from
foot-to-foot, trying to revive my poor overworked circulatory system.

My
eyes adjust slowly to the dim light of our hall. I moved out of the
dorms and into this apartment share with some friends, but since it’s
downtown Philly, it’s
nothing glamorous. The best we can afford is a little bit beat up.
Though, the old brownstone has charm if you know where to look, like
the wrought iron staircase that leads up to our second-floor
apartment.

Ugh,
some jerk left a giant package in the middle of it, though. I keep
telling the mailman to leave them off to the side, because the third
floor apartment has complained a zillion times about all of my
roommate’s Amazon
purchases blocking her way upstairs, but they never listen.

I
check the number on the label, already sure it’s
for our apartment. Sure enough, 2F. But I do a double-take, confused.
Because instead of my roommate’s
name, I see my own at the top of the address list.

That’s
weird. I definitely didn’t
order anything.

Maybe
Mom sent me a care package or something. It is Valentine’s
weekend, after all, and she and Dad normally send me flowers whenever
I’m single (thanks
for the reminder, guys). I give the box an experimental nudge, and it
moves easily. Whatever’s
inside, it’s not too
heavy.

So
I scoop it into my arms and continue up the staircase. At the top, I
balance it on my hip while I maneuver my keys into the door. My
roommate’s cat
greets me just inside, howling its face off like I’m
going to feed it, even though I know she doesn’t
feed the cat until she gets home at nine every night.

“Fat
chance,” I tell the
cat as I stagger past it into my room. Once there, I plop the box
onto my unmade bed and root around in my drawer for a pair of
scissors.

Apparently
I’m fresh out of
cutting implements, so I’m
forced to go out and hunt through the kitchen instead. Along the way,
I catch a glimpse of the decorations my roommate has strung all over
the place: bright red and pink heart streamers all over the walls and
a huge bouquet of roses on the dining room table, presumably from her
boyfriend, though I don’t
know how he afforded that bouquet when he makes her pay for every
date they go on.

Whatever.
Stop being bitter,
Harper
, I scold
myself. It’s just
this weekend making me grumpy. I’ll
be fine again next week.

I
finally find the scissors and abscond back to my room. At least
whatever Mom and Dad sent should make me feel better. Maybe it’ll
be cookies. Or chocolate. Yes, definitely chocolate.

I
slice through the package, and peel back the flaps, only to stare in
confusion. There’s
another, slightly smaller package inside. I turn the box over, dump
the smaller carton out, and cut open that one as well. Yet another
box inside, only slightly smaller than the second one. I raise an
eyebrow, unsure whether to be annoyed or amused.

I
keep going, finding more and more boxes within boxes, like Russian
nesting dolls, until my whole bedroom is covered in cardboard refuse.
Finally, I slit open the last box, which is about 1/8
^th
the size of the original one, and find a bed of wrapping paper
inside.

From
within the paper, I withdraw a length of fabric. No, not fabric. A
dress. A gown, actually. Floor-length, black, backless, and
completely stunning. The gown slides across my fingers, the smoothest
silk I’ve ever felt,
gently ruched in all the right places, so I already know it will look
amazing on me.

A
slip of paper flutters to the floor beside the dress. I bend to pick
it up, assuming it will be a card. It’s
not.

It’s
a ticket to the Philadelphia Orchestra. A box seat. For tonight.

My
hands shake as I turn the ticket over in my hands. But there’s
nothing else. Even when I tear the remaining boxes apart and dig
through the wrapping paper, there are no other clues. No return
address on the box, either.

But
my stupid, traitorous heart has started to beat again. Hope pumps
through my veins, intoxicating. Dangerous.

Because
I still remember everything he ever said to me. I remember sitting at
dinner in the Cotswolds as he gaped across the table at me.
You
live right there and you’ve
never seen one of the best orchestras in the world?

He
wouldn’t. Would he?

Only
one way to find out, I suppose. I shut my bedroom door, pull off my
shirt, and shimmy into the dress.

