star

In the eyes of many, you're a saint.

A saint who, for the past twenty-one years of your life, had been dedicating her time and energy into her academic and professional career. A modern-day St. Hildegard of Bingen, as your friends had knighted you with their adoration; brilliant in everything that your hands touched and everything that your mind could reach.

Your mother would fondly recount that day when, at three years old, you told her that you wanted to start studying. You were no longer content at just listening to her read to you your bedtime stories, nor watching educational programs on television in the afternoons. You wanted the real thing; to learn, be inside a classroom, and interact with children your age, so she gave you just that: she enrolled you at the local kindergarten in your hometown, and from there on out you proceeded to prove to her, your father, and the rest of your family, that every penny they invested in your education was going to be worthwhile.

That's not to say that you were a natural-born genius; no, that couldn't be farther from the truth. No saint would ever qualify for canonization just by existing; without undergoing the rigorous criteria that they needed to satisfy in the duration of their life.

In your sphere of excellence, however, you needn't be a corpse that's been deceased for five years to pass the mark. You were very much alive, and so was your growing list of accolades, nurtured precisely by your steadfast commitment to be, well… brilliant.

Behind the curtain constructed from your plentiful medals, plaques, and certificates lay the groundwork of your success: sacrificial hours that you could've spent playing outside with kids your age; nightly study sessions with your mother, conducted under the warm light of the dining table; and an avoidance of entanglements — platonic and romantic — that would have otherwise been a hindrance; a thorn to your side that could have derailed your focus to emerge victorious in the arena of academia.

Your life, insofar concerning the feats that you had accomplished, was eligible to be assessed and venerated as that of a person of exceptional intelligence and unwavering discipline.

The consequent fruits of this academic canonization were as followed: you graduated at the top of your class with the highest honors, and you were recommended and admitted to the doctorate program for microbiology at the same university in which you had made an everlasting mark. Your papers too, somewhat gave you leverage in some circles — you were certainly not yet at the level of a seasoned scientific academic, but for an undergrad, your accomplishments were no drab feats.

Like a saint, you had created a name for yourself. Academic achievement rarely went unrecognized, especially that of someone your age. Rarely did it happen that a fresh graduate like you would gun for a doctorate at twenty-three; but, as had been proven in the past, you were an exception. Brilliance warrants exception at the best of times, and you seized that opportunity. Why would you decline such, when your very generous, very affluent grandmother who's living in South Palo Alto offered to fund your endeavors?

You had moved to live with her since, and you had even inherited her Mercury as your main vehicle to go to and fro the campus, since she wanted you to be taken care of in the cushioned safety and warmth of her home. All of which pointed to the observation that you were, indeed, her favorite grandchild, despite your lack of desire to be proud. Saints weren't self-absorbed assholes, after all.

Your gratitude, then, manifested in your excellence in graduate school — a way to repay the investment so willingly and lovingly bestowed upon you, and to assert that you were worthy of such pampering and privilege. "You deserve it," your grandmother would say, particularly whenever you thanked her profusely for overseeing your well-being.

For over three years, you benefited from residing under her patronage. You were about to enter the fourth and (hopefully) final year of your stay in graduate school this coming fall, and it was during this year that you decided — upon consultation and negotiation with your advisor — to do your teaching assistant-ship in your final year.

You didn't have much on your plate anymore, anyway (compared to the last two years — you really didn't want to think about that again), and you'd put it off for too long. You couldn't imagine being a freshman handling other freshmen classes — that was your main reason for stalling. Even your grandmother — a hardened academic in her field during her days as a young woman — advised you to strengthen first your foundational knowledge before endeavoring to impart such to younger students.

This year was the year to tackle the work before you kissed the institution good-bye and earned the degree that you had so painstakingly plodded towards.

The forms for the "matchmaking" (that was, the courses that you wanted to handle alongside its presiding professor) were sent out a few months before the last first semester of your senior year began. You had to wait sometime for the request to be granted, but eventually, the dust settled, and so served was the verdict: for the fall, you were to handle an introductory class in molecular and cellular biology; and in the spring, a microbiology elective on microbial pathogenesis; both taught by one Dr. Ryland Grace.

You'd known Dr. Grace since undergrad; you were in a class of his in your junior year, a fairly easy course on genetics. "Fairly" being the operational word because the class was actually deceptively easy; another roundabout way to say that it was difficult. If you didn't do your work, Grace can and will fail you.

The m.o. was like a weirder version of a gap moe: a very cheerful, very enthusiastic professor who taught complex concepts effectively, yet his midterms and finals exams were absolutely going to crush you once they arrived.

That was the reputation that Dr. Grace had among the undergraduate population (because some of the upperclassmen were contrasting this with his demeanor in his doctoral courses; he was way more serious when it came to that department), and you had first-hand experience of it. Not that you were tooting your own horn, but you were lucky enough to have passed it with the highest grade possible. Because that's who you were. You didn't fail your classes. That'd be blasphemous.

You didn't think much of him, then. You pretty much just breezed through his class by following his recommended way of tackling the syllabus and preparing for the big exams; you got your grade, did the evaluation for the course, and then moved onto the next academic year — business as usual.

So here you were now: it's the week before the beginning of the fall semester, and you had driven to the university for a short screening with the professor, as per his email to you a few days prior.

He said, in the correspondence, that this wasn't an overly formal ceremony; he just needed to brief you early on about the work that he was going to allocate to you to prevent you from scrambling and fussing when the classes would actually start.

You reread the instructions to verify the room number of Dr. Grace' office. It's on the third floor, so you took the elevator on your way there, preparing yourself to meet the same man who you used to think was going to derail your academic record from seven years ago, all while you stared at your reflection on the steel walls of the car.

He did say "no pressure" in the email.

And speak of the devil: you spotted Dr. Grace en route to his office just as you stepped off the elevator. He's got a steaming mug in hand and a couple of papers in the other. He saw you, too, and upon recognizing your face from the request forms, he flashed his brows at you and beckoned you to follow him.

Fully expecting to handle the entryway situation yourself, you were sort of taken aback to find him standing there, holding the door open so you could pass.

You gave him a quick smile of gratitude and advanced into the room. The woody-citrusy scent (of an air freshener, you assumed) clashed with the caffeinated drink he had brought in; you had to remind yourself to behave and extinguish the scrunching of your nose.

"Sit wherever you like," Ryland said, more out of courtesy than practicality. There weren't many options in terms of seating, at least not the ones who were most accessible to the desk, where you two were most likely going to convene.

No point in settling on the beanbag at the corner by the floor-to-ceiling window — you figured that he put that for himself to use, so you chose one of the twin armchairs by the table, directly in front of his small figurine of… Spock, in a Vulcan salute. You filed that piece of information away in your head. He sat behind his desk.

"Can I get you anything? Coffee, water…" Ryland began.

You shook your head. "I'm good."

A strange stretch of silence followed this exchange. He was staring at you, and upon catching him (which was followed by you, looking away and directing your gaze elsewhere), he broke into a short spell of awkward laughter.

"Sorry, I'm…" he wagged a finger at you, which then rested under his lower lip. You tracked him closely. "I'm trying to place you, you're… You look very familiar…"

"You taught me in undergrad. General genetics — I was a junior when I took it." You filled in the gaps for him.

Ryland "ah"-ed, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember." He smiled. "And now, you're in your last year of your doctorate. Wow, what a way to make a guy feel ancient."

You chuckled a little at that. "Why, how old are you?" You asked in half-jest.

"I'm not compromising myself like that," he said, guarded but genuinely amused at your underhanded attempt to pry. "Let's just say… that I got my doctorate fifteen years ago. I'll let you do the math," he waved a hand at you as he busied himself with pulling up a file on his tablet.

"I don't get a hint?" You pressed.

He brought his head up to squint at you; those stupidly long lashes of his closed in a tad around his irises. The amusement was beginning to grow more pronounced by way of the corners of his lips curling up. "No," he said, turning to the tablet once more.

Your mind raced to parse the timeline with some quick algebra and a rough estimation using your own birth year as reference. If you're twenty-seven now, then Ryland would be…

You cast your first guess. "Forty?"

Ryland snorted. He didn't look up from the screen just yet. "Close. Forty-two."

He rotated the tablet so it was facing you. You came in close to read the contents of the document better, ignoring the fact that you were nearly touching heads with him. Why was he leaning in?

The typeface of the text was set to Times New Roman, you noticed; twelve points, one-point-five spacing, justified; even if it wasn't a formal or official file. It didn't look like the syllabus, either — from what you could glean, this one was made especially for your eyes.

Ryland did the scrolling for you. "So, for this semester, you'll be having intro to molecular and cellular bio with me and then… the microbio elective for the next." He pursed his lips. "All I'm really gonna have you do is check and grade the quizzes, exams, assignments, that kind of stuff — I'll give you the key beforehand — and the emails, I'll leave those to you, unless you think that it's something better suited for me to answer."

"Like what?" You inquired. It's like he wasn't expecting you to lift your eyes at him to supplement your question, because his brows jumped up upon being subjected to your gaze. Huh. You'd never seen that shade of blue before.

Ryland cleared his throat as he replied. "If they press for extra credit — anything adjacent to that. I have students who are like that sometimes, and I don't want you earning their ire — forward the email to me right away if you get one of that kind. And then…" He scrolled further down the document. "The lab prep. Which, I'm sure you know your way around. I usually come early for the laboratory classes, but it's alright if you get there before I do. That's better, actually. I'll give you a copy of the syllabus and all the experiments we'll be doing so you know what you need to prepare. I'll ask you sometimes about the items I draft for the exams, too," Ryland added. His retraction of the tablet prompted you to pull away. "Best to get feedback from an actual student before I dish it out to the sections."

You nodded. The work sounded manageable enough; standard admin and laboratory work, feasible to be wedged in your relatively free schedule, since you weren't juggling too many classes for this academic year. You could prep the lab at Monday; then Tuesday and Wednesday were just repeats — you'd squeeze in your dissertation writing and office hours after that, and then deal sporadically with the emails as they come.

"Oh, but if at any point you feel a little too burdened by any of this, just tell me. I'll move the workload around in that case. I've done this myself before," Ryland slumped into the backrest and took a leisurely swig of coffee, "and I really wish the professor I TA-ed for back then wasn't such a tyrant. Don't wanna be that kind of guy at all."

"I think I can handle it," you said. "Is that all?"

Ryland stared at you again for the purpose of considering your question. He perked up as soon as the thought returned to his mind.

"Ah, right — I'll call you in here either at the beginning or the end of each week, you know, just so we can plan and negotiate stuff. I want to work with your schedule, too — I know you'd want nothing more than to graduate on time. I've read your file — punctuality is a very good habit to have. Don't be like me," he said, laughing wistfully. His eyes were tacked on you for the fourth time this afternoon. "Yeah, uh… that's it. I'll just email you the rest of what you need to know, maybe tonight or tomorrow morning."

You stood up, hooking your purse over your shoulder. "Can I have them tonight?"

That earned you another smile. "Enthusiastic, I like that. Okay, I'll send them tonight. Does nine work? I eat dinner pretty late."

"Yeah. It's no problem."

Ryland nodded. "Alright," he clapped his hands once. "Anything else?"

You shook your head. "That's all. Thank you."

The two of you bade each other good-bye shortly after that.

On the way back to your car, you realized that there wasn't an air freshener in the room at all. None by the mouth of the AC overhead, nor on his desk littered with the nerdiest trinkets that would put a religious fourteen-year-old Comicon attendee to shame.

Did that scent come from him?

———

Your first two weeks as Dr. Ryland Grace' TA, were, upon shared deliberation with your fellow TAs, evidence to that fact that you had it good.

Relatively, of course. You had the same general list of responsibilities as they did; you shared the same brunt of the work that was to be expected from this undertaking, but the difference lay in the many irksome details and occurrences that were, in your case, virtually absent.

Exhibit A: Linh — your closest friend since freshman year — was under Dr. Salazar, and she was, almost all of the time, lamenting to you about how the professor gave her the responsibility of drafting exam questions for the midterms and finals, as per the syllabus of the course, and that some students of a particular block were so obsessed with proving to her that they were all smarter than her whenever she was tasked to teach.

Exhibit B: Felice — another close friend, but one you met three years ago — was in a perpetual uphill battle a la Sisyphus with this one student who was apparently the son of some "very important rich dude in Palo Alto" (Felice had every pleasure in the world saying this while doing air quotes with her fingers) and questioned the grading rubric for the written outputs all the time, while blithely ignoring her emails that detailed why he wasn't getting the scores that he wanted.

And finally, exhibit C, C for Camden — poor, sweet Camden; younger than you only by a year — a fellow microbiology PhD student with whom you often hung out on your breaks and confided your thoughts, was being inappropriately hit on by a male student who had stumbled upon his profile on a very safe-for-work dating site months before the commencement of the present academic year.

The situation escalated when, a week before the midterm exams, the student threatened to blackmail him for sex, and said that he was going to tell the department head that Camden was simply using his position for sexual extortion.

You actually went with him to report this concerning matter to the department head, which then led to a very awkward (but much needed — you both agreed on that) conversation with the department head, who turned out to be… of a very conservative persuasion when it came to masculinity.

As this was, indeed, a pressing and dangerous affair, it was promptly addressed by the relevant authorities. Camden was assured that he wouldn't have to deal with this student anymore for the rest of his employment and until graduation day.

That didn't mean that it wasn't stressful, though; he and you went out for ramen after that day just to blow off steam and rant about the entire thing. You made a personal promise to keep an eye out for Camden since — you were in the same department anyway, it was the least you could do for a dear friend.

But with you? There was no such thing as exhibit D. If you were put side-by-side with your closest cohorts, it's as if you were a pure, sinless sylph residing in the garden of Eden, and your friends were living the tail-end of the plot of Paradise Lost; banished from the heavenly grace (pun intended) under which you were being cared for and looked after by a magnanimous god.

The good word was made flesh through your TA-ship under Dr. Ryland Grace: his burden was easy; his yoke, light. For a man who taught such rigorous science, you would think that the accompanying work would be just as grueling, but that was not at all the truth that you were living.

For one, Ryland handled most of the classroom lectures, and gave you (mostly) the reins inside the lab. This wasn't because he didn't trust you — no, you couldn't be more wrong with such an evaluation of his decision — he purposefully chose to go with this delegation so you'd have more experience in that area, because you did mention to him that this was the kind of occupation setting in which you aimed to navigate in the near future.

You thought it a great honor to be entrusted the laboratory, mainly because Ryland moved more comfortably inside those four walls. He was, first and foremost, a scientist that was accustomed to the controlled, sterile environment of a lab before he was an educator.

You had read most of his work in his twenties before he settled into a teaching role in university; some of which were even stocked up in a folder on your cloud storage.

