The Test (3 page)

“No,” I said adamantly. “He made the choice
to cheat. And it gutted me.”

I gave her a sidelong look, remembering how
vulnerable I was. How I didn’t want to get out of bed, eat, live,
anything. She was there, letting me wallow, Ben and Jerry’s and
all, before she gave me a kick in the butt and made me shower and
finish the semester strong.

Two months later, it was Alicia who took me
out to coffee and had an ‘emergency’, leaving me with her friend
and pushing me back into the dating scene.

“Even though I met nice guys and I thought I
moved on, as soon as I saw him, that shock to the system was back.
I was still in love with him. I never stopped loving him. So I had
a choice. I could walk away and find happiness with someone else.
Or I could accept that no one is perfect and everyone makes
mistakes. I made the choice to forgive him and trust that he was
truly sorry because when I saw him in the front of British Lit for
the first time, I knew.”

“You knew what?”

“He never stopped loving me either.”

Her mouth twitched and she studied me like
she was looking for some angle, some chip that would show I’d drunk
Chance Kool Aid or was otherwise not in possession of my mental
faculties.

Finally, she leaned back in her chair,
conceding but still looking at me strangely. “You really forgave
him. Just like that, all is forgiven?”

“Well there was no ‘just like that’.
Honestly, before I slept with him for the first time after he came
back, I was planning on blackmailing him myself.”

“What?” Her eyes doubled in disbelief. “You
were going to blackmail Chance?”

I nodded.

“But you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t,” I smiled weakly. “But there is
no such thing a truly clean slate--he can never take back what he
did.” I drew a breath, looking away and trying to figure out how to
reconcile what he did with my decision to give us another try.
Trying to explain why I couldn’t quit him. “I don’t believe in
fairytales, but I still believe in love. And I knew if I didn’t
give him another try, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”

She didn’t say anything, which told me that
maybe, just maybe, she was understanding that I didn’t have amnesia
or a case of stupid. Every question she threw out at me were the
same ones that I asked myself. I just made the decision to stop
fighting my heart.

“Now,” I glared at her. “Ask me what it was
like to have the three people I love the most so disgusted by one
another that they couldn’t even be in the same room.”

Alicia let out a sigh that stirred a couple
of blond strands that escaped from her messy bun. “I get it. I was
rude to your beloved.” She crossed her arms. “Still, I really did
think I was being a good friend. Sometimes when people say they
want you to do one thing, they really want another.”

I swirled my coffee around a bit. “Well, I
can tell you when I said I wanted you to lay off Chance, I wasn’t
subliminally telling you to run him out of town.” I held out the
coffee as a peace offering.

“Unless that’s frozen and whipped cream is
squished under that white lid, no thank you,” she smirked.

I took a sip, still having a point to make.
“I know you’ve got my back, no matter what. And in your own, Alicia
way, you thought you were being a good friend. But a good friend
isn’t always scaring wayward boyfriends onto the straight and
narrow and burying bodies. Sometimes, it means supporting your
friend.”

“Even if you think they’re making a mistake?”
she said stubbornly.

“Oh are we talking about mistakes?” I gave
her a sly grin. “Because I remember a certain friend’s online
‘dating’--” I made exaggerated air quotes, “--phase.”

Red rushed to her cheeks. “I don’t know what
you mean.”

“I bet you don’t,” I laughed. “I’d forget
situations so sketchy that you have to give me your date’s screen
name, contact info, and address in case he ends up being an ax
murderer.”

“Yeah, but--”

“And then there was last year when you
collected members of the rugby team like trading cards.”

She jutted her lip out. “Fine, I can’t give
you too much flack in the matters of the heart.”

“Or the bed,” I added with a wink. “Though I
have to tell you, the things that Chance does to me in his
dungeon...”

“Dungeon?” she mouthed in horror. She
narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You’re just messing with
me...right?”

I gave her the most solemn look I could
manage. “I will never look at a cross the same way ever again.”

“Eww,” she whined, shaking her head back and
forth like she was trying to wrench the images from her mind.

