Unabridged

As I walked across the stage, I cried. I didn’t care if they were going to take my picture, and I didn’t care if my parents saw it. I didn’t care who I disappointed with my tears. I was graduating. I was walking across a stage in front of hundreds of people, accepting my undergraduate degree in English: a degree I wouldn’t have received if it wasn’t for him. I thought of him as they handed it to me. I wanted him to be there watching me. I wanted him to be standing at the bottom of the steps as I walked off the stage, holding his arms open for me—to catch me, to embrace me, to hold onto me. That was where I belonged. When I had initially started writing my story, it was about us. But at some point, it became much too difficult to write. I owed it to myself to finish it—the real version: raw, unabashed, and unabridged.

Although I’d stopped writing it over a year ago, I decided to pick it back up again. I decided to continue where I left off, now that I was walking across the stage, now that I was in the position of leaving it all behind. Jase moved away to another state, and Mary went back home to live with her mom. My friends were gone, and they were ready to start their own lives. I was ready to start my own, too; I just didn’t know if I was willing to do it without him. Him. I couldn’t even think of his name. I couldn’t speak it aloud. It hurt. It hurt so bad that it tore exuberantly through my chest, ripping my heart out dramatically and leaving it pounding and beating on the floor before me. That was how bad it hurt. I was reminded of just how bad it hurt as I started my drive home from the commencement ceremony. In the car, “Skip the Charades” by Cold War Kids came on, and I immediately thought of the night we’d been fighting—our second fight. I’d listened to it on repeat that night, and when he came over, we apologized to one another and proceeded to have the hottest makeup sex to ever exist in history. I missed him. I missed the way he laughed, the way he smelled, the sound of his voice, the things we argued about. I missed all of it.

So, where was he? What happened? As I got home and ran up the stairs, I took a seat at my desk and began writing the missing pieces. The missing pieces fell here and there, settling into their appropriate compartments—not that their settling made things any easier. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and I started writing. My story went something like this.

After our meeting with Swanson’s Administrative Board of Professionals, things changed between us. That meeting must have been the beginning of the end. I became more cautious and more afraid of getting caught, while he became more complacent and more encouraged to let things slide. Regardless of our drastically different views on how much discretion we should use, there was one thing that remained the same: our love for one another. It was so strong, vital, and persistent. But the ebb and flow of our relationship over that following semester was heavily dependent upon the way he wanted things to go. His car was always parked outside of my house. My car was always parked outside of his. We managed to go places in public together, even if they were far away and considerably less risky—even if I insisted that it wasn’t a good idea. The number of people who knew about our relationship with one another had increased: Jase, Mary, Amanda, Preston. He would call on me during class discussions and debate with me in such a flirtatious manner, despite the fact that I avoided raising my hand and participating at all costs. And, of course, he somehow found a way to keep me in his office—and whenever I was there, I was well within his grasp. The occasional office hookup wouldn’t have made me quite so nervous if there weren’t so many other things that had been adding up. Then, it ended.

School, I mean. When the spring semester had come to a close, tensions were lowered. We were able to spend time together. We didn’t have to keep up appearances in front of a classroom full of students or a hallway full of professors and staff members. We weren’t under the scrutiny of the board. We were truly happy, and we were totally in love. That summer was the greatest summer of my life. Running away to the beach with him, having lazy Sunday afternoons where we’d talk for hours and I’d show him all my favorite bands, driving for hours just to get out of the house and to be together somewhere else, turning up the radio as loud as we could stand and taking turns singing: those were some of our memories. I continued to hold onto those memories for so long after they were created. They only made me want more. I wanted him to spend time with my friends. I wanted him to meet my family. I wanted to tell the world how much I loved him. He wanted those things, too.