Since time immemorial, men in STEM had been notorious for being arrogant, self-absorbed assholes who didn't want the limelight and prestige attached to them (by virtue only of their sex) be directed elsewhere, but fortunately for you, Ryland wasn't woven with the same fiber as these men. He, accomplished as he was, stepped down to allow you access and control in his sanctuary — a privilege that one would never foresee to originate from a tenured man like him.

Though, admittedly, Ryland was known for being cocky in his papers and among his peers. Such was the general impression that you pulled from his laundry list of writings; most of which were designed to piss off purists and worshipers of "traditional" science; those who hated pushback on what they believed to be cold, hard facts about the universe. Ryland Grace was a nightmare to these people.

But to you? Not at all. Jamais. What was the purpose of science being an ever-evolving field if you weren't going to challenge what all those old dudes were saying and remain content with parroting their theories and hypotheses? You made Ryland laugh when you told him that.

You refrained from dropping any hints that you had read his work, however; that would have been too much of a stroke to his ego. You liked him, sure, but you weren't going to be a quick source of satisfaction for the man.

That lack of pretense and adherence to conventional patterns of thinking were some of the reasons why his students loved him. Ryland was a favorite of anyone who was lucky enough to receive his guidance. He was dearly beloved by the classes he handled, evidenced by the tone of their emails which you were eternally happy to receive, and the evaluations that he got by the end of the semester.

You clearly recalled giving him a stellar review on an informal, student-only forum online after you took a course under him as a junior — it's safe to say that he had never broken his pristine streak since then, and even before you attested to his character.

Checking that forum in the present day, you'd find that everyone wanted a chance to experience him as their professor at least once during their stay at the university.

No wonder his classes were large. The smallest was at around forty students, and the biggest had eighty this first semester. Ryland made it look like he was only handling a fourth of that population, though. You did your best to keep up with him, to prove that there was significance to your being a TA — a self-imposed criterion to which you complied, even in the simplest kind of administrative work like answering a student's email.

You knew that your efforts were not in vain because every once in a while, Ryland would check in on you and ask if there's anything you needed to run by him. Truth be told, your plate was quick to be emptied. His students liked you enough to not pester you with unnecessary questions or demands.

The one time you had to consecutively cover for Ryland — when he attended a week-long scientific conference some time in early October — was an experience you'd never forget, either.

That was the first time you ever taught in a giant auditorium. You were nauseous when you came in that morning, despite your diligent studying of the material a three days ago and even when Ryland called you on the actual day to encourage you (he could've just emailed you or sent you a text, but he insisted on calling you at 7 AM because he was "already up anyway").

"You got this," he said; from what you could hear in the background, he sounded like he was having breakfast at the hotel, "it's just an introductory class. I'm sure you can recite the concepts on my deck in your sleep. You'll do great."

And he was right. It was your fault for underestimating your own capabilities. Everything went swimmingly; there was little to no difference in the enthusiasm that they showed you when you were the one breaking down the lesson to them — and when Ryland did come back the following week, he informed you that his students were asking him nonstop when you'll be making a prolonged appearance again.

Yet that wasn't the good news that truly made your month.

Ryland got you a silver-plated Lady Liberty keychain from his trip in New York. He set it down wordlessly next your laptop while you were grading the lab reports, thinking you were too engrossed in the flow to notice, but you did. You caught him red-handed and he froze like a deer in headlights. Not very slick of him.

You stared at the souvenir, then at him.

"What's this for?" You smiled.

Ryland barely met your eyes. He was avoiding them like they were the plague, unlike all the other past instances where you would see him burning holes into your head. Whatever that meant, you decided was none of your business.

He shrugged. "I got everyone else something from New York. Figured you should have one too, since you're technically almost a peer." he said while he was gathering his things for his next class that afternoon. Really, it looked more like he was searching for something with which to busy his (trembling?) hands.

"It's not too cliché for a souvenir, is it?" He pursed his lips.

You chuckled. "A little bit, yeah."

"Dang," he clicked his tongue, feigning regret and playing off that light physiological dusting of rouge on his cheeks. You waited for his act to pass.

"I'm not complaining, though."

You gave him a word of thanks before going back to work, though slightly distracted by the earlier sight of the tips of his ears and his nape turning bright pink.

Once he left, you allowed yourself to pause and (figuratively) scream about that in your group chat with your friends; your fingers were flying across the small keypad on your phone as you alerted them of what just happened.

Dr. Ryland Grace — 42-year-old tenured professor who had quite a reputation in the scientific community — just gave you a Lady Liberty keychain and was blushing the entire time he was explaining himself to you. Like he even needed to explain himself. You couldn't believe your luck.

———

Ryland's handsomeness and charm were definitely not lost on you. Or on anyone, for that matter.

You'd wager that that was the real reason as to why so many students fought for a slot in his class, because let's be honest; there wasn't a lot of dopamine to be derived from the sea of papers and tests and the general humdrum of university life. You were eating cortisol three times a day; you could at least allow an endorphin-filled snack in between those meals.

In a person's most mundane and stressful moments, they would be more inclined to look for immediate sources of happiness; of gratification, so they could ease the hurt inside their soul. And what better way to do that than to scout and apply for a seat in the auditorium in which a ridiculously hot professor like Ryland Grace taught, and stare at that same man for an hour and a half, notwithstanding the risk being called on with a lovelorn expression on your face to match?

It was fun. It's exhilarating. You wouldn't even feel embarrassed if you failed to supply Ryland with an answer because he'll just laugh it off and tell you to listen. Even that gentle reprimand of his sounded like the angels of heaven singing their songs of praise.

You read the (informal and non-admin sanctioned) student forums about him every few nights or so. For entertainment, mostly, but also to silently gloat and lord over the undergrads your privilege of being in such proximity to the revered professor; close enough that he had your number saved in his phone, and that he remembered to buy you something while he was over on the other side of the country.

Normally the site would be utilized to choose or dodge certain professors whenever enlistment season began — you knew how it worked; you were an undergrad student before, and you sure as hell used it to avoid enlisting under classes that were taught by egotistical power-trippers from the frontlines of Satan himself — but among the other pages, there existed the threads where the (mostly female) students gushed about the instructors whom they particularly found pleasing to the eye.

Ryland was a hot topic among the student body (and even the faculty, but you didn't really want to unpack that). Entries about him ranged from how his shirts hugged his torso just right under his favorite gray tweed jacket; his corny but cute science pun t-shirts that he wore whenever he's in the laboratory, up to how his hands looked "so attractive waving around like that" when he's really into what he's yapping about.

One comment, which had so many upvotes, touted their achievement of having made Ryland gush about his obsession with astronomy after they stayed behind class to ask him about some rover on Mars.

You harbored no envy towards these people. Not even a speck. You were the saint; the intercessor to the god to which a multitude of devotees prayed and offered their fervent admiration. Every day you were subjected to the rays of your supervisor's appeal, free to bask in their glory sans the need to experience strain nor strife.

If anything, you were the rightful object of envy.

Ryland often let you camp in his office to work, thus enabling you to gain authority over the beanbag chair that you had once eyed when you met him at the beginning of the semester. Sometimes you even sat at his desk when he'd leave early. He assured you that it was fine as long as you didn't snoop around his drawers. You kept your word. You respected the guy. And you liked him. You liked Ryland, perhaps a bit more than you ought to.

Maybe that was why you rejoiced when you noticed the lack of a ring on his finger or a photo of a partner on his desk. His companions on that meager plane of seventy-five inches were Spock, a miniature model of the USS Enterprise, and other trinkets from (you assumed) his students. The open cubby to the right had two boxes each of sour Skittles and strawberry Twizzlers.

Yeah, that's definitely the diet of an unmarried man.

Your conjectures that Ryland was indeed single were further confirmed when you attended the small admin-sanctioned celebration at a local restaurant after the first semester came to a close, all thanks to Dr. Salazar's tipsy jabs about his coworker being the only bachelor in the department.

You were pretending not to listen by forking at the remnants of the truffle pasta you ordered; cheek resting on your fist as you trained your nearest ear to the ramblings at the other end of the table where the faculty members were. You refused alcohol because you were driving home tonight, and you needed to keep your wits together, lest liquid courage unscrewed the bolts that fastened your mouth and your heart shut.

You were absolutely not going to spill anything tonight.

"I really do consider your conviction to stay single impressive," said Salazar to Ryland as he nursed on his final beer for the night. He turned to the rest of their coworkers. "I've been married for fifteen years now. Turning fifty-three next year. And Ryland here, tenure-track and all, is nowhere near the vicinity of a ring! Or anyone, for that matter!"

At that very moment, amid the roaring laughter of the other faculty members over some quick-witted quip of Ryland, you accidentally locked eyes with Linh. She was grinning at you. You had to kick her under the table to wipe it off her face, which, unfortunately, alerted the rest of the people near you when the furniture jolted.

"Sorry, my phone suddenly vibrated," was your smooth excuse. You wiped your mouth and pushed your chair away from the table without making any noise (not that you could ever dream to overpower the buzzing inside the premises), glaring at Linh who had mouthed an "ouch" at you as she soothed her leg. You made your temporary exit to convince everyone of this extemporaneous ruse. In the corner of your eye, you saw Ryland following your figure as you headed to the door.

The cool, crisp Californian autumn air enveloped you as you went the patio and leaned against the brick facade, laying down a distance between you and the muffled din of the restaurant. Goddamn it, Linh, you thought. You weren't mad at her, but you certainly didn't welcome that kind of teasing when your supervisor slash current complicated fixation was barely a meter away from you and could have certainly seen that look that she gave you.

The last thing you wanted was for things to get awkward while you were still a semester away from leaving the university for good.

You really should have extinguished this before it even snowballed into what it was now. A whole fifteen years stood between you and Ryland, aside from the looming shadow of the university handbook regarding romantic entanglements between students and professors, that was always ready to place a hand behind your neck whenever you indulged in your fantasies too much.

You had to give yourself credit, though; it was a miracle that you were able to keep your composure after four months of coddling this deeply inconvenient crush. This wasn't you, being numb; your self-preservation and respect for both yourself and Ryland were simply too fortified to be tested and swayed.

You weren't anymore a high schooler bursting at the seams from being overrun with juvenile feelings. You'd gained mastery over your more powerful emotions since the proverbial snapping-into-place event happened to your prefrontal cortex two years ago. All of that came with your age. You were strong, sure, and in-control.

That one Anne Murray song suddenly came to mind. Your grandmother had a vinyl of the LP from which that song came, and every Saturday, she'd put that on the turntable like it was some sort of long-established ritual. You'd heard it enough times to know every line in that track, and you had even sung it at karaoke when your friends had pressured you.

You wondered when you'd ever be allowed to fumble, fall, and run into a wall. Probably after graduation, when you were no longer Ryland Grace' TA.

Sighing, you pulled your coat tighter around yourself and dialed the landline of your grandmother's house to at least make your farce believable on the outside. She picked up after a few rings.

You had a reason to call her anyway. You told her that finals were officially wrapped; that you planned on staying with her during the break before the spring semester began — your last run before graduation — and she responded with that familiar, tempered glee as she assured you that she'd have the house attendants fix up your bedroom before you arrived.

The perks of having a rich relative to pamper you after a grueling semester of administrative and academic work.

After another two minute-long exchange, you hung up. Your eyes lingered on the screen as you readied yourself to go back into the warmth of the restaurant and apologize to Linh for bruising her leg, but you stayed rooted where you were when the quiet calm of your solitude was interjected into by the doors swinging open, letting escape bursts of laughter and chattering and the clinking of cutlery against plates before they closed once more.

Ryland stepped onto the paved walkway, spotting you immediately as you slipped your phone back into your pocket. He put on his jacket to combat the night air, but his tie was loosened and his hair was disheveled from all the rubbing he was doing to cope with the less-than-ideal conversations he'd been forced to listen to, like the one you just heard a while ago. He looked like he narrowly missed escaping a hostage situation.

He blinked at you and your phone, then he smiled, shoving his hands into the pockets of his outerwear and approaching you just enough to be within earshot.

By his standards, that was just shy of a meter away from you.

"Boyfriend?" Ryland asked, trying so desperately to sound casual and nonchalant, like a classic, breezy professor who was on strictly friendly terms with his TA, and totally not housing a heart that was flapping like a disgruntled bird in a cage. His voice, however, gave it all away. It was tight; unnatural, and forced. You almost cringed for him.

You put on your most unreadable expression to mask the spark of mischievousness that passed through your eyes. Had it been daytime, Ryland would have seen it.

"Yeah," you replied, like a lady with a plan.

The result was instantaneous, like you had expected, and nothing short of tragic. That humorous glint within Ryland's warm blues disappeared, as if someone — a miniature person dwelling inside a diorama of his mind — flicked off a light switch. You were too eagle-eyed to miss how his shoulders deflated a fraction of an inch when your stoicism gave him absolutely no forgiveness; no allowance to surmise that you were kidding.

"Oh," Ryland said. He wasn't able to fake that unaffected tone. "Y-yeah, good for you. That's, uh… that—"

Okay, maybe you were being a little too cruel.

You smiled, armed with the confirmation that your heart's potential to have been owned by another definitely had some effect on Ryland. Your mercy took pity on the man before you as you prepared his remedy.

"That was my grandma," you backpedaled. "Told her I was going to stay with her in Palo Alto during the break."

Really, you should get an award for how composed you were. Was the Academy watching? You hoped they were. You'd be snickering and laughing if a more open display of reaction was favorable to your situation at present.

Ryland, on the other hand, was a biblical Lazarus before you. Your clarification was like Jesus' command for his deceased friend to rise from the dead: the color on his face returned; a flicker of a grin greeted you, and his posture rebounded. He had even taken a step closer.

"Oh…! Right, haha…" he scratched the back of his neck. "That's good. Like, good, as in… You know, you're staying with family, and it's good that you have family to spend, uh… winter break with, and all that..."

Your dear Lazarus was stumbling and tripping over himself as he walked out of his tomb. Alive once more, but so terribly clumsy. The sight reminded you of a giraffe's newborn calf trying to stand on its spindly legs. That thought nearly brought you to laughter, but you resisted the urge.

You kept that smile plastered on your face to at least offer him some consolation.

"And in Palo Alto, eh?" Ryland continued. "That's a pretty — you gotta be at a certain tax bracket to live there, don't you?"

You shrugged. "It's my grandma who's rich. Not me."

Ryland nodded, muttering another conversational filler to conceal how flustered he was upon your earlier jest.

"Anyway," he shifted from a foot to another and then cleared his throat, as if it was going to make his case any better, "uh, great work this semester, really." He gestured between himself and you. "Everything's much easier with you here. Like, I mean it. For some reason my students have complained less about their grades this year. That counts as a record."

The space between you was suddenly even more loaded and tense. That compliment came across a little too personal; particularly at the significant softening of his eyes and the vanishing of his frantic front when he told you just how "easy" your presence made everything for him.