#

The
Kimmel Center is gorgeous. Its huge glass dome dominates the block
where it’s situated.
And tonight, with night fallen already, it glitters like it’s
made of gold, lit from within and without, by the light of the
surrounding city.

I
pull my roommate’s
coat tighter around my neck as I step out of the taxi. When she saw
the dress I’d put
on, with my towering high heels to match, and a simple pearl necklace
from my father, she refused to let me wear my normal old puffy down
coat. She dug this gorgeous fur out of her closet and forced it
around my shoulders, complete with matching sparkling handbag. I feel
like a movie star, as if the taxi is a limousine.

I
quick-step from the warm cab through the glass doors of the building.
The lobby alone stands at least four stories high. From the base of
it, I can peer up at the box seats, and watch other people pass by,
some in furs and gowns and tuxes, others in jeans and T-shirts and
sneakers. It’s a
weird mix.

I
check the ticket again, but the numbers don’t
mean anything to me. I’m
turning to look for a box office, somewhere I can stop to ask for
directions, when a familiar warm hand rests on the small of my back.

“I
didn’t think you’d
come.”

Even
now, after all this time, after everything, his voice still makes my
knees go weak. I spin around, and there he stands, towering over me,
even taller than I remembered somehow. Dressed to the nines in a suit
and black tie, his normally ruffled hair coaxed into mostly behaving.
His eyes, dark and piercing as ever, catch mine the moment they meet.

For
a solid minute, we don’t
say a word. We probably look insane to anyone passing by, two people
dressed for a ball staring each other down in the middle of the
lobby. I don’t care.

The
outside world fades away every time I’m
with him.

“What
is this?” I finally
manage, with a weak gesture toward the dress. Though what I really
mean, of course, is what the hell is he doing in Philadelphia, buying
me orchestra tickets and sending me gowns.

“You
told me you’d never
been to the orchestra. I told you, we’d
have to remedy that one day.”

“Jack . . . ”
I’m not sure how to
begin.

Luckily,
he doesn’t let me.
“Harper, please.
Hear me out. I’ve
been . . . lost
without you. Completely, utterly lost. I know what I did is
unforgivable, that I don’t
deserve for you to be standing here, let alone listening to what I
have to say. The way I behaved at the funeral, the things I said to
you . . . I’d
give anything, I’d
sell my soul to undo that moment, but I can’t.
All I can do is tell you now—I
was wrong. You are more mature and more level-headed than I’ll
ever be. Trying to blame you for the situation with my family,
and . . . I
was the one being insane that day, Harper, and you have every right
to hate me for it.”

He
gazes into my eyes the whole time, but at this part, he takes a slow,
hesitant step closer, as though he’s
afraid to touch me, yet unable to resist moving closer to doing it.
“I just needed you
to know, Harper, that I took you seriously. I still take you
seriously. And even if you never see me again after tonight . . . I
always will.” He
takes a deep breath. “Because
I love you.”

That
sentence seems to throw him off balance. He closes his eyes. “I
love you, and I want to be with you, and I have never felt like this
before in my life and it is fucking terrifying. But I needed you to
know that.”

He
opens his eyes again, a determined expression in his eye. “Okay.
You can now continue to hate me if you want.”

I
can’t help it. I
burst out with a surprised laugh, which makes him cringe. As soon as
I see that, I wince too, and take a step closer, reaching for him. He
lets me rest my hands on his shoulders, our bodies inches apart now.
“I don’t
hate you, you idiot.”
I crack a small, fragile smile. “I
love you, Jack Kingston.”

He
rests his forehead against mine, his relieved sigh soft against my
lips. “I’m
not dreaming this again, am I?”
he murmurs.

My
smile widens. “Not
this time.”

“Good.”
He presses his lips to mine, and I sink into the kiss. His hands
circle my waist, lifting me a few inches from the floor as he pulls
me so close, I could melt right through him. The kiss sears all the
way down to my toes, to the tips of my fingers. I can feel it pulsing
in the back of my throat and throbbing in my chest.