The Truth About You & Me (21 page)

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I
may
have eavesdropped,” he said, not sounding the least bit guilty.

“On who?” My heart raced. I'd been desperate for information but too afraid to ask, not that anyone was around to tell me anything anyway. I was on house arrest, period, and they'd talk to me again when they weren't so upset (Mom) and angry (Dad).

“Mom and the cop who came by this morning. You were still sleeping. They sat on the front porch just below my bedroom window.”

“And?” Geez, he needed to just spit it out already!

“They never formally arrested him. They brought him in for questioning. The cop told Mom that these cases are really tricky and
you
would have to want to press charges for it to become anything. Technically, it was illegal, but he said they don't try to prosecute stuff like this unless they think they've got an iron-clad case, because they don't like to drag victims—”

“I'm not a victim,” I said abruptly. I wasn't. Victim was an ugly word. I was in love. You'd made me feel things for the first time, and that didn't make me a victim.

He sighed, annoyed. “They don't like to drag
girls like you
through the process unless they're confident they can win.”

Girls like me? What was I, if something other than a girl who'd fallen in love with a guy who wasn't allowed to fall in love back?

“So Mom and Dad can't be the one to press charges? You're sure about that?” I asked, still scared. “They seemed like they wanted to nail him to the wall.”

“No, I guess it doesn't really work that way. Like I said, it's gotta be you to push the issue, and since you both claim nothing happened and you refused to go to the hospital, they have no evidence. He won't have any charges brought against him.”

The relief was strong and swift, and my brother must have seen it on my face. “Don't celebrate yet. He's not really out of the woods.”

I stared, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He played with the strings on his hoodie. “I may have also eavesdropped on a phone call … ”

“And?”

“Mom called GRCC. I think he's going to be in very big trouble.”

I knocked my head back into the wall a few times in frustration, wishing someone would come save me from the never-ending waves of guilt. Of course. We may have waited all that time to kiss, but it was irrelevant if they knew we'd been …
fraternizing
while he was my professor.

“I see,” I said, feeling more hollow than ever.

“Pretty sure it's going to cost him his job,” my brother said. “I mean, I didn't hear the other side of the conversation, but Mom was pretty convincing and I don't see why they'd want to defend him.”

My heart wrenched at that. You loved your job. You were so good at it. I'd watched you grade papers, I'd stared while you were lost in lectures, seen the way you guided the not-so-gifted students during labs. Your job was your passion, your identity, your life, all wrapped into one.

It was me who'd cost you your job.
Me.
I was just as guilty as a robber who stole in during the night and took your riches, except what I'd taken was priceless.

“Oh,” I finally said, because there was nothing else to say, nothing to defend.

“You have to have seen that one coming,” my brother said. “A guy like that can't be—”

“He's not
like that
.”

“He fooled around with a sixteen-year-old student.” My brother shuddered then, almost theatrically, and it got under my skin. No one would understand who you were to me, the kind of guy you'd been. They simply wanted to see you as a monster.

“I told you, he thought I was eighteen. And it wasn't fooling around. We spent the whole time just talking. Non-stop talking. He listened.”

“What do you need him for, anyway? He's ten years older than you, so I kind of doubt he identifies with teenage-girl problems. And besides, I'm your brother. I know you better. I'll listen,” he offered. “I've got a whole lot of free time on my hands these days. And considering I told Mom and Dad about failing out of Harvard about two hours before Hurricane Maddie hit, I probably owe you one for making me look like the golden child for once.”

I wanted to laugh, but I didn't quite have it in me. “So that's the silver lining, huh? You fail the Ivies and the parents don't care because I fucked up worse?”

“Two cusswords in one day! I think I like the new Maddie.”

I did laugh then, just a short, sad laugh, one that hurt because a few days ago I'd been laughing so much, with you by my side, feeling like I wasn't just on top of the mountain but the world.

I leaned forward and rubbed my face with my hands, weary. “Why am I so selfish?”

“Everyone is selfish, Maddie. It's part of being human.”

“Why do you sound like the Chinese guy from
Karate Kid
?” I asked, looking up.

He mimed the wax-on, wax-off thing, then shrugged. “I've spent the last few weeks with too much time on my hands.”