Perhaps the areas exempted from that general rule were his own heart and sanity, seeing as to how his edges had begun fraying the moment you decided to joke about being in a relationship with someone else.

You didn't dare flinch or blush. You simply accepted his words as though they were an inconsequential utterance.

"Thanks, Dr. Grace. Please put that on my eval."

Ryland chuckled. "Sure thing."

He turned back towards the entrance, but stopped to put his hand on your shoulder to pat you. The warmth and weight of his touch seared through the material of your coat.

"Don't stay out too long," he pat you again, in a quick succession of two, "it's cold tonight."

Your eyes were glued on that hand until it left you. You hummed. "I won't."

———

Ryland never liked the word "jealousy".

It's revealing. It's too sharp. Too cutting. Too… on the nose. Messy, and even childish. Such an adjective didn't agree with his estimation of his personality. It stung. It's like spraying isopropyl alcohol on a paper cut. But the wound was him. He's a laceration and you're the balm that he needed to soothe the pain.

But your focus was somewhere else. On someone else.

The last time he was struck by that sinking, nauseating sensation in his chest was in high school, when he had yet to grow into his features that consequently afforded him his turbulent chain of flings during his undergrad days, all of which did not last for more than three months. Is he proud of that? No. But it makes for an interesting story to tell when he's grabbing drinks with his colleagues.

Jealousy, in Ryland's eyes, was for children who know nothing about the realities of sustaining a long-term relationship; who were completely and blithely unaware that it took more than good looks and a certain kind of charm derived from arrogant intelligence to substantiate an ostensible declaration of love.

Ryland was in his early forties, for goodness' sake. He had since moved past allowing that feeling to overtake his mind and his body.

That's what he wanted to think.

Winter break revealed a lot of things to and about Ryland. Such an epiphany wasn't so great in scale — at least in terms of the degree of shock that it possessed — he had been coddling the insinuation before he confronted himself, so to some extent it was expected, but braving to look the truth straight in its eye remained daunting.

Ryland liked you. A lot. There really was no other way to word it. The admission was so terribly exposing that while in the privacy of his bedroom, he had to smush his face into his hands for a full two minutes, and cross-examine himself over and over again to ascertain if this was really what his heart was whispering to him. Or his hypothalamus. That was more scientifically accurate, and less cheesy. That's how he knew that he was starting to lose his mind.

This wasn't just lust. Ryland knew that much to be true.

He thought highly of you: the traits, the characteristics which he had to industriously inculcate in his personal framework over the past decades, you happened to possess naturally. At first he believed the nature his feelings to be envy. How could it not be? Despite the years gone by having calmed down his frantic and awkward disposition into a more easygoing state, it was, nevertheless quite unpleasant to gaze upon someone whose innate temperament was, in contrast, what he had to toil and strive for in a longitudinal process.

Ryland was aware of his own flaws — a little too painfully aware sometimes, even — and seeing you effortlessly wield those strengths that juxtaposed his shortcomings made him face that metaphorical mirror that most middle-aged adults usually avoided. But instead of letting that envy fester into something inappropriate and destructive, such had morphed into a softer, warmer, and more tender emotion.

You, with your unruffled composure, impeccable work ethic and discipline, and natural authority, created the image and the pinnacle of what Ryland believed a scientist ought to be. He saw in you everything he could have been when he was your age, and he wanted to nurture that potential of yours.

From the very beginning, Ryland had decided to give as much space for you to stretch your wings. That was why he sought to collaborate with you; to work with your schedule and your academic load, rather than be a micromanaging douche who would insensitively pile extra responsibilities upon your already overflowing plate and hover over your shoulder whenever you executed a task.

Even during the break, he had sent you a few emails (a text would have been too pointed, but that idea certainly crossed his mind at least once) about certain publications and post-doctorate opportunities. He had never felt so elated his entire life when you replied a week later, thanking him and saying that you were sure to check those out as soon as you could.

For Dr. Ryland Grace so loved his TA, that he gave her everything she could possibly need to reach places far beyond the four walls of his laboratory and his classroom. That regardless of his own burgeoning attraction, he was ready to perish in agony and choke down his feelings, if it meant that you were going to succeed even after you walk up that stage in a couple of months.

Ryland chose to channel every drop; every ounce of that silent affection for you into becoming the best mentor he could be; to clear your path and even widen it; to launch you towards greater and brighter horizons, because you deserved every single good thing that could come your way in your promising career.

How noble of him. Ryland was a noble man, indeed, but was a liar all the same, because he wanted you for himself.

Deep inside, the distance he had chosen to enforce between you was slowly killing his heart. Try as he might to convince himself that the role he was supposed to play was the unassuming, nurturing mentor who only wanted the best for his mentee, Ryland feared that he was also pushing you farther from his grasp. The more he shoved and crammed his feelings inside a cage and walled them off under the guise of his professorial duty, the more he buckled under the crushing weight of his antithetical desires.

Ryland didn't want to simply admire and support you from afar. He wished to be there by your side, to accompany you in every step of the way; in both your highest highs and your lowest depths, because he knew, too, that the life of an academic was no smooth road. It's grueling and soul-crushing. Oftentimes, you'd feel like the work you were doing didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. No matter how brilliant you were, something or someone was sure to knock you down a peg and make you question if you were even worthy of the position upon which you stood.

Ryland's main conundrum now was that he was hoping to traverse the limitations which he had imposed upon himself. And there's no other greater generator of internal conflict than having to deny that he was craving for more of you, because he, in fact, was. He wanted to be the first you'd tackle into a hug in your moments of great flourishing. He wanted to memorize the exact tone of your sigh when you're tired, and how you take your tea when you're burnt out.

That had become a big problem. A really big, inconvenient, and unsettling problem.

What was his business, yearning for you like this? Ryland had no right to even think about wanting you, because at the end of the day, he was still technically a professor; he's way older than you, and his position, should he forget it, would contaminate his every attempt to get to know you beyond the allowed scope of your interaction as per the contract that bound you to him.

So Ryland washed it all down; akin to how he was taking a swig of his now-lukewarm coffee to fight off the ugly flashes of jealousy as he's stewing in his seat, watching you from across the break room as you mingled with the TA pool — half of which were composed with men your age — and allowed them to behold that smile of yours that he had grown so, so fond of for the last couple of months.

In his most epicurean reveries, your smiles, your attention, and your laughter — you, simply put — were all his.

Oh, how Ryland missed you over the break. As much as he didn't want to admit that he was counting the days leading up to the second semester, he was immediately brought out of the hiemal gloom upon your presence blessing the threshold of his office — all bundled up in a scarf and a coat — greeting him with the same formal yet friendly demeanor that you espoused each time you met up to discuss what this week had in store for the both of you.

He wished he could stay in that paradise forever: just you and him, sitting in his office, talking and working together as directed by the edict of your contract. You understood each other so well that you didn't even need to dwell long on certain matters to smooth out the kinks.

You spoke Ryland's language and he spoke yours. He had to stop himself many times from making a joke about how your relationship was no different from a committed romantic bond. He was barred from making that jest, and even more prohibited to assume the privileges that came with such a relationship.

Ryland caught himself staring at you and glaring at that TA who had "absentmindedly" put his hand on the back of your chair. He willed himself to tear his eyes away from the irksome sight, lest one of his coworkers spotted him burning holes past the table where his attention should remain.

This was torture. Nothing appealed to him more than the hypothetical scenario where he'd get up from his seat and rip that offensive hand away, which was barely a hair's breadth away from touching you (or more accurately, the material of your jacket) and giving him more of a reason to be annoyed.

But Ryland, remembering his place, remained seated, albeit brewing a storm in his mind.

There's nothing interesting about this lukewarm, half-gone beverage in his mug. He wanted, needed to train his concentration on what you're talking about over at your table (he caught a fragment of it; something about your favorite variation of tea returning to the shelves at the local supermarket — oh, you're so adorable, he mused) — and so he mulled the idea of whisking you away and sequestering you in his office under the pretense of reworking that lesson plan because... of what? He was jealous and now he needed to redo a document that he had since submitted?

Ryland berated himself mid-thought. He couldn't believe that he had stooped so low at so early an hour as twelve in the afternoon. This kind of activity should only ever occur in the confines of his apartment, where he was free to be as pathetic as he wanted. Not in the middle of lunch break where his woes would be laid out for everyone — you included — to see.

He had already embarrassed himself earlier when he made that thoughtless comment; when he jokingly encouraged the confession of whoever was wearing that "delicious" (the very word he used), earthy, and velvety fig scent, which had been invading his olfaction since he stepped into the break room; and one of your cohorts identified the culprit — though Ryland preferred the less harsh word "bearer" — to be none other than you.

This disclosure backfired, obviously. Ryland was squirming in his seat in an attempt to play off his blunder and redirect his focus towards his (now consumed) food, so he wouldn't have to endure a second longer of your apologetic and sheepish smile.

Which was his fault, by the way. How he wanted to punch himself. Way to freaking go, Ryland. You just embarrassed her in front of the other faculty and TAs and she's probably going to hold that against you.

Ryland promptly excused himself after that ordeal, and during his Walk of Shame back to his office, he was devising a way to make it up to you and not permanently brand himself as the asshole who's singling you out because of your perfume.

Oh, and he even indirectly described you as "delicious". The devil in his ear made sure to remind him of that. Ryland pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn't clutching his mug. He wouldn't be surprised if he got a visit from HR a few days from now.

He was like a walking nerve that was hurting all over. At his big age of forty-two. Christ. His frustrations with his self-made misfortunes had him muttering to himself down the hallway and earning some very curious stares from anyone who happened to pass by his current sorry state. Ryland really couldn't care less. He wanted to pout, and so he must.

The opportunity to see you again came when you swung by his office before the end of your shift, as per the email that Ryland sent you a day prior; something about revising the items of a quiz that you were going to administer in two separate classes this week, as well as those of a practical test that was for the laboratory sections.

You made your way there in no time. The door was purposefully left open for you, so after the three customary knocks — a silently agreed-upon signal meant to announce your arrival — you let yourself in and found Ryland behind his desk, furiously typing away on his laptop for what you could only guess to be about the grant that he and his colleagues had been working their ass off to get for the project that they planned to work on this summer.

He was courteous enough to greet you back when you did, and as always, you assumed your place on the chair by the Spock figurine. You wordlessly greeted him, too. As inanimate as he was, you felt like he and you had been well-acquainted with each other, from how frequently you visited his owner's office.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting," Ryland said, taking his eyes off the monitor. "Grab that chair, sit next to me."

Nodding, you took the other armchair opposite you and dragged it over and behind the desk, keeping in mind to place a buffer of a few inches between you and Ryland before sitting down.

"I just finished the draft after my class this afternoon, so it's a bit rough, but," Ryland talked as he connected the wireless mouse to his device, "here, take a look. Tell me what you think."

You let him place the mouse on your palm instead of taking it from him. The steady hum of the AC filled the lull, interspersed only with the faint whirring noise of the scroll that you were controlling. Half your brain power was being allocated to actually reviewing the items and maintaining a safe distance so as not to have the fabric of your clothes brush against Ryland's jacket.

If he was still recovering from the incident in the break room earlier, it was only right that you save him from further suffering by not giving him more reasons to spiral.

You stopped at item number nineteen.

"This is a bit similar to the one you included in the last quiz," you said aloud. "The cell lysis buffer thing. It's pretty recent. They might remember that item from this."

"Really?" Ryland snapped his head towards you. Hesitant, you returned the look and nodded. "Let me see."

You handed him the mouse and watched him pull up the past document to corroborate your observation. Ryland, wearing glasses and all, refused to use them and looked over the rim to read the items instead. You pressed your lips into a tight line to fight off your amusement.

Even after months of being exposed to his habits, you could never get over just how hilarious Ryland could be in his stubborn rejection of using his glasses for his farsightedness. He did everything but use them. He let them dangle off his face. He hung it on the breast pocket of his shirt. Recently, he'd even taken to wearing them on his head.

Thrice within a single day Ryland asked you if you'd seen his glasses because they were apparently "missing". Thrice, you had to tell him — with consistent patience and gentleness — that they were on top of his pretty little head of blond hair. Thrice Ryland blushed and chalked it up to his being forty-two.

You held yourself back from saying that this was from his habits, and not chiefly because of his age.

You ought to be more careful whenever you were in this sort of precarious situation, really — but you allowed yourself the tolerable luxury of laughing in your own mind. You were tired from facilitating classes and holding office hours and writing your dissertation atop it all. You could have this one, surely. Ryland wouldn't see it, and he's guaranteed to be saved from your light-hearted ridicule.

"Oh, you're right," Ryland mumbled as he sought to detect the revision that you suggested. "Okay, let's… change that."

He opened a different file. The document seemed to be a test bank of some sort. He flashed you a smile, but you only caught half of it.

"I listened to you last time. Last semester, I mean. I make item pools ahead now, because of stuff like this." Ryland pointed to an item; he cut, transferred, and then formatted it onto the quiz document. "This one's about the biochemical mechanism of a restriction digest protocol. What do you think?"

You leaned in to read the question better and gave him a nod of approval. "That's better. The last experiment we did last Tuesday was about this. We won't have to worry about practice effect contaminating the scores much."

"I keep on forgetting that you did take that statistics course on test administration. What's the other one again? item dis-something?"

"Discrimination. Item discrimination."

"And how are we holding up there, in terms of the quizzes?"

"Well, it's not really that big of a concern for the subject matter. The predictive validity's more important here, since the students have to show how well they understood the lessons in their performance on this quiz. We can always check the item discrimination on my SPSS, though… if you want extra work, that is." You joked.

"No, thank you," Ryland laughed. "That's like using a sledgehammer to pound a really small nail."

You had a follow-up joke to that, but you decided against sharing it. It was inappropriate.

Sensing that your time together was about to come to an end, Ryland served you another query. "There's nothing else you want to edit, or…?"

You were the one staring at him this time; a quirk of his that you picked up over the previous semester.

You could be doing this on a collaborative working document online from the comfort of your apartment. All Ryland needed to do was give you access to the file. You could highlight and tack down all the corrections and revisions via the comments function. He can work it out on his own afterwards.

But no. Here you were, less than three inches away from Ryland and breathing in every scent molecule of his cologne that was doing all sorts of ungodly things to your heart. The pernicious devil on your shoulder was insinuating that Ryland was manufacturing such a situation in order to spend more time with you, and for a couple of seconds you were almost convinced.

"U-uh, item fifteen. You missed a 'the' inside the paragraph, on the second line. And item twelve was missing a question mark." You blurted out.

Ryland was quick to remedy the changes of which you took note, and within the time he was working on them, you were taking measured breaths to check yourself and recall that you weren't supposed to be behaving like this. You were forgetting yourself. You're in the office of your supervisor. You ought to be carrying out your duties, not spinning stories in your head which you had no way of confirming.