When the stairwell door swung open, we both
cut our laughs to snickers, expecting the assistant to march around
the bend with security in tow. Getting kicked out of the library
would have been totally worth it to clear the air between the two
of us. Luckily, it just ended up being another student.

“You are different, you know” Alicia stood
up, throwing her LV purse over her shoulder. “Happier than I’ve
seen you in awhile. I’m definitely not at the parade throwing
stage, but if Chance has something to do with that, maybe he’s not
as big of a dick as I thought.”

She still said his name like she had vomit in
her mouth, but I decided to take what I could get. Baby steps.

****

I hustled into room 214, relaxing when I eyed
the clock on the wall. The Punctuality Gods must have decided to
give me a break because I had three minutes to spare before I would
have been late. My relief was short lived when I glanced at the
desk in the front of the room. Instead of Chance’s smoky gaze
shining back at me, the department assistant’s green eyes darted
around nervously. Biting on her lip, she turned back to the mess of
folders in her hands. She shuffled through papers with a speed that
probably served her well when typing up memos but in front of the
class, she just looked out of her league.

I balanced folders, the textbook I'd almost
forgot on the coffee table,and my juiced up latte as I pulled my
cell from my bag. I sat in my seat with a frown on my face. There
weren't any texts from Chance. Where was he? Was this some sort of
weird punishment for spending the last few nights alone?

One would think as a teacher he would have
been ecstatic that I holed up and focusing on school. And he was,
at least that’s what he claimed, even though I could picture him
pouting when he realized it meant not seeing him outside of class
for a few days.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard to
fight the urge to put off projects and papers in exchange for
spending as much time in bed with him as possible. The past few
nights when I drug myself from the library at closing time or ran
out to get a coffee with so many extra shots it was dangerous, it
took all I had to not steer my car downtown. Especially when the
very sight of the darkened road was enough to make me tingle
between my thighs.

I had plans to suck on my pen suggestively
all throughout class in hopes that he was feeling especially
disciplinarian, because it had been way too long since I felt his
hands on the curve of my bottom. But since the assistant was up,
scrawling 'Lydia Horne' on the whiteboard, I had an inkling that it
would be even longer.

I repositioned my body, trying to give the
appearance that I was paying attention but keeping my phone in my
line of sight. I cradled it in my hand, only glancing down every
few characters to avoid Lydia’s beady eyes.

whats up...where r u?
I hit send,
waiting until I saw confirmation that it made its way from my phone
to his inbox before I looked up.

Lydia cleared her throat and the last few
conversations floating around the room dimmed, but awkwardness
still hung in the air like a hushed whisper.

"I'm Lydia Horne, the English department
assistant--"

"Is Dr. Crawford okay?" The interruption came
from Mia Vanwood. I glared at the back of her bleached blond head.
Mia made no secret of the torch she carried for Chance, making sure
she laughed the loudest at his jokes and stood entirely too close
when she talked to him after class.

"Oh he's, uh, perfectly fine," Lydia
squeaked, wringing her hands. "I'm just covering his courses for
today."

I tried to not get too jealous at the
collective sigh that rippled across the class. If circumstances
were different, I'd probably swoon over him too, even though right
now I was more likely to yell at him. At least he wasn't dead in a
ditch, but our substitute's cryptic answer didn't do my nerves any
good.

Lydia smoothed the front of her wrinkled
black dress, her voice rattling as she glanced at the papers in her
hand. "F-From the notes I received from Dr. Crawford, you all are
discussing the Victorian Age?"

The class murmured in agreement and she
relaxed a little, settling on one sheet of paper and putting the
rest back on the desk.

"Today we're going to talk a little about
Tennyson"

My eyes flickered to my phone and I sighed
when I didn't see the notification light blinking up at me. I
reached down and pulled out a notebook and a pen to scratch out
some notes. I jotted the date in the corner and poised the tip on
the first line of the college ruled page, grateful for a
distraction from the worse case scenarios whipping around in my
head. 'He's, uh, perfectly fine' could mean that he called in from
the ER, but whatever happened wasn't life threatening. Did he get
in an accident? Maybe he came down with a bug. Either way, why
wouldn't he tell me? And why hadn't he text me back?