When summer came to an end and the fall semester began, we really thought we could do it. We were so confident. I was so confident, and that was saying something. But the first few weeks of that semester put us right back where we’d been before: sneaking around, worrying about who was listening, wondering who was looking over our shoulder as we messaged each other, thinking about who saw us as we entered or left his office, conceptualizing just how wrong our flirtatious banter in class looked to my peers. It didn’t take long. We hadn’t even reached midterms when we were both called into a second meeting with the Administrative Board of Professionals. And this time, there was no talking my way out of it. If anything, George and his fellow suits used everything I’d previously said against me—in particular, anything I’d said about him. They discussed how they would proceed and kept us waiting for nearly a week. Once they finished deliberating, they called us into separate meetings. During mine, they informed me that I would be able to keep my scholarship, considering my GPA and some other factors. I was to remain in his class until the end of the semester, but I would be required to take one additional credit toward my major in the following semester. They mentioned outright that it was for show, so as not to let anyone think that I’d earned a grade unfairly. They let the previous semester’s credit slide altogether. Then, they dismissed me from the meeting.

His meeting went much differently. We met up at his place that afternoon to discuss how things went, and he told me everything. The board had politely asked him to resign in lieu of termination. While we weren’t doing anything illegal, it was considered unethical and a conflict of interest in the eyes of the university. It didn’t help that we’d both lied about it during the first round. He was permitted to finish teaching his current courses, but those would be his last. He was fine with it. Correction: he told me he was fine with it. What he really felt didn’t become apparent until much, much later.

Things became far more complicated than either of us could have ever anticipated. Word traveled fast. Speculation traveled faster. Whether Sally or Preston had a hand in those? We never found out. What mattered was that people began to see us as an item, whether they had proof or not. I couldn’t begin to comprehend or cope with how I felt. Stressed was an understatement. I was spending all of my time studying for extra English credits that I began taking alongside my normal coursework, a directive that came from Swanson’s board and wasn’t exactly a polite request once word had gotten around. The rest of my time was dedicated to helping him search for a new job. That brought its own set of complications. Other universities saw him as a risk: a professor who was openly in a relationship with a student—and not just any student but a student in his classes, no less. He couldn’t find anything. He was running out of time.

As he ran out of time, I ran out of hope. I tried to remain a part of campus life to maintain some sense of normalcy, but that became impossible. Students hated me. I was the reason they could no longer enjoy his classes. Everyone saw it like this: I was some sort of temptress who propositioned him into a nonconsensual relationship; he had no choice in the matter, according to them. And while I was made out to be the wrongdoer, one of the only friends who stood by my side, aside from Jase and Mary, was Preston. I’d chosen to forgive him on the simple basis that I needed all the friends and support I could get. Of course, he hated the fact that I was becoming close with Preston again. The more time I spent forgiving Preston, studying with Preston, decompressing from all my college stress with Preston, and bonding with Preston, the more he became increasingly jealous.

Eventually, he found a job. It wasn’t a teaching job. It wasn’t even remotely close to teaching. He interviewed with some huge marketing firm that was an hour away from where we lived, and they offered him a position as a Communication Director. He took it. He started there as soon as the semester ended. He hated it. The thing that bothered me wasn’t that he hated the job; it was the fact that he wouldn’t admit that he hated it. It was overwhelming and stressful, and he spent at least two hours commuting every day. On top of that, he wasn’t doing what he was passionate about, and while he gave that job an honest try, he quickly discovered that he would never have that same passion that he had for teaching.

Before we even realized it, and we certainly realized it far too late, we were somehow nearing the end of the road. In fact, maybe we weren’t even on the road in the first place. Maybe we hadn’t been going anywhere at all. There was no progress, only stress and tension and secrets and rumors. And then, the fight happened. It started with something so simple, too. I asked how his day had been, and he was exhausted from a long week at work. He was short with me, and I snapped. I told him to forgive me for caring—that it was just something I did naturally—and I even mentioned that I was surprised that we were even spending time together, considering how little we saw one another anymore. He wasn’t making time for me. I wasn’t making time for him. Maybe we were both at fault. Maybe we were both miserable. He was the one who took the argument to the next level: if he didn’t have time for me anymore, maybe I should spend my time with someone who did—someone like Preston. It came out sounding curt and condescending, and that was all it took.

“Fine. I fucking will.”

I said that. I was the asshole. It wasn’t the first time that I was an asshole, and I assumed it wouldn’t be the last. The thing about assuming is that assumptions are often wrong. It was the last time I would be an asshole because it was the last time that I’d see him. I never forgot the way he looked at me when I said it. I never forgot everything that happened after that. I never forgot that night. I never forgot the way I broke his heart, the way I could see just how broken it was. Mine was broken, too.