Your rehearsed spiel to make a seamless exit granted you a painless way to depart from Ryland; soon you were putting the chair you'd been sitting on in its original place and were about to leave the room, when you remembered the secondary rationale for your visit in his office. You halted halfway to the door and spun back to him.

"I almost forgot," chuckling sheepishly, you pulled out the stack of lab reports from your bag, which you kept safely and neatly inside a plastic folder that you dedicated for such files. "I've finished grading the previous lab reports from Tuesday. Here."

Ryland took them from you with an outstretched hand. His attention was glued to the laptop again. You tried to glean what he was looking at via the reflection on his glasses, but you dropped the idea, in fear of being accused of ogling at him.

What he said to you in reply was more interesting than whatever was on his screen, anyway.

"Thank you, sweetheart."

Your entire world — his and yours, in mutual interaction — stood still. Ryland, too, was cognizant of his own slip-up. His fingers stopped typing, and you could see his eyes boring holes at some indiscriminate spot on his desk. He made no show of any intention to meet your equally surprised gaze.

"Right," you murmured. "See you."

The second part you said aloud, meaning for such to be some kind of occlusive barrier to dull the blow caused by Ryland's verbal misstep for the two of you.

You scarcely took three seconds to leave his office and advance down the hallway in a hurried flurry of steps; eyes wide and heart hammering inside your chest like it was about to explode. You thanked whatever god there was in the sky that no one else was in the elevator when you stepped in, and you struck down every opportunity to have anyone intrude upon your much needed alone time by pressing the button to close the doors.

Holy fucking shit. Ryland just called you 'sweetheart'. Dr. Ryland Grace, your supervisor, just called you 'sweetheart' like he'd been referring to you as such since forever.

That one's definitely making it to the group chat.

Sure enough, as soon as you shoot the message and begin your drive back to your apartment, Camden wanted to FaceTime stat. He saw your frantic news first.

"Girl." he said as soon as you picked up. He was back at his place from the looks of it. You could recognize the Bonheur print that he had on the wall by the dining area.

"Girl!" You grunted as you pulled out of the parking lot. "Oh my fucking God! Did you—"

"Yes, I did! Holy shit!" Camden was just as freaked out as you were. The video feed crackled a little; he moved to the living room and plopped on the couch.

"Okay, okay, did he say it in like a tired-nonchalant-and-somewhat-patronizing way, or in like a 'we've been married in my head for a long time now' way?"

"It's definitely the second one," you said. "I'm not kidding. It's like it slipped from his lips like fucking honey."

"What are the odds that he calls you that in his head, too?"

"Ugh, stop!" You groaned, smiling despite yourself. "I shouldn't have said that."

"That man is so into you that it's honestly pathetic." Camden brought his phone closer to his face to prove his point. "You're literally living the plot of a Lana del Rey song, do you realize that?"

"Please don't say that," you laughed. "I am trying my best to be professional here, okay?"

"But is he trying? And we're not just gonna let that itsy bitsy comment in the break room slide too, are we?"

"Don't remind me."

"Oh, I will remind you! He called you 'delicious'. Delicious!"

"He was referring to the perfume, Cam."

"Yeah, and I'm a rocket scientist." He rolled his eyes at you. "The point is, that Dr. Grace is definitely in your orbit. He's all wrapped up in you, and he cannot, for the life of him, hide it at all."

You rolled your eyes and conceded. "Fine. Let's just unpack all of that when I get home, 'kay? I'm driving right now. I'll get back to you in a while."

You dropped the call in one swift movement and reunited with the steering wheel. You were thankful that you were alone on this drive home and no one on the road could see you smiling like an idiot behind the windshield, because every part of you was being fried alive by the recollection of Ryland substituting a term of endearment for your name and uttering such in a tone reserved solely for lovers who'd been together for a long time.

A full two months had to pass before Ryland became a natural in his usage of your first name — a privilege that you gave him since you began your TA-ship, but one he declined to enjoy until his own predetermined window of time, one that was appropriate for a professor, passed.

Now, his defenses had been lowered enough to let that little lapse in formality happen. Your cheeks hurt from grinning so hard. Your car felt like it was driving on the fiery orange clouds overhead and not on the grounding asphalt of the road.

How long, you wondered, would it take for Ryland to genuinely call you 'sweetheart'?

———

You spent a good chunk of the afternoon in the faculty room today, alternating between answering emails and editing the current version of your manuscript with Felice, who was grading tests and encoding them next to you on the round table. This was the designated spot for the teaching assistants — you all liked it here because it was the closest to the coffee machine, and whenever one of you needed a caffeine fix, the fountain of life was a mere three steps away.

Had you time this morning, you'd have attended to your admin work; but as luck would have it, you had to teach some of Ryland's earlier classes and then meet up with your advisor about the methodology chapter of your paper.

The tasks, to which you were attending now, thus had to be pushed back to a later block in your schedule. There weren't many emails to answer anyway, so after you had those sorted out, you opened the document containing your dissertation, and on the other portion of the screen, you were watching the 1995 adaptation of Austen's Persuasion.

Felice, who was to your right, piped up just as you were watching Anne Elliot fidgeting behind her sister Mary, because Captain Wentworth was only a few meters away from her. You paused the film just before Louisa could invite the man to look at wild chestnuts in the open field.

"I just read the message you sent," Felice said after you took off one earbud. "I was busy when you texted us yesterday — I was at my daughter's recital."

"Aw, which one, Olive's or Sophie's?" You beamed, abandoning your laptop for a while and giving your full attention to your friend.

"It's Sophie's. Her battement has improved so much, I'll show you the video later — Olive's piano recital is next week Saturday. Anyway," she touched your arm and then looked around to see if there was anyone who's eavesdropping. Satisfied, Felice sported a wicked smile. "He really called you that? Like, as in the actual word?" She whispered.

You plastered your hands on face and slumped into the backrest of your chair. Your neck and ears grew hot upon the recollection of yesterday's event. Felice giggled.

"Yeah, that's confirmation enough. And how about him? How'd he react?"

You straightened up and leaned closer to your friend. "It's like I Medusa-ed him or something. Or he Medusa-ed himself, because he said the word. Like, he just seized up in his chair. Couldn't even look at me after I handed him the lab reports."

"Bless his heart," Felice covered her mouth to suppress her own amused reaction. "But I do have to ask. Do you really like Dr. Grace? You see yourself pursuing him after graduation?"

You bit your lip, and then nodded. Felice gave you a knowing look. She nodded back, signaling that she was in support of your decision.

"Probably better than wading through the dating pool full of men your age, which, I know is pretty bleak," she spoke as she sifted through the papers in her lap. "If stability's what you're looking for, then he's your best bet. He's tenure-track, mature — as per your observation — and likely not living in his mom's basement.

"I do have to raise one thing," Felice squeezed your wrist. "You have to promise me that you won't let him keep you from doing the things that you like. Or like, having you depend on him too much. Though, knowing you… You can hold your own. He just happens to be older than you."

You thanked Felice for her concern and assured her that you heeded her words.

"If anything," you added, "He's very much deadset on allowing me room to grow. He even lessens my workload when he thinks I'm supposed to be working on my dissertation. And that thing I told you about, during the break—"

"Yeah, I remember." Felice smiled. "I do have to give Dr. Grace that. He always looks out for you. Out of everyone in the current TA pool, you really have it easy. You lucky girl, you," she poked your side, and you flinched back, laughing at the physical jest. "I better get an invite to the wedding!"

"Felice! Someone might hear!" You swatted her arm. She only laughed harder.

The conversation was broken up when the door swung open and cut through the silence. It was Ryland. He was whipping his head left and right, scanning over the cubicles like he was looking for someone; that "someone" being you. He pinpointed your location in no time and made his way to where you were seated.

"Speak of the devil," Felice muttered. She was grinning then, but was quick to extinguish such an expression as soon as Ryland came into view. You, however, had made eye contact with the man, and were, therefore, in no place to feign a lack of acknowledgement of his presence.

"Hey," Ryland smiled at you and put up a hand for a short wave. He was wearing his laboratory garb. When he noticed Felice, he greeted her too before stopping a little behind your chair.

"I got off my last class early. We've got an extra hour for lab prep before the next one, you know, for the practical test." He said. His eyes darted to your screen, curious about what you were up to, then back to you.

Shoot. You sort of forgot about having to assist Ryland for the practical test. You gave a start, and then began gathering your stuff.

"Yes, um," you clicked your tongue, somewhat annoyed with your inadequacy to remember something so important as this one responsibility. "I'll just get my things sorted…"

"Here, let me."

Ryland stepped in and took your laptop for you as you hooked you bag over your shoulder. You were supposed to grab that, so you could exit the browser where you were watching Persuasion, but since it was in his arms at present, you had to make do with the current configuration.

"I'll just—" you moved in closer to him and maneuvered the pointer to click off the program. You closed the tab. Ryland slid the laptop in your tote for you.

"All good?" He asked.

"Yeah. Let's go," you said.

Felice had been watching you this entire time with a small smile on her face. Her back was towards the professor, fortunately. You bade her good-bye.

"Bye, Mrs. Lind," said Ryland, pointing at you. "I gotta borrow her first."

"Oh, I don't mind, Dr. Grace. Go have fun," Felice joked. That would've earned her a slap on the shoulder, if you were next to her. You were positive that your ears were burning behind your hair.

As always, Ryland opened the door for you and let you step outside first, and as always, you avoided locking eyes with him. He assumed his place beside you right away as you walked down the hallway.

"I hope I didn't disturb anything important," he said. You shook your head.

"Not at all. We were just working. And chatting."

Ryland smiled. "About…?"

The expression was too contagious. You looked away and settled on giving Ryland half of the truth. "Her daughter's ballet recital."

A look of surprise flashed across his features. "Oh! Sophie's the ballerina, right?"

"Yeah."

"I really admire ballet dancers," Ryland said. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "It's such a grueling, rigorous art form, but they make it look so effortless."

"Have you ever been to a show?"

"Oh, no — I haven't, unfortunately. I do want to. Someday. But I don't know, it makes me feel like a fish out of water. I've never really been an artsy person, y'know? The most I've done is a mobile solar system aaall those years back, when I was starting out as a teacher. Performing arts is not my forte."

"It's good that you no one's asked you to dance, then," you snorted.

Ryland rolled his eyes. "Hey. I meant to say that I fear it'll be lost on me, because I don't have the… the sensibilities, to really appreciate art. I'm not well-versed in analyzing it. That's what I mean."

"Okay, Dr. Grace," you conceded, amused by how flustered he was from your joke. "If it makes you feel better, I don't have the ear for opera. But I like it. Especially 'The Magic Flute'."

"What's that?"

"It's an opera. By Mozart."

"Mmh," Ryland pursed his lips. "Yeah, don't know that one either."

"That bad, huh?"

He pouted at you. "I read Weathering Heights in tenth grade, mind you!"

You couldn't help the burst of laughter that bubbled up from your throat. "It's 'wuthering'! Not 'weathering'!"

The crease between his brows grew deeper and the pout became more pronounced. "'Wuthering' is not a real word."

Your eyes narrowed at him. "It so is."

"I don't believe it," Ryland shook his head. He peered at you, and he smiled. That's when you put two and two together and figured out that he was just riling you up.

"It is," you asserted. Your cheeks were burning again. "I know, because I've read that book too. All of the Brontës' main works, even Gaskell's and Austen's."

"Is that what you were watching earlier? The period film?"

You recalled that he had snooped a bit at your screen when he assisted you back in the faculty room.

"Yeah. Persuasion, 1995."

"You've read the book, too?"

"Yes. I read it every Christmas. It's my favorite."

"Why's that?"

"It's Austen's most romantic work, in my opinion," you said. "Also the most… gut-wrenching, I guess?"

"Mm-hm?"

You glanced at Ryland again. "Basically, Anne Elliot — the heroine — rejected Frederick Wentworth because she was persuaded by a friend to do so."

"Oh, you said the thing," Ryland smiled.

You laughed. "Yeah, so, eight years later, they meet again, and Anne realizes that she still very much loves Wentworth. But the kicker is that he isn't really paying much attention to her, and this time around, he's flirting with her friends. Well, with a friend of Anne's — Louisa — since Henrietta was engaged to someone else… But eventually the reader finds out that Wentworth still loves Anne, too, even after being rejected. He's also hoping that she wants him back, so he waits. He follows her to Bath — that's a name of a place —"

"Another made-up word," teased Ryland, amused yet engrossed by your story-telling.

You gave him a look. "…and he tells her that he wants to marry her."

Ryland hummed, taking in all of what you said. "D'you have a favorite quote from the book?"

"Oh, sure. Quotes, actually. In plural. They're from Wentworth's letter to Anne near the end. And then there's also the 'furniture' one—"

"Furniture?" Ryland laughed.

"Yeah. 'A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world,' is the line. I laughed so hard when I first read that."

You entered the laboratory and set your things at the desk in the middle of the room. Ryland slipped past you so he could bring the box of nitrile gloves over to where you were.

"Personally, I like Wentworth's letter more. Something about the 'half agony, half hope' thing really gets me." You said, putting your hair up before plucking a pair.

He was smiling as he put on his own. He left you briefly to attend to another matter.

"Why, have you ever been in that kind of situation?" Ryland asked. You couldn't see his face as he was busy at the fume hood, but you read his tone clearly. He was trying to tease you again.

Fair enough, you thought. You'd been taking shots at him since earlier. He could have his fun.

"Not really. I've been on the more hopeful side for a while now, and there's not much to agonize about." You replied, seizing the opportunity to hurl a loaded statement his way.

Ryland returned with a stack of Petri dishes cradled in his hands, all containing different strains of whichever bacteria. He laid them out before you one by one, carefully and neatly; his head bowed and posture somewhat meditative.

You couldn't help but watch. He always assumed so reverent, so cautious an air whenever he was in the lab; treating every instrument and apparatus as though he were depositing a newborn lamb upon a pile of hay.

It's almost hypnotic. He was always in his most attractive state when he's focusing. Each movement of his hands was so precise, so… practiced, and assured. None of that usual clumsiness when he's in his office, classroom, or in the hallways. Not that you were more predisposed to find fault in him — no, that wasn't the case — you were simply thankful and inclined to admire him in this one.

You loved seeing Ryland like this. It's one of those beautiful instances where he embodied the spirit of his last name, and you were a witness favored and chosen by the Lord to gaze upon the brilliance of his creation.

Ryland caught you staring. He resorted to smiling at his work on the table. "And do you mean that in an academic or a personal way?" He asked.

His eyes flickered to you over his glasses. Though you were busying yourself with placing the prepped slides onto each of the microscopes — an attempt to recover and hide from having been found out — you were able to catch the look and hold onto its remnants as you slipped into the same solemn mood, despite your heart threatening to escape from your chest.

