25. Fern

Chapter 25

Fern

I can't find words to talk to Wyatt in the car as he drives me back to Pittsburgh. I pick at my cuticles while he navigates the twisting roads until I guess he can't take the silence anymore and yells, "I can't believe my fucking mom and grandmas walked into my sexy vacation."

I turn and stare, biting back a laugh. "Sexy vacation?"

He grins. "Was it not sexy?" Wyatt waggles his eyebrows, and I relax a bit.

I sigh. "It was very sexy. But very dangerous, apparently. Your grandma is my professor."

Wyatt scratches his chin. He hasn't shaved, and the dark stubble coming in looks really good on him. It makes him look like a pirate. "My Grand isn't going to tell anyone about us, you know. That's not how she rolls."

I burrow deeper into the passenger seat. "It's not a conscious thing always, though. It's a comment at a staff meeting or a knowing glance my way when Professor Yoon can see … there are a million reasons this was a terrible idea, and I probably should have just told my advisor about you back in January, and now it's way too late for that. I'm really worried that everything I've worked for is going to sink into a pit of farts."

Wyatt waits for a beat after my explosion of anxiety, finally saying, "Does it feel better to get all that out? That was a lot … "

I don't look at him. "It was a lot, and no. It doesn't feel better." Except it kind of does. Verbalizing all of that makes it sound a little less … daunting. What if I went to Professor Yoon and told them about Wyatt? Would they write a letter to Imperial College? Would they withhold my transcript? Unlikely. But the possibility is still there.

Wyatt drives through the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, and we are nearly back in my neighborhood. If he was an ordinary boyfriend, I'd have him walk up and say hello to my mother. But he's not my boyfriend, and we're coming back early from an illicit mid-week tryst. My mother is at work. "Wyatt." I look at him as he pulls up along the curb outside my apartment building. "We can't do this again."

He nods. "Trust me, I'm figuring out the calendar app as soon as I drop you off."

I shake my head. "No, I mean, we can't do this." I gesture back and forth between us. "We need to maintain a professional relationship, and that's it."

He frowns. "We are way past all of that, Fern. You know I'm not going to say a damn thing, and I'm not going to any faculty meetings. I don't even talk to Professor Yoon."

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. "I can't jeopardize my future, Wyatt. I don't have a safety net like you do."

When I open my eyes, he's frowning at me, expression turning angry. "That's not fair, Fern. You know about how my family is at risk right now."

I extend my palms his way. "Exactly. I know you're facing a lot and working through a lot of challenges. You have a lot on the line as well. We both need to keep our distance from one another."

Wyatt opens his mouth to say something, but I grab my duffel bag from his back seat. "I'll see you in class tomorrow morning."

Except I don't see him in class. I mark him absent and dismiss the group early. Everyone is anxious about mid-terms, and I set up two study sessions as requested by Professor Yoon. Later that day, I meet with them to review the plan for the rest of the semester. I don't mention Wyatt and my prior relationship with him. Professor Yoon doesn't ask me anything about the recitation.

For two weeks, I spend most of my waking hours in my cubicle outside their office, grading quizzes, not thinking about Wyatt, skipping over his test paper and redistributing it to another TA's stack.

During the final study session before spring break, I'm just about to relax into my role at the front of the room when Wyatt slips into the back. His hat is pulled low, but I can see the dark circles under his eyes like he hasn't been sleeping.

Well, none of us sleep at this point in the semester. I'm sure elite athletes are supposed to be better at it than the rest of us, but I'm feeling the pinch as well, trying to get everything lined up so I can spend next week dealing with my visa and passport applications while my fellow students are all out on a beach somewhere getting wasted.

I briefly wonder if Wyatt will go to a beach for spring break, if he'll seek distraction or comfort from some bikini-clad girl at a tiki bar. I glance at him and decide that, no, that's not his style. The man who avoids crowds and brings books to a bar will probably spend the week working out and reading some new book about knee injuries in pro athletes.

"All right, folks," I say, dusting off my hands after writing an equation on the chalkboard. We're in a larger room than my typical recitation space, so I have to speak louder to more students. "Who can explain what we do next in this equation?"

A few students in the front row forget that parenthesis come before addition in the order of operations, and I see Wyatt's cheeks flush when I gently correct them. Is he, too, struggling to solve for X? I decide to circle the room, glancing at everyone's paper and pointing out where people need to redo their work. My heart races as I approach Wyatt's desk. I pause in front of his chair. "Can I see?"

He meets my eye, his gaze hot and intense, and moves his hand away. His neat writing reveals that he did the addition and subtraction before multiplying, and I shake my head. "Stay after, and we can talk this through, okay?"

He nods silently, and my breath seems caught in my throat. I take final questions and dismiss the class. A few students linger, checking in with me about the homework problems and the exam review guide. Wyatt remains in his chair at the back of the room, reading a paperback with a soccer ball on the cover, until the last student slips out and closes the door behind them.

We're alone in a lecture hall, both of us silently breathing, looking at one another. Can he feel this tension, too? I realize I miss him, the feel of his hands, the pressure of his lips against mine. "Did you forget Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally," I whisper.

He shakes his head. "I never knew it to start with."

I laugh and sit next to him, gesturing for his paper. I write PEMDAS at the top. "Pemdas," I say. "The order of operations. There's a set way you have to approach a problem…"

He looks at me for a long time. I can hear his breath, and I think maybe I can hear his heartbeat, too. "I usually go about things in the wrong order, don't I?"

He stares down at his hand, and I wonder if he's trying not to touch me, trying to restrain himself from placing his palm on my thigh the way I'm struggling not to wrap my arms around his neck. "Well, we're doing things in the right order now, yes? We have to."

Wyatt shakes his head. "I'm not going to be able to do that, Fern." He leans in and before I can blink, his mouth is on mine. His kiss is fierce, the pressure intense, and so, so good. I've missed the smell of him in my nostrils, the feel of his hair sliding around my fingers.

"Wyatt." I breathe his name into his mouth, and he pulls back, his eyes shining and wet as he stares into mine. "We can't."

He nods, and the moment is broken. He draws back, shoves his paper in the pocket of his sweatshirt, and stalks out of the room without another word.