“Since this is an upper level course, I’ll
just hit the highlights of his background so we can focus on his
work,” Lydia said, retreating to the whiteboard. She erased her
name with an efficient swipe and made a couple of bullet points.
“He was born in 1809 at Somersby, Lincolnshire and studied at
Trinity College, Cambridge...”

I jotted down notes half-heartedly, barely
listening to what she was saying.

I watched her scribble the infamous quote,
“‘Tis better to have loved...

I listened to Lydia’s high pitched voice
recite the lines out loud and I couldn’t help but think how much
better the words would have sounded in Chance’s deep, hypnotic-

“Miss Woods?”

I blinked, swallowing quickly as I realized
all eyes, including our substitute’s, were on me. I covered the
phone on my pants leg instinctively, even though I knew it was
impossible for her to see it. “Yes?”

“I was asking for you to give your thoughts
on
In Memoriam
.”

I glanced at the whiteboard, sitting a little
straighter in my chair. “I think that the lines, ‘tis better to
have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' have become a
symbol," I paused. "More like empowerment when romantic
relationships go sour. But I think the fact that Tennyson wrote it
while dealing with grief over the loss of a friend is proof that it
represents something more universal and deeper than just rising
above a breakup."

Most of my classmates had pretty much turned
their attention elsewhere as soon as I started talking, but there
was something about the way Lydia's dark eyes pierced me, hanging
onto every word that made me wonder if she was hoping I'd trip up.
But that was silly, I didn't know her other than trading
pleasantries when I was in the office to see the dean, what would
she have to gain by eyeballing me like I'd done her wrong?

It was a good thing that I'd completed the
reading because she tested me at every turn, calling me out even if
my hand wasn't raised. That microscopic attention just made me
think about class sessions when Chance let our personal lives spill
into the very public classroom. My heart clenched into a fist when
I remembered how angry I’d been...and how cathartic it was to just
let go in his arms. I found myself glancing at the clock every few
minutes, willing the hands of time to move quicker.

I hung around after class was over, walking
to the desk at the front. Lydia was hunched over, gathering papers
and stuffing them into a canvas bag.

"Uh, Miss Horne?"

"Lydia," she corrected, her tone short and
precise. She looked up at me with eyes so callous that I decided to
stop five feet from her, just in case.

I forced away the questions about her random
dislike of me and focused on the bundle of nerves in my stomach.
"About Dr. Crawford, um, do you have any more information?" When
she raised an eyebrow, I tried to think of a way to explain why I
was so worried about a teacher. "It's just that we were supposed to
meet to work on a project this afternoon."

"A project, huh?" She finished stuffing the
papers haphazardly in her tote and lugged it on her shoulder. There
was something off about the woman's voice. It was tight and
pinched, like she was holding onto something that was eating her
up.

"Are you alright?" I asked hesitantly, not
entirely sure if I wanted to know the answer. Being Rhyder Woods’
daughter didn't always mean star struck professors and overly
friendly fledgling poets and writers...my father's more visceral
work had earned him a reputation in some circles. Or maybe it had
nothing to do with me or my dad. Maybe she just wasn't stoked about
having to cover a lecture.

"You know what, nevermind." I turned to go,
deciding that I'd go see him after my next class.

"If you're really worried about Dr. Crawford,
maybe you should go see him. Since you two are so close."

I probably should have frozen in place,
shocked to the core at the undercurrent of her words. I should have
turned and gazed at her with wide eyed innocence, acting like her
statement flew right over my head. But my legs carried me from the
room without another word, arms pumping as I plowed through the
human obstacles in my way like a linebacker. I was in a daze, my
body moving on auto pilot because I was still stuck on the jealous
glint in Lydia’s eyes. Muscle memory and luck guided my car down
Hillsborough without crashing or mowing anyone down. In what seemed
like mere seconds, I was parked in front of Chance’ building.