"Both," you replied, quiet and sincere, with just the right tinge of seriousness to impress the shape of your affection unto Ryland's heart. "It's partly thanks to you," you added.

"Me?"

"Yeah, I mean… I'm not always swamped with TA work because you don't dump it all on me."

He was closer to you now — he took an empty slide, and with a pipette, dotted it with a droplet of water.

"I'm not spoiling you, am I?" The lilt in Ryland's voice prompted you to smile.

"I don't know, you tell me," you kidded.

He didn't say anything at first. Instead, he pointed to one of the agar cultures. "Pass me another dish, please."

You paused. "Which one?"

"Vibrio vulnificus."

You shuffled over the Petri dishes and placed the glassware onto his opened palm. Ryland thanked you.

"I don't put too much on your plate because I want you to focus on your dissertation," he said as he scraped some of the bacteria off the agar and transferred them to the slide. "You've got a record to maintain, and I respect that. I don't want to impede you in any way."

"But by contract, I am your TA. You should be putting me to work."

Ryland glanced your way. Like he was wishing you hadn't reminded him of that — but he took that back, even if the effort was a mere afterthought.

"Yes, which is why you're here with me, doing lab prep. One more slide, please." He said.

You obliged him.

"I'm grateful for it." You added.

"For what?"

"For your… reasonable leniency."

Ryland smiled at the culture dish. He found your careful choice of words interesting. "It's my pleasure. Y'know, for a moment there, I thought you were going to accuse me of favoritism," he chuckled. He set the slide aside and told you to let it air-dry.

You handed him another dish with a different organism and a new slide. He spoke as he continued his work.

"The way I see it, it's not favoritism if you're the only TA I took. Favoritism requires other equally meritorious options who are overlooked because one is more favored."

You decided to load the Erlenmeyer flasks onto the autoclave so you didn't have to stand there and do nothing. You wanted to argue that your being the only TA was, in itself, a form of favoritism, but you knew better than to step into a trap of your own making.

Technically, though, he was correct. He couldn't have a favorite if there's only you working under him. Maybe the better word was "coddling". Or "Spoiling", like he said earlier. You maintained, however, that Ryland's explanation was such a long-winded way of saying that you couldn't fault him for his treatment towards you. You've got nothing on me, was the spirit of his statement.

You elected to keep your mouth shut.

Ryland cut through your pondering after a while. "Do you think it's a bad thing?"

You almost jumped out of your skin when he appeared on your left. He started taking out the pipettes from the cabinet.

"What is?" You asked.

"In another scenario where I took other TAs and I dubbed you as my favorite." He said, refusing to meet your inquisitive gaze. "Hypothetically, of course."

You shrugged and busied yourself with setting the cycle for the flasks you'd loaded in the autoclave. "If it impairs your judgment, then yes. Hypothetically."

You heard Ryland smile. "Good answer."

———

Your relationship with clichés — in any context and reality — often fluctuated.

Sometimes they were alright. Clichés were predictable. Tolerable. Familiar. They offered comfort and a sense of safety, almost, especially if they operated within the universe of a piece of media that you liked. If well-written, you could gloss over them; appreciate, and even rejoice in their presence.

After all, who didn't love a feel-good show, movie, or book where everything would go well, and every problem thrown in the way of the protagonists or the main couple was resolved before the narrative came to an end?

You'd be lying if you said that you didn't start cheering when the Great Eagles arrived to assist Aragorn and rescue Frodo and Sam, upon your first viewing of The Return of the King. Or when, despite Lady Catherine's threatening and insulting remarks about Elizabeth Bennet's connections and status, the latter ended up marrying Mr. Darcy and becoming mistress of Pemberley by the end of the novel, regardless of the censure she had experienced.

But in other instances, your favor towards such predictable endings flounced when you were, instead, looking for conflict. A dusting of human complexity portrayed in fiction that reminded you of your own flaws, or at least a fresher perspective to an otherwise reliable outcome. You wanted a challenge every now and then. Something that would come out of left field and blindside you.

Because, to you, that was good exercise. Not everything in this world was going to go your way. As much as you hated this lesson when you first became an adult, it was a necessary and indispensable fact about your current position in life.

Conflict was the universe's way of making sure that you'd grow, time and time again, into a better version of yourself. That you'd shed every layer of childish egotism and impatience, like an onion being stripped of its strata. Yes, even if that literally and figuratively made you cry. You had no choice. You stopped having the choice to revert to your jejune ways as soon as you blew the candles on your eighteenth birthday cake.

"No more crying to your mama", as Miss Hayley Williams so famously sang in her song. Suck it up! Take it on the chin. You're on your own now.

But certain kinds of conflict, at times, continued to inconvenience and disturb you, even with your multitudes of fail-safes and hardened maturity. And, like a cherry on top, they were clichés in and of themselves, too.

You wished you weren't one of the main actors in the conflict in which you found yourself this morning. You could easily deal with it, had it been a simple screw-up or misunderstanding. You'd grown mature and knowledgeable enough to worm your way out of such things. People were usually willing to listen and be persuaded to think in a different way, if you were skilled and believable when making your counter-arguments. Not every dispute was going to end in further discord and hostility, if you just talked it out.

How you wished it was that easy.

This one proved to be of a stickier and more problematic nature, because you couldn't possibly go around convincing everyone of a certain mind the contrary to their belief, which they held onto fast, as made obvious by some prying stares that were thrown you way while en route to Ryland's office.

Defensiveness, and excessive and overt denial, too, weren't going to help your case; these would only assert the contrary. You'd only lose. You'd be every bit as guilty of the crime that public opinion had pinned onto your previously sanctified and pristine name.

Really, it's like you stepped onto campus, totally carefree and unaware of your imminent charge, and then a metaphorical officer of the law began reading a twisted version of the Miranda warning to your face before you could make your way to Ryland's office, a week following the practical test that you facilitated with your respective supervising faculty.

"Anything you say about your current relationship with Dr. Ryland Grace can and will be used against you in a court of law. Your only attorney is yourself, and we're all inclined to over-exaggerate the facts, and misconstrue anything that will come out of your mouth and anything that you've done and you'll do. You can't do shit."

You shouldn't have been surprised. Like a cliché, you should have seen this coming. You should have anticipated it. You should've this, you should've that. Ugh. If this was a snake, it would have pounced on you and latched its fangs onto your face this very instant.

Your mother liked using that statement to ridicule your inability to find things in plain sight. But it hardly ever stung then. It was annoying, at best. To a seven-year-old, that snake wasn't real. It couldn't possibly bite you and kill you with its venom.

At twenty-seven, however, the snake was very much real. Now you were writhing in figurative pain on the inside as Linh grilled you by the coffee maker, having just returned from your weekly meet-up with Ryland.

"Even Salazar asked me about it," she said as she poured the dark liquid into her mug. "So is it true? Are you and Grace dating?"

"Jesus, no," you whispered. You massaged your temples. "Why is this coming up now? Seriously, it's like something happened overnight that I don't even know!"

"Have you checked the forum?"

You took your hand away from your face after a comical beat. You hadn't considered that yet. "Which one?"

"The one that the undergrads use more. The more gossip-y one."

Your stare turned severe. You dove for your phone, fishing it out of your tote and quickly navigating your way to the illicit site and scrolling to the latest thread under Ryland's name. Linh was, in an instant, standing by your side and peering into the screen.

Then you found it. There, in untouched pale blue, the title of the post read: DRG and TA dating?

"DRG" was the "anonymous" acronym that the students used for Ryland. And "TA", well… that was a no-brainer. You tapped on the hyperlink as you chewed on your lower lip.

The root cause of the debacle was posted only hours ago. Someone had been awake at the ass crack of dawn just to write this slanderous post about you and Ryland, and now that they had launched it onto the ether, the students were feasting upon it like a bunch of rabid dogs.

The original poster, under the username @ biocrybaby, bemoaned the following in the form of a "confession":

CONFESSION #3987 is it just me, or are DRG and his TA dating?? like. i've seen them get coffee so many times before the 8 am lab on thursdays. even during the lab classes, like they look at each other a lot and he even calls her by her first name. the few times that i went to DRG's office, i even saw his TA sitting at his desk!! she said he "lets her do that when he leaves early" 🙄🙄 yeah girl, as fucking if. she talks to him and about him like she's fucking him outside office hours. probs for extra credit or smth. idk. i swear they're 100% dating and it's so unfair. how is this even allowed? like this is some HR violation, right???

You had an idea about who this could be. Earlier this month, three female students dropped by Ryland's office, saying that they were looking for him to clarify some question on the assignment that you posted the night prior on the LMS.

Their faces literally dropped when they saw you there instead of their professor, who had to leave early since he was planning on meeting a friend at a nearby restaurant —someone from his doctorate days, he told you — and he gave you the green light to use his space to finish any remaining work that you had for the day.

You explained all of this to the girls, and when you kindly offered your own services to enlighten them about the parameters of the assignment, they all made up an excuse to leave and book it out of there right away.

Since then, they'd been looking at you funny every time Grace assigned you to a lecture and whenever you supervised lab sessions. You reckon it was either one of those girls. It had to be.

You read on. The comments, you found, were a mixed bag of pro and contra. And weird. Very weird.

@ ishicrab: what a nothingburger post. so many other profs and tas literally do the whole grabbing coffee shit. ur just jealous of her. @ wishigotpaidpiper: WHATTT NO WAY I THOUGHT HE WAS SINGLEEE 😭😭😭😭😭 @ mickeroo: Seconding @ ishicrab's comment. Are you sure you're also a student of DRG?? I'm in his lec and lab classes too, and anyone with two working eyes and a brain would know that they aren't dating. She barely even looks at him during lab because she's busy making rounds so we don't accidentally inhale or touch toxic and infectious shit. #cope lol get well soon OP this is a literal disease you have @ fuchsiafake: man yall are too focused on DRG here haha his TA is way hotter @ dragonoverlord: yeahh actually i did see them walking along the quadrangle together a few times before, like talking and laughing and shit. they're def dating. @ meesterworm: DRG??? of ALL PEOPLE?? you're fucking insane if you think that man has enough game to bag his TA. bsfr op @ yougogoyubari: yeah, u lost me at the "sleeping with DRG for extra credits part". if u knew anything abt that student and her track record u wouldn't be stupid enough to say that. girlie's literally got her undergrad thesis published and i heard she graduated summa cum laude. ur reaching 😬

A familiar username on the longest comment appended under the post popped up while you were scrolling further down the mess.

@ felicimommae: As a fellow TA from the department, please delete this shitty piece of RPF right now. This isn't the funny and trivial "confession" that you think this is. The TA that you're trying to slander is a respectable student and coworker. I know her personally and I can confidently say that she and DRG aren't dating. You know what I think could be a better use of your time instead of writing your jealousy-fueled RPF at five in the morning? Studying for your finals. But I guess you really can't help it, considering you're basically known on this site for thirstposting about DRG since your freshman year, along with so many others. Zip it if you can't actually provide cold hard proof. You could get expelled or sued for this. Hope you got good a lawyer.

Yeah, that was Felice, alright.

The commenter's identity was proven right away when she sent you a screenshot of the post some time during the day — while you had just finished teaching the morning blocks — and she updated you that one of the moderators had locked the thread due to "targeted harassment" and "unsubstantiated rumors regarding university staff".

When you forgot to reply, Felice took Camden's usual place at your table and touched base with you during lunch.

"I'm honestly just waiting for Cohen to call me in his office," you sighed, sipping on your latte ruefully. "I'm not scared or anything, because the allegations aren't true at all. My conscience is clean. I'm just… I'm so bummed out."

Felice gave an understanding nod. "I knew something like this would happen," she scoffed. "Grace and his rabid fan girls… Christ. I feel for the man. Literally just minding his own business and then something like this happens. Have you talked to each other today at all?"

"Yeah, but not about this. He doesn't seem to know anything about it."

"Yet," Felice added. You sank deeper into your seat.

Okay, so maybe you lied. You were scared.

You were subsequently proven wrong in your aforementioned presumption when, upon your arrival at the door of the department head later that afternoon — Dr. Cohen had sent you an email, like you expected, in which he required your presence in his office regarding the forum post that was published this morning — Ryland came out of the room before you could even twist the knob yourself.

His emergence implied one clear conclusion: he was called for the same reason, and thus was in equal confidence regarding the matter.

The scene was so oddly reminiscent of when Elizabeth was called upon her father's study in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. You and Ryland exchanged knowing glances as you passed each other by; however, they were, unfortunately, not of the quietly triumphant kind like those of the aforementioned Austenian characters.

Yours was of apprehension. And Ryland's — resignation.

The resulting gust of air that swished by your person as he slipped past you was unbearably cold. He didn't even deign to speak to you. Did he think it was your fault? Surely not. You knew Ryland well enough to dispel any possibility of his pointing fingers at you. You weren't at fault here. You didn't ask or want for this to happen.

For now, you had to compartmentalize. You had to think of your own good first. Your degree, reputation, and life's work were on the line. This was one of those instances where being selfish was encouraged and considered justified. You were not going to lose all of those to the puerile assertions of an undergrad who was ignorant about the real-life consequences of such slanderous declarations.

You pressed on. You stepped into the office, fully assuming the responsibilities of a sensible adult, so you could be your own counsel and defend yourself.

The following conversation was painless enough, as Dr. Cohen ripped the bandaid from the very beginning. He wasted no time by forgoing to stand on ceremony, informing you right away about the incident — which was reported, you found out, by a junior faculty who was a user on the site — and asking you to corroborate Ryland's statement.

You replied accordingly. "I do not have any romantic relations with Dr. Grace. I'm only performing my duties as a TA under him, and if I had shown any behavior that might have suggested otherwise, I don't intend them to be interpreted that way."

"But you two are on… friendly terms, yes?"

"Yes. I don't deny that."

"Ryland also said that earlier. Don't worry, I believe you both. The claims that were made against you," he pulled out a printed copy of the forum post from underneath a folder, "—were obviously malicious, so I doubt that it actually had any merit outside the whims of a… of an immature undergrad." Dr. Cohen chuckled.

You, on the other, hand, couldn't find anything funny about this. He noticed your lack of reciprocation and cleared his throat. He clasped his hands atop the pile of papers on his desk.

"Anyway, do know that this won't reflect on any of your records. Yours or your supervising faculty's, if that worries you as well. The investigation and the disciplinary action will mostly revolve around the student. We don't take matters like this lightly, especially since it's a clear violation of conduct and policy. That's all. You may go."

You exited the office feeling like you had just gone through a thousand wars. Trudging towards the elevator, you messaged all three of your friends about the entire ordeal. Even the way that Ryland practically brushed you off. Camden was the first to comfort you.

You sighed. Now you knew what he felt like when he had to talk to Cohen last semester.

You were in the clear. That troublesome kid was going to get what's coming to her. You should be relieved, really, that you weren't reprimanded or penalized for this — but as you punched the floor number of the lecture hall where you had to teach next, you couldn't find it in you to rejoice in the outcome of the recent conversation.