“So what are
you
going to do now
?
”

“I don't know. I'm thinking UW. It's gotta be easier to crack than Harvard. I only have a couple more years to go, but they'll be the hardest classes. Maybe a lighter load each semester or something. It will take longer, but if I have less classes, I'll have more time to study for each of them, and I could always hire a tutor, since the tuition is so much cheaper … ”

“So you're still going for it? The whole engineering thing?”

He nodded. “I told you. I love it. Just because I suck at it doesn't mean I don't love it.”

“Life is weird,” I said, sinking back onto the mattress and staring upward, again, my eyes finding that familiar pattern.

“You said it,” my brother said, and I could tell by the creaking noise of the bean-bag chair that he had stood up.

“Anyway, when you're finally ready to talk, I have a feeling I'm going to be just a thin wall away … for a long time.”

“Oh joy,” I said, listening as he retreated, listening as his door clicked open and shut, listening as his television crackled to life.

A single tear escaped before I squeezed my eyes shut.

My brother wanted engineering, but in that moment, all I wanted was you.

God I missed you.

It was another
day before I officially found out what had happened to you.

After questioning you that day, they let you go and you went home. I don't know exactly what they said to you, but my imagination went wild, filling in all the blanks thanks to those CSIs and NCIS shows.

I imagined they made thinly veiled threats, said stuff like
don't leave town
and
we have our eye on you.
They'd make you feel like a bad guy, like someone everyone should be worried about, like you'd go after their daughters too if they weren't careful.

I found out you were free because the cops stopped by to talk to me again, giving me one last chance to press charges. They asked leading questions, pulling me in circles, confusing me, trying to make me accuse you. I guess small-town cops don't have much to do but talk.

Finally I told them I was done, that I just wanted to move on. I told them I'd never see you again anyway, that the class was over, and I think that helped.

But once they said they'd close the case and left, the sound of the door slamming was shockingly loud, echoing in my heart.

The case was done. Just like our relationship.

And now I don't know what else to write.

I started writing
to you a month ago, back when I thought you were in jail. I thought maybe my letter would help get you released, because they'd see this was all my fault, and they'd see that fake ending where we didn't have sex. I'd write it all down, and then they'd know the way it all happened.

But I didn't end up sending it, of course, and every day it sits in my room, this giant reminder of us. I have every last page, up to the fake-out cabin evening, in the bottom drawer of my desk. The rest is hidden under my mattress, because I'm freaked out Mom is going to raid my room like she did while we were at to the cabin, even though things have died down now and she hasn't done anything like that since she realized I was okay.

They still eyeball me sometimes, study me, like they're trying to figure out how they hadn't seen it all coming. Like maybe there's going to be some evidence on my skin, or deep in my eyes, something to give them the answer they'll never really understand.

But in the end they're all so happy to just move on, believe I'm okay. So here I am, still stuck on you as the world spins around me, forgetting about us.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with these hundreds of pages, because I guess I don't need them to keep you out of legal trouble.

But somehow I still want you to have them, want you to see why I did what I did. I don't know what you've been thinking these last few weeks while we've been apart. If you hate me, or miss me like I miss you. If you remember the conversations we had, the moments we spent together when we let down our walls, shared our secrets.

If you do read this, I hope you don't hate me for some of the things I included. It was because I thought being honest and sharing a little bit would help them believe we didn't go all the way, and the almost-kiss at High Rock … I wasn't sure if that was okay but I thought that, if anything, it showed you had restraint, it showed you were relying on what I'd told you and making appropriate decisions based on that, and that you would have done the same if I'd told you I was sixteen.

So, now that I have nothing else to write, I've decided …

I'm going to try to give you all these pages.

Tonight.

I've tried to figure out another way to do it—a way to get these letters to you without possibly complicating things because I'm not supposed to see you ever again. But hand-delivery is the only option. I can't risk mailing it, and I can't just leave it on your porch. If someone intercepts this, it's all over for you.

It's been a month, Bennett. A month of biding my time and waiting for things to die down so that when I sneak to your house, no one will notice. But I can't wait anymore. I have to see you and apologize to your face, and if you won't speak to me, I'll just give you all this. The rest of our story.

Maybe you'll read it someday and understand.

Until then,

Madelyn

You're gone.

I went to your house and I knocked on the door and no one was there. I wanted to go back later. I thought that maybe your class hours were different in the new quarter and you were still on campus, or that maybe, if they really did fire you, you were working somewhere else now, teaching night classes, and you'd be home soon.