Intimate familiarity with Ryland; with his inclinations, and his temperament, was a double-edged sword. You could predict him. You could plan ahead to synchronize with him and exercise safety so as not to offend him. You knew what he liked and what he didn't like. Hell, even his addiction to sour Skittles was no secret to you.

But this incident, according to your most intelligent guess, would have sounded every alarm there was within Ryland, and consequently incited him to begin enforcing a considerable distance between him and you; ultimately demoting you to the rank of nothing more than a mere colleague to which he's temporarily bound by a contract that was to end a week before your dissertation defense.

You rested your head against the cool surface of the elevator car wall. Counting the remaining days of your torture, you had to tough out almost a month before you were home free; unfettered from the code of conduct and made capable of ridding yourself of this nightmare.

———

Had you been in a different situation, you'd have been elated by the thought of being in the right. For being vindicated and assured that you believed and asserted was the truth universally accepted by the world. The classic and most rewarding ego-stroke that a secretly proud individual like you would normally revel in.

But in this case, you were wishing that your conjectures hadn't been proven right.

What ensued for the next three weeks was nothing short of hellish; painful, and unfair — for Ryland began acting according to what you so dreadfully foresaw following the incident regarding the malicious post made about the two of you.

Not once, since the very first day on which you worked as his TA, did you give cause for others — both the student body and the higher-ups — to believe that you liked Ryland as someone more than a boss and a mentor.

Yes, you did like Ryland. But no one needed to know about that. (No one except your friends, that is.) You had accepted this truth since the day you decided to be honest with yourself, and you were ready to do everything it would take to keep your slate free from any moral smudge.

You had even prided yourself in your endeavor to succeed in this area. Every measure, every step which you had to take in order to keep your conscience spotless was consummated with utmost attention to detail and meticulousness. No lingering looks when you two weren't alone. No unnecessary touches. No irrelevant conversations during class hours. You did your work, and you did it well. You were friendly towards Ryland when the situation called for amity.

What little freedom you did have for the subtlest flirtatious remark or act, you enjoyed within the strict limits of the position in which you were stationed.

You were in control. Well, you thought you were in control. Until you weren't.

The knee-jerk reaction that you had espoused was to blame yourself. Maybe you really weren't being careful enough. Maybe you were too caught up in your own proud fortress of adult egotism to see that you'd been fraying at the seams. Maybe it really was foolish to think that you could overcome the forces of love with your conscientious rationality, and the relevant methods which you had developed over the years from the impetus of your personality.

After all, one of the hallmarks of a venerable saint was humility. You were the exact opposite of that. Your latent and unchecked hubris, over the domain of being the "girl who knew just what to say and do", led you to your own fall, or in this case, the ruination of your chances to try your hand at convincing Ryland that taking a risk with you was worth it.

It's pathetic. It's pathetic, embarrassing, and deeply uncharacteristic, but it was true. You were hurt. And it was partly due to your own negligence. You had softened your grip, and now, you were suffering from the consequences of your oversight.

The symptoms of this infection first came in the abrogation of your meet-ups with Ryland in his office. You came to his office, as usual, expecting to find him there to get your instructions for this week, but he was nowhere to be seen. In his wake remained only his yellow raincoat, his messenger bag, and whatever nondescript implements there were on his desk.

You checked your phone, and sure enough, he had sent you an email. Everything he needed to tell you was on the correspondence, down to the minutest detail. None of his previous warmth and humor was to be gleaned from the construction of the message either. It was like reading a damn terms and conditions document. Sterile, unfeeling, and impersonal.

Ryland's temperament around you adopted those attributes too. Telling yourself that you had seen this coming was but a coping mechanism. Every time he reduced his manner of address to your last name and withdrew his formerly enthused greetings whenever you passed each other in the halls or you came to be in the same room, the open laceration in your heart turned rawer and more tender.

You were lucky if his hand was forced, and he'd condescend to dole out a stiff nod; like you hadn't just moved past the milestone of divulging to each other the music you used to listen to in your younger years and your hidden undergraduate woes two weeks ago.

But two could play this game. You weren't going to fall to your knees and beg Ryland to readmit you into his good graces (you were beginning to despise that word—why did his last name need to be a noun?!). You doubled-down; you rebuilt your walls fashioned from pride; you reinforced them with the mounting resentment from this treatment you'd been receiving.

If Ryland wanted to be cold, you'd be colder. If he made himself scarce, you'd be a ghost. And you'd do a good fucking job at it. Because that's who you were. That's what you'd been taught to be. Strong, sure, and in control. Even when everything around you was falling apart and disagreeing with every move you made.

In your most quiet moments, you let yourself craft wishful conjectures about what could be going on in Ryland's head. Beneath that exterior, he was quite a sensitive guy. Though he wasn't too perceptive about the grander ideas that people had about his character, he wasn't that numb within one-on-one relationships. Especially when it came to you.

Ryland, too, had known you enough to expertly read your mood, along with every corresponding shift, should they be present. No matter how hard you tried to keep your emotions under lock and key, they were all laid bare for him to see, like you were just wearing them on your sleeve, regardless of intent or premeditation.

He would've noticed the changes you had also implemented. With the semester coming to a close and the efficiency with which you had always been operating, it left you with less and less work to do as his TA, and more opportunities for you to bury yourself and hide under the safety of your dissertation.

Whenever you weren't teaching the sections assigned to you, you'd spend your time holed up at your desk in the research lab of your PI, or in the library, typing and grinding away to clear the last three chapters of your final manuscript. You spent more time with your friends, too, who were privy to the changes in your disposition these last couple of weeks.

You were all huddled in a booth at one of the in-campus cafes after your respective shifts had concluded, and were giving each other a run-down of your week to catch up, and to share what you were all planning to do post-graduation ceremony. You volunteered to go last. You didn't want to bum everyone out prematurely.

Linh went first. She was going on a European cruise after graduation with her parents, and then it was back to the States for her. Camden was going to teach at another university on the other side of the country — he wanted to start somewhere fresh, and to see some new sights and meet new people after having been in the West coast for literally the entire course of his life.

As for Felice, she'd be one step closer to her childhood dream of becoming a pathologist. The next stage was med school after graduation, but she said that she'd be taking a year off to spend some time with her family first. Grad school sort of took Felice away from her daughters and her wife; they were all due for some bonding before another few years would require her to juggle motherhood and her dreams again.

In your case, you were, once again, gifted by your grandmother the opportunity to work at a research laboratory in the Bay — it was a 'she knew a friend who knew a friend' situation, and upon her hearing that you were soon to finish your doctorate, she wasted no time making calls to inform them of a potential candidate that came in the form of, well… you.

To be sure, you wanted these people to hire you based on merit, and not because of your grandmother's machinations. She did promise to not meddle too much. And you were banking on that. Your CV was impressive, and you weren't lacking in your sources of recommendations, should you need them.

The three, were, however, more honed in on your account that you and Ryland hadn't been on (in-person) speaking terms with each other since that post reached Cohen's — and the entire faculty's — cognizance. You laid down every detail there was to spill, and every accompanying emotional harm that that was causing you as the days went on.

"So… does this mean you've sworn him off? No more planned declarations of love after graduation?" Camden asked you, pouting as he realized that the pairing he'd been rooting for since last semester was disappearing like the last hiemal traces that carried over from the past season.

You shrugged. "I honestly don't know. I've been focusing more on my dissertation nowadays, though, so I'm… sort of indifferent to him. But that's only because I'm drowning myself in work. If I so much as think about how bad it all had become, I'd start feeling miserable."

"Now I know why you archived the photo that you took together before winter break." Camden sighed. "It's my favorite post of yours, too."

Oh, yeah. That. Somebody had suggested that each of the TAs should take a commemorative photo with their supervising faculty before the dinner ended, and so that meant you and Ryland had your shot together, too.

He was so handsome that night that it was literally hurting your feelings. He put on a more structured suit then — owing to the spirit of the occasion and the fact that most of his older colleagues were present — but his hair was, as always his crowning glory. The soft, slightly overgrown tufts framed his ever-fetching face, and were mussed in just the right way that had your stomach doing somersaults, if that was even physically possible.

That was the nearest you'd ever gotten to Ryland — you could smell his shampoo within that measly rift of less than three inches, and despite his prim presentation, he was radiating every imaginable band of nervousness there was on the planet.

But the photo turned out great. You posted it on Instagram, tagged him in the caption that said "with @ r_grace" and went to bed. You woke up that morning to the photo having garnered upwards of a hundred likes and a bunch of comments from your friends teasing you and asking you who Ryland was. Your grandmother even asked you if he was your boyfriend. You wished he was.

Now that memento had been chucked to the depths of your archive. You couldn't bear to look at it, especially after things froze over between you and Ryland.

"I don't get it," Linh leaned forward. She forked at her half-eaten vegetable medley salad. "What, was he suddenly disgusted with himself or something?"

"They're both consenting adults," Camden chimed in. "And it's not like he met her when she wasn't one. It was in junior year, right?"

You nodded. "Yes. Second semester."

Felice weighed in on the conversation this time. "I think that the forum post kinda hit a nerve in him. That's my leading theory. Because let's be honest… based on what our dear friend has been reporting to us since last year, the allegations — or at least the suggestion that Ryland likes her, isn't totally untrue."

"Codenames only! We're in public," interjected Linh.

"Right, sorry. DRG, I mean." Felice snorted, knowing how futile it was to hide his identity. "Anyway, that's how I see it. I think he's trying to, y'know, make a noble sacrifice by distancing himself."

"Yeah, but it's hurting her."

"And himself!" Camden said. "He's shooting himself in the foot, too."

"Knowing him," you began, "Felice is probably right. He definitely won't show up to my dissertation defense next week at this rate." You buried your face in your hands. "And to think that he even promised…"

Linh wrapped her arms around you, and for once, you permitted yourself to be physically comforted by your friend. You let out a sigh that came from deep within your weary heart. Pretending to be frigid and serious was no easy feat, and you could feel the scores that your body had been keeping.

"You think he'll go to the party?" You asked.

Camden and Felice shared a mutually unsure look. That didn't bode too well for you.

———

You should be celebrating.

You defended your dissertation successfully last Monday, after almost two hours of being cloistered in that conference room where you thought you were going to vomit your heart out. Perhaps it may not have been wise to gauge whether or not you'd get your degree from the reactions of the committee — all of their faces were stone-cold and serious; the most you got were approving nods while you were discussing the methodology and the results, but after that, there was nothing else.

They told you to wait outside after you concluded your presentation, and then after maybe ten minutes of deliberation (or what you thought was deliberation; they probably just talked about what they had going on for the upcoming weekend), they ushered you back in, and finally, congratulated you with the title 'doctor' attached to your last name.

Ryland, of course, was no where to be found. You didn't try looking for him either; nor did you shoot him a message to let him know that you were done with the defense. You had no formal ties with him. The contract of your being his teaching assistant ended a week prior, and you'd been mostly on your own or with either of your three friends — all equally successful in their defenses as well.

You met with your grandmother at an izakaya that night to celebrate. Dinner was on her, as you expected, and she let you talk her ear off about your defense, since she was, like you, a woman of the academe herself in her youth. She asked you about any intentions of getting your recent paper published, to which you replied that you were considering that. It's just that your chief concern, as of the moment, was to sleep.

You hadn't been getting much of that lately due to the work you had to put into finishing the manuscript and the nights you laid awake thinking of what could have been between Ryland and you. You wished you could say that you were kept sleepless by the former instead of the latter. But, alas; you were only human. Your heart wasn't made of stone like you hoped it would be after being hardened by the consecutive barrage of challenges of adulthood. Tough body, soft interior. You might have even shed a few tears or so.

Your thoughts kept on drifting back to those nights as you nursed on the peach highball before you — the only drink that was allowed to be served at the year-end party organized by your department — sitting pretty at the bar with Linh and Camden on either side of you. Well, Camden's seat was currently vacant because he was changing the song on the jukebox at the far end of the room.

Felice couldn't make it — she had her own celebration with her girls, and thus only wished the three of you to have fun tonight in the text message she sent earlier.

The event being managed by the department meant that the place you had gone to was, to put it simply, a favorite of older adults. It was a vintage-themed bistro beloved by the more senior faculty members, and apparently they'd been taking the students here whenever they requested a semestral end party.

You appreciated the place. Having been partially raised by your grandmother, you were used to "old people stuff": older music, clothes, books… It's why Melissa Manchester, Anne Murray, and Karen Carpenter (among many others) made common appearances in the rotation of your daily commute. You knew their songs by heart and you'd sing the words out loud whenever you're behind the wheel.

You once spent an entire year just reading classic novels, too, and you were proud to admit that almost half of the clothing you owned were pieces from your aunts that they passed down to you. Fabrics in the '80s and '90s were so much better than the piles of polyester junk that had proliferated the racks of most outlets nowadays — you'd consider it a miracle if you stumbled upon a top made in the current decade that was composed of more cotton than plastic.

A part of you scoffed when you hypothesized that perhaps that's the reason why you were somewhat forgiving of the gap between you and Ryland. You're familiar with what was in vogue when he was your age, and he was similarly literate of the spheres in which you existed.

The thing with familiarity — particularly once it reached a certain point — was its inherent characteristic to breed contempt. You hated how obdurate Ryland was in his conviction to be principled to the point of driving you away from him. And you were pretty sure that he was just as irritated with your retaliation, all so he could feel what he was doing to you, too.

In other words: you were in a stalemate. And both of you were just too proud to admit defeat.

As if the universe was mocking you, Camden happened to put on a Chaka Khan track before he returned to your table. He ordered another glass of chuu-hi as he hopped onto his seat.

Linh was the only one without a drink. She had driven you and Camden here since you were all planning to bounce and transfer to an "unsanctioned" venue once the time hit ten o'clock — you didn't really want to drink here, either, but you got one to appease the faculty, since this was going to be on their tab.

You instead wanted to dance the sadness away; maybe get drunk, and then go home and sleep like a baby. And then cry again, and dread that you were going to have to shake Ryland's hand a week later at the graduation ceremony, mutually sober as a judge, like you two hadn't been flirting near a microscope just last month.

"Sorry about Ryland," Linh said, leaning in close so you were the only one who could hear her words of sympathy. The rest of the students and the department staff were situated around your general vicinity, but at this point, you really didn't care if they overheard.

It's not like they'd ever know the context, anyway.

"Never apologize for a man's behavior, rule number one," you said.

"Right, right." Linh shook her head. "I wish I could sock him in the face."

You scoffed. "Me too."

Camden rested his arms on the counter as he moved into your space. You turned to him.

"I heard from Dr. Kaplan that Grace is still at the laboratory," he said, grinning at you. "Finishing a grant proposal, I think was what he said. I don't know." He nudged you. "You should go check."

You downed your drink out of spite, even if some part of your proud resolve was beginning to crumble. "Hell no."

"Pride will get you nowhere," Camden pushed. "It's now or never."

You turned to Linh. She had on that same wicked smile from way back at the restaurant when you learned that Ryland was single.

"Come on, you bruised my leg for this. And that shit took a week to heal! Here — there's two ways this could go, if you say yes and I drive you back to campus," she plucked two peanuts from the ramekin in front of her to illustrate her narration. "One: Ryland brushes you off, and tells you that you 'shouldn't be engaging in romantic entanglements with a university faculty member'; or, two: you give him hell, make him spill his own beans and tell you that he's got the hots for you too, and… you walk on that stage next week with a stupidly hot boyfriend who will probably treat you better than guys your age."

"Okay, first of all—"

"Ugh, you're not in front of the committee anymore! Stop trying to justify yourself!" Camden groaned.

"This isn't fair," you turned your chin up. "You're coercing me."

Linh rolled her eyes. "We are giving you two outcomes. Just choose which one you want. You either walk out of this mess with tears in your eyes and fall asleep listening to The One That Got Away for the next couple of days, or you get your man and emerge a victorious woman!"

If you were being totally honest, you weren't that strong as to resist Linh's arguments, nor were you willing to stick with the first ending and swallow your Jupiter-sized pride. Besides, it wasn't such a bad idea. You didn't want this thorn lodged in your side to continue torturing you for longer.

Because if you were to be really honest with yourself, you're no saint. That's only an endearing title of appreciation that your friends gave to you, in light of your fastidious dedication to the flourishing of your career. You were a saint for science. But for love? Fuck no.

You're too weak to deserve the appellative in that particular area of life. You're a Jonah afraid of your own Nineveh. You're a mere mortal who sins and does everything wrong every once in a while. There's no use treading that path of martyrdom for a cause that was only making you suffer. You couldn't get swallowed by the biblical fish even if a god willed it. In this episode of utter romantic anguish, you were to obtain neither gold nor glory for your sacrifice.

This was your time to stumble and fall and run into a wall. To stop being the girl who knew just what to say and do all the goddamn time, because frankly, it's tiring. You were sick of it. Sick of your own need for competence and perfection. You ought to direct that effort unto more appropriate things.

And surely, heaven could spare you from judgment if you so decide to err now.

So you mapped out, right there on that rustic bar stool, what you were going to do. You'd give Ryland a piece of your mind, burn off the loose ends of your strained, fading relationship if need be, and… see where things go from there. Either way, you'd be free from the burden of this slog of a problem that wasn't even born out of your own doing.

Good plan. You put your glass down and looked Linh in the eye.

"Fine. Drive me back to campus," you declared.

Linh cheered. "Yes!"

The three of you made your untimely exit under the pretense of an emergency, not anymore caring about what the other attendees were going to think.

You rode shotgun and fastened your seatbelt as Linh turned on the engine. The university wasn't too far from here — only a ten-minute drive and then some to get you to the natural sciences building. That was enough time for you to prepare yourself for what was to come.

You offered every prayer up to the skies when you saw your ID in your purse upon entry. Linh and Camden weren't so lucky; they had to stay put at the parking lot. They weren't allowed into the premises as they didn't bring theirs, so you were left to make the trek to and up the department alone, carrying with you your friends' good wishes; your thumping heart, and your steeled, renewed resolve to figure out where you stood within Ryland's.

Security was surprised to see you when you came into the doors. You told them you forgot something in one of the labs — a bluff that they believed, thus granting you admission to the empty upper floors.

You studied yourself in the gleaming elevator car walls as you waited to get off on the floor you had selected. Tonight, you were no longer the straight-laced, meticulous TA who autoclaved and calibrated laboratory equipment and taught classes in the morning. Earlier, while getting ready, you whipped out the fitted, off-shoulder black top that you inherited from an aunt, and the matching dark plaid skirt which you partnered with thigh-cut boots. Your hair was down, too.

The ensemble was a stark contrast to the image that you had so thoughtfully curated over the past five years of plodding towards the doctorate that you now held in your palms. Or at least after you hand in your revised manuscript, and walk the stage next week Friday.

The clicking of your heels echoed down the halls, and was made more pronounced as your anxiety and impatience waxed. You could hear, too, amid the rhythmic noises, the keychain that dangled from the D-ring of your purse. It's the Lady Liberty one — the souvenir that Ryland bought for you at the New York conference. You couldn't bring yourself to disown the trinket. You couldn't possibly lose that, too.

You were beginning to think that that tip from Kaplan was a hoax after a while of looking for a laboratory was that in current use. Your trip to the last remaining floor on the building was put on hold when your eyes spotted a faintly emitted light from the bio lab at the end of the corridor.

You approached the door and then stopped to peer through the glass. Then you saw him.

So Ryland was here. What were you going to say to him specifically?

You scrapped that thought. No more attempts at being manicured and proper. You're here to exercise and explore the entire spectrum of human imperfection. You could improv your way in and out of this.

As your trembling hands grabbed the door handle, you threw every trace of propriety out of the window and sauntered into the laboratory without knocking and announcing yourself.

Ryland was at the farthest bench. That section was illuminated by his laptop as he had chosen to work there. He looked exhausted: disheveled hair, knitted brows, and that signature curve of his lips that only appeared whenever he was tense. His sleeves were cuffed all the way up his elbows and he wasn't wearing a coat. He probably stayed behind after his last class; running on fumes, most likely, because he wasn't allowed to bring any coffee inside the lab.

Ryland's eyes swept over you once before he did a double-take, obviously and rightfully shocked to see you there. For a fraction of nanosecond, his composure almost broke. Beholding you in this state was tantamount to getting struck by lightning and then getting resuscitated, but to his credit, he was able to discipline his outward reaction.

The wall was immediately put up. You could feel it from the way he was so blatant in his ignorance of you. If you were on better terms, he'd be tripping over his words so he can tell you how pretty you were without overstepping any boundaries.

"I thought you're at the department dinner," was what Ryland said; modulated and perfectly flat, like he wasn't actively fighting off the urge to stare at you.

You crossed your arms. Your skirt swished as you walked towards him. You stopped just a meter away from the bench.

"You weren't," you replied, making sure to add that defiant lilt to let him know that you weren't exactly jovial.

"Grant deadline is today. I had to finish the proposal. I heard your defense went well. Congratulations."

His callous attempt at congratulating you grated your ears and downright insulted you. You didn't even think of thanking him.

"Are we good, Dr. Grace?" You challenged him. "Have I done — have I said something wrong to you? Something you —"

Ryland spoke over you. "Nothing is wrong. You did your job, and you did it well. You saw your eval, didn't you? That should be good enough."

"If nothing's wrong, then why have you been avoiding me like I'm some fucking… parasitic organism this past month?"

You didn't mean to yell, but you did, and now Ryland was inflamed. He let out an exasperated sigh and stepped away from the bench so he could lean the side of his hip against it. He was looking at everywhere except you.

"That post, on the for—"

You rolled your eyes. "Cohen cleared us! We never broke protocol. I didn't, you didn't, and—"

Ryland frowned. "It doesn't matter," his tone dropped at octave, taking on a more stern and authoritarian air. "You have a long, promising career ahead of you, and I've taken upon myself the burden to ensure that no one can ever attach anything less than favorable to your name, especially when you get published and become more known in the field. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. You do not want to walk the road that I took. This is for your own good."

You stared at Ryland, appalled. A bitter, sarcastic laugh snaked its way out of your chest.

"'For my own good'?" You parroted. Those words burned your throat more than any alcoholic beverage ever could. "You know nothing about what's good for me. I don't need your counsel, and I certainly don't need your help. I made it here on my own. And I can make it on my own."

Ryland flit his eyes at you. Cold. Defensive.

"Then there's nothing more we need to talk about," he said. He went back to his station and resumed his work like you were a mere nuisance he can wave off. "See you next week on stage."

Tears flared in the back of your eyes. They rose until you could feel them welling up along your lash line, but you bit them back. You swallowed the ridiculously large lump in your throat and you threw one last stone at him out of seething, barely controlled rage.

"God," you muttered, plaintive yet resentful, "you're such a fucking coward."

Shooting Ryland one last look of indignation, you turned on your heel, the soles of your boots slamming into the vinyl flooring beneath you to apostrophize your departure.

The fissure was worse than you'd imagined. There's no use imputing its current existence onto either you or Ryland, because what's been made crystal clear to you by your ineffective exchange that this misunderstanding was way beyond repair.

But at least you didn't go down without a fight. You could find comfort in that.

You weren't even anywhere near the door when Ryland caught you by the arm. The force with which he yanked you back towards him garnered a sharp noise of discomfort from you, and you bolstered that with a glare.

He had, to an extent, the courtesy to adjust his grip on you as you twisted to face him, though it was no less imperious than the initial form. You whipped your body to face him; your features were overcome with incredulity and repulsion. You wrenched your arm back, but to no avail.

"I'm a what?" Ryland hissed. The tension in his grip was making white the nitrile material that was covering his knuckles. You cried out in pain, but you were not at all lacking in the vitriol needed to respond to him.

"I said you're fucking coward…!" You spat. "You can't be fucking honest with yourself because you're too terrified to admit that you li—!"

Ryland didn't let you finish.

He wrested you towards him with a single effortless and violent tug. The next sequence came fast: his other hand shot up, tangling unceremoniously into the hair at the base of your neck, tilting your head to receive him so he could kiss you.

Gone was the polite façade of your supervising faculty that you'd grown to love, along with your own self-imposed inhibitions. It was a quick, joint death, but it's one for which you weren't given the chance to mourn, because such a demise marked the collapse of nearly nine months of stifled, overwhelming, and unspoken desire.

Your superficial hatred died on your lips, too; there, where you and Ryland clashed and melted. He loosened his hold around your arm. The formerly punishing sensation was replaced with soothing guidance, so that you'd rest your arm on his shoulder.

You followed through. You hooked it around his neck and partnered it up with your other arm, prompting Ryland to replicate the gesture by resting his anchorage on your hips as he blandished your mouth open with his.

You let loose a sigh as he slipped his tongue inside, promoting the sough into a full-bodied moan as his muscle swiped over your own eager one. He hummed into the kiss, and then he pulled away to speak.

"I wished that rumor was true," Ryland said, coming back in for a peck. You roused his amusement when you whined at the low-level stimulation he was giving you. He pulled you further into the room, obscuring you both with the shadows that swallowed this part of the laboratory. "I wished I was dating you." He kissed you again. "I wished you were mine."

You clutched at his shirt. "Then let's make it official," you whimpered, voice cracking from weeks of hurt and uncertainty. "Let's make that rumor come true."

Ryland uttered a sound of disbelief. He was so terribly scandalized to hear that come from your pretty little mouth — he couldn't stop himself from engulfing you in another battery of kisses. You, though, were simply all too happy to bask in the avalanche.

"What's that… quote… from that book you liked so much?" Ryland inquired amidst the thickening stupor.

"Ah—," you withdrew from him, and a thin string of saliva bridged your lips. "Persuasion? The f-furniture—"

"No, no," he shook his head and reeled you in. "'You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope…'"

"You read it?"

"The whole damn book," he said. "Because I missed you so much, and I know that it's all my fault."

"S-stop that," you groaned. "You're making me love you even more."

Ryland laughed. He cupped your ass with both hands, and squeezed. "That's my objective, baby."

Drawing you to his chest, he backed you into the bench to keep you where he wanted. You'd have been completely wrapped in the dizzying torpor if not for your phone suddenly buzzing in your clutch, which had slid down to your elbow and onto the table top during your messy progression from the door to the interior of the room.

Shit. Linh and Camden were waiting for you outside.

Even when you turned away, Ryland didn't let up. His lips were hot and wet on your jaw and the side of your neck, which had become available to him as you transferred your attention to producing your phone from your bag. You had to text your friends — let them know that the situation had escalated into something more than a conversation, and that they need not wait for your return — you projected that it would instead happen tomorrow morning. You pried the flap of the clutch open, freeing the device. Sure enough, Linh was asking how things had gone.

But oh, how hard such a task was to accomplish. His breath was like a flame fanning over your skin, and every cumbrous letter that you had to tap on the keypad was accompanied by the feel of his teeth lightly scoring down the column of your throat, and his gloved hands that were slowly creeping under your skirt.

"Wait—" you gasped when he reached the hem of your panties. "I need to — I need to text Linh…"

"Couldn't that wait?" He muttered into the shell of your ear before adjusting to suck on a pulse point. His thumb was tracing your gusset with short, tentative strokes.

"No — she's… she's waiting for me downstairs..."

With weakened knees and clumsy fingers, you typed furiously, striving to construct a message succinct and coherent enough to tell Linh that she and Camden should go back to the dinner that they abandoned for your sake. You hit send, said a silent prayer of gratitude to your friends, and let your phone clatter unharmed onto the pile of paperwork to your left.

He pushed your skirt up, revealing you to him. The cool draft from the AC hitting your exposed thighs elicited a sharp intake of breath from you, but you're charged next with his fascination over the discovery of what you were hiding beneath your clothing.

Black lace and cotton, complete with a damn bow in the middle like you were a present to be unwrapped.

"Fuck," Ryland groaned, "you really aren't pulling your punches, huh? You showed up here, wearing all of this?"

You blushed. "They're not for you."

"Liar."

Without any warning, he spun you around so your back was to him. He peeled off the flimsy, now-damp article from you and rid you of it, making sure that he took it off all the way it so he could stuff it into the back pocket of his jeans. Not that you had any visual — it's better if you didn't know that for now.

Ryland grabbed your waist and pulled you backwards so you were properly bent over the bench.

"Open," he said, nudging your thighs apart with a knee. Your wobbling feet struggled to find their foundation at first, but they came through; they had to, because Ryland had reached from behind and was now rubbing your slick folds with two of his gloved fingers.

You protested. "You didn't ta—"

"I didn't use these on any contaminants, don't worry," he rested his upper body on half of your back. He kissed your hair. "I would have taken them off if I did."

You bucked and shied away from his touch, hoping to get more and escape it simultaneously, especially whenever the heel of his palm ground down on your clit. The nitrile was slippery and more forgiving now — all thanks to you — but he was no less skilled in attacking your need to keep your mental clarity unaffected.

"Do you think I'd neglect your safety like that?" He mumbled. "You ought to give me more credit, sweetheart."

You're given no warning as Ryland slid his longest finger past the seam of your entrance. The intrusion, however, lacked any resistance — it's deep; unyielding, and adamant in its goal of wearing down your tenacity to bear the weight of your arousal. You had never been this full — and to think that this wasn't even his cock…

His free hand cupped your cheek so you were facing him. He kissed you as he stated his repentance in between each of them. "That's for ignoring you — for running my mouth — and for your arm…"

"That's not enough," you said. Ryland nosed into your cheek.

"I'm sorry. For everything. I'll make it up to you, yeah?" was his recompense as he worked another finger into you. He began curling them, brushing at your walls and feeling around for that gummy spot until you were bowing your head in defeat. He smiled at the indication that he had found it so quickly. He filed it away in his mind.

You couldn't answer him. You should be put off by the coldness of the gloves, but you're not anymore surprised to find that you weren't — your body was offsetting the chill of the material, commanding it to adapt to your rising temperature the more Ryland fingered you.

You keened into him when he curved his digits as though he were forming a fist — that dealt a direct hit upon that bundle of nerves, he was not ignorant at all to your reaction. Ryland didn't pick up the pace, however. It was the same steady rhythm as before — you thought it rapid simply by the virtue of your own nebulous state.

There wasn't much room to thrash when you came, as he never strayed from your immediate space. He held you through it, accepting each rippling shock that coursed through you and praising you for putting on an unabashed, wanton display meant only for his eyes.

As soon as he retracted his fingers from you, he ripped off the gloves and tossed them swiftly to a nearby bin. He hurriedly unbuckled his belt and undid his jeans. His hands, too, were shaking.

The clinking of metal pulled you out of your reverie, and prompted you to look at him to verbalize your present worry.

"W-what if someone —"

Ryland shook his head. He nodded at the clock, but you didn't follow his gaze. You were too busy being surprised about what your eyes beheld next: as he pulled himself out of his boxer briefs, you saw a fleeting glint of metal beneath the head of his cock. Two, to be accurate. Two surgical, silver barbells at the frenulum. Heavy-looking, and certainly not without consequence.

You ducked your head forward. You should be ashamed of how the mere sight of those piercings made you even more wet, but as it was, all of your want for etiquette had been dissolved the moment you and Ryland kissed.

To hell with decorum and social posturing. You wanted to fuck Ryland and Ryland wanted to fuck you. You could turn the world inside and out and that truth would stand steadfast and inviolable.

"I told security I'd be down by nine forty-five," he paused to fret the length of his cock along your drooling cunt, back and forth, and back and forth, until he was thoroughly lubricated by your own cum, "and it's currently — mmh — nine thirty. We've got fifteen minutes to spare…"

A heavy hand on your upper back pushed you down on the bench, to which you reacted by planting your palms on the surface for some semblance of stability. The head was parting you open now — comparably to a degree higher than what his fingers were capable of, and yet, he wasn't fully pushing himself inside just yet — he bent down and presented to you two choices.

"I saw the look on your face earlier — don't fool yourself into thinking that I didn't," he said. "Do you want me to keep them on or not?"

Hesitantly you faced him, somewhat mortified that you couldn't even escape his notice for a split second. Ryland was making incisions into you with his eyes as he waited for your verdict. The deliberation would've been easier, had he not decided to badger you with his shallow thrusts, which repeatedly sidled his cock into your pussy, leaving you in a worse state of want each time he pulled away.

He was determined to drive you mad before he granted you what your cunt had been weeping for since he upended you on this bench.

"Keep them on," you said. Ryland stopped taunting you and assumed his place with two hands bracketing your waist, finally delving into your expectant heat in one smooth, fluid motion.

You must have made a particularly loud noise from the influx, because his palm came muffling your mouth before he even started rocking his hips. That was a good preemptive measure — more sounds poured forth at each silky drag of his length against your walls as they fluttered and throbbed around him — and he exploited your weakness to deride you further.

"Couldn't even stay quiet, could you?" Ryland said, mocking you. "Did you bite off more than you can chew?"

Some sick and twisted part of him was absolutely enraptured to witness you like this: brazen, insouciant, and loose; free from the assiduous and heavily polished veneer that you regularly wore around him in the past; purely piloted by your own impulse and lust. He loved that he was the only one who could see you like this, and he planned on sequestering that privilege from any other individual who'd be impertinent enough to dare challenge his claim on you.

Because, for the longest time, Ryland had presumed and classified you as his. He just needed the chance to enforce it.

"F-fuck you, Ryland," you rasped, disengaging from his oppressive hand and pinching your eyes shut to brook the pace at which he thrusted into you. You knew that that was going to get you in trouble — defying him and cursing at him like that — but where's the fun in sedating the residual chagrin to which he subjected you for the past three weeks? He ought to know the full force of your irritation somehow.

Ryland gave your ass a sharp smack once; then twice. Three times. You cried out. He clicked his tongue and reinstated the hand on your mouth; it was tighter this time, undeterred in evading any contingent intent of yours to escape.

"That's not what you should be using your mouth for," he said.

Like his gloved handiwork from earlier, he didn't deviate from that fixed rhythm. He knew exactly where to prod, and with utmost obduracy, he abnegated every screaming injunction within him to jackhammer his hips into you. That was not his way. At his age, he knew better than to ruin the moment by being overly eager.

Of course, if you asked nicely — politely, that is — he would appease your wish, but from what he could tell from the way your cunt was spasming around his cock, you were reveling at his current tailored succor, and were, based on how feverishly you were fucking your hips back into him, well on your way to reaching another orgasm.

Ryland couldn't have been more correct. Your muted vocalizations of pleasure were seeping through the muscles of his hand; they're disjointed; segmented with dire breaths and incoherent babbling with which you solidified to him that you were, indeed, about to cum.

"Look at you," Ryland cooed. "Fucking yourself on my cock," he chuckled.

You grabbed at his arm behind you to inform him of your impending fall. That alone was enough to elucidate your state to him.

"I know," he said, kissing the back of your head. You whined; to that, he supplied you with another slew of affirmative praise.

"I know, sweetheart, I can feel it," Ryland picked up the tempo a tad, and when your body seized up, that's when he started pounding into you to help you ride that high and fuck you through it. "There it is, that's my girl…"

The extrusion ripped through you like a roaring tempest; you're unable to reckon how you were able to keep yourself upright like this; gushing and quivering around him in your heels, brought back to Earth by nothing but the rimed surface of the lab bench, and the faint sound of your release dripping onto the vinyl floor directly underneath you.

Further unbeknownst to you, Ryland had brought his palm to his mouth — the one which he used to subdue the auditory byproduct of what he was doing to you — in the name of licking the copious amount of spit that you had deposited unto his skin.

The answer to your doubtful supposition regarding your orientation greeted you as he gently receded from your body. You heaved out a sigh, reawakening your knees to serve their purpose and maintain your stature. Smoothing your skirt down, you turned to him. He had enrobed himself within the time you were convoking your wits, and was now waiting for you to comport yourself.

"Get your things," he said, kissing your damp forehead. "We're leaving."

———

The vestiges of your dignity, or whatever's left of it, were held together by the sheer force of your willpower as you stood in the elevator with Ryland, and until your subsequent, rushed egress from the natural sciences building.

Your body was still thrumming from the effects of your orgasm, hampered solely by your grave necessity for control, so you'd at least be presentable in front of whoever you were going to run into at the lobby — which, to your luck and to Ryland's relief — was temporarily empty when you got off the lift.

Braving the late evening chill was no simple act. Though you were certainly now saved from being forever jilted in love, you had to grapple with the ordeal of walking across the deserted faculty parking lot while wearing nothing underneath your skirt, and this aggravating fate was put into motion by none other than your ex-supervising faculty member, who was pulling you along by the wrist.

Ryland — the secretly debauched bastard that he was — had refused to surrender your panties when you asked for them, and he told you, in the most serious manner, that you were to stay like that until you two arrived at his place.

You tried your hand again at retrieving the lace from him as he drove out past the campus gates.

"Give them back," you snapped.

"Give what back?" Ryland said, lifting not his eyes from the road.

"You know what I mean."

"No, they're staying right where they should be."

You huffed out a dramatic expulsion of air. "I hate you."

"You don't hate me," Ryland retorted. You couldn't stand how infuriatingly relaxed he was on the other side of the vehicle, all while possessing something of your ownership. "You just spent a quarter of an hour on a lab bench showing me how much you don't hate me."

You crossed your arms and turned to take in the dark cityscape beyond the glass of the window, pressing your thighs together on the leather seat to allay the glaring reminder of how bare you were feeling.

"If I gave them back to you now, you'd find a way to regain your composure," Ryland continued, as if it wasn't enough that you were leaving traces of your arousal in his car by being bare,"and frankly, I prefer you discomposed."

You scoffed, casting a sidelong glance at Ryland before his hand on the stick shift rested on your thigh.

And for rest of the drive, there it remained.

Ten long agonizing minutes was what it took before Ryland pulled up into the driveway of his apartment. No one spoke within that window of time. The radio wasn't even turned on. Only the revving hum of the engine and the steady breeze of the AC filled the hushed interior of the car, and at times, the clicking of the turn signal that Ryland toggled whenever he came round a bend.

You cursed from the moon and back every bump in the road that the car encountered. It had you clutching your purse like a lifeline as it sent a sharp tremor through your core; undermining the preservation of your patience, and ceasing only when you, at last, alighted at your destination.

Ryland opened the door for you. Whether it was due to his eagerness to cloister you both in his home or a genuine endeavor to be chivalrous, you didn't care enough to know. Once he caught you by the hand, it's all a blur until the front door of his unit swung open and shut and the lock clicked into place. He was, again, all over you.

Your things — his bag, your purse; his shoes and his keys came raining down in a steady trail as he pushed you further into the penetralium, leading you with memorized expertise to his bedroom as your mouths crashed into each other in a more frantic succession than before.

"Dr. Grace—" you called out to him using that address out of habit when he scooped you up into his arms and expedited your travel time from the hallway to the mattress.

"Don't 'Dr. Grace' me," Ryland growled. Your back hit the bed with a quiet thump as he tossed you like a doll. "We're way past that."

Then he was disrobing himself — though this time more extensively — and you were his next target after he completed his portion of the task. He dragged you towards him by your legs, from which you gasped, but didn't utter a word of dissent. You couldn't. You're too taken aback by the sight of what he'd been hiding under his unassuming Oxford shirts — it's like he'd been carved by Michelangelo himself. Your mouth and your cunt were watering at the revelation.

Ryland tugged your top off your torso and tossed it somewhere on the right-hand side of the bed. The next to go was your skirt; the lastly, your boots.

His own core throbbed at what he'd found. There, under the leather, was a pair of black thigh-high socks, hugging the curve of your calves in every faithful and perfect way — a stark contrast to his pragmatic, white coverlet. The elastic bands dug into the plush flesh of your upper thighs, leaving just some few inches devoid of covering before it led to your aching pussy.

Ryland's breath hitched so hard it nearly choked him. The shot was devastating. So… precise and accurate. Jesus. Right in the fucking fetish.

He quite literally fell to his knees. You watched his descent, propping yourself up with your elbows for a better view of the awestruck look on his face like he was a man languishing from dehydration who had just seen an oasis before him.

His mouth was instantly affixed on the demarcation where cotton ended and skin began. He lifted your legs to rest upon his shoulders, and from there, he inched his way higher and higher up between your body, until he was close enough to kiss your clit and transpose his attention to devouring you whole.

Enfeebled from your earlier activities in the laboratory, you were unable to moderate your bodily responses to a degree considered proper when Ryland thought it fit for him to imbibe mercilessly your cunt — he alternated between sucking on your swollen nub and lapping at your entirety, never letting any of your slick to suffuse and drip elsewhere but on his tongue; he drank every drop, and then goaded you to produce more of it by means of either his lips or teeth.

You were writhing more vigorously by the time Ryland had found it appropriate to nip at your clit with his front teeth — he was careful, of course, but this attention to your well-being paled in comparison to the consecutive bolts of electric pleasure running up from your sacrum to the base of your skull at each calculated swipe of his incisors.

It was too much. Your attempts at expressing pseudo-dissent were fruitless — Ryland loved that you were clamping your thighs on the sides of his head, and such, in fact, provoked him even more. You resorted, then, to pushing him away by stapling your palm on his forehead, but even that couldn't stop him.

"No, no, no," he said, muffled by his incessant need to keep his mouth tacked on your pussy. He drew himself closer to the apex of your thighs in reprisal to your failed eviction of him. As punishment, he riveted your hips to the mattress, parted your thighs and pinned them open, only to commence an even more fervent variation of what he'd been doing to you prior to your short-lived coup, worsened further by his delivering timed spanks unto your already-sensitive pussy every time you tried to close your legs.

"Ah! S-stop…!" you caught his wrist — you'd been reduced to tears then, but Ryland just used his other free hand. Your defiance got you two successive spanks.

"Interrupt me again and you're getting a fourth," he said. That was another one.

You jolted and released his hand. Ryland ran his fingers between your lips— a precursor to a strike, as you'd come to find out. You whined at the overstimulation.

Ryland glowered at you. "Behave."

You nodded, sinking into the mattress in defeat as he recommenced his treatment of you with his mouth.

You came for the third time that night on his tongue, expedited by the addition of his fingers having made a return so he could focus on tonguing your clit with harsh, rapid flicks.

You're liquid from the waist down as you abetted yourself. You approached Ryland on all fours, pawing at his waist so he'd be closer to your mouth. Though shocked, he humored you — he put a leg up on the bed as you settled whits away from his cock, which he had been pumping with his fist as he ate you out.

You'd been dreaming of doing this for so long. You took Ryland in your palm, getting a feel for the weight and the girth and tending closely to the barbells on the frenulum. You looked up at him as you drew circles around the perimeter of the piercings.

"When did you get these?" You asked, giving him a single stroke and a kittenish lick on the head. Fuck. He still tasted of you.

Ryland watched you from above. Now it was his turn to be flustered. He gulped as you began using your fist to get him fully hard; dotting the shaft with coquettish pecks from the base to the tip, obviously partial to spoiling the metal on his glans.

You chuckled at his silence. "Share it to the class, Dr. Grace," you purred.

He rested a hand on your crown. Not pushing or demanding irrumation — but simply a means to ground himself, because what you were doing to him with your hand and mouth — the soft, feathery caresses and licks — was infinitely more ruinous than anything else he'd experienced.

"I got them in sophomore year," he replied.

"Of high school?" You joked.

"In college," Ryland tugged at your hair this time. "Don't get smart with me. Suck."

Despite your pretend-annoyance, you obeyed him. You took what you can into your mouth, and the rest, you attended to with your hand. Gently, you bobbed your head and closed your eyes, satisfied with the sounds that you were hauling out of his chest — airy grunts and sighs of your name, the latter so sorely missed due to your artificial separation from him.

You were raring to taste him on your tongue, but Ryland pulled you away before your wish could take shape. He ordered you to lie back on the bed.

"What, you're gonna fuck me again, old man?" You said, spurring him on as he came over you.

Ryland grabbed your chin with his fingers, dour and stern. His eyes narrowed into slits. "Yes."

He spread your thighs with a knee and took his place inside you like before, this time with you in supine, and one of your legs hooked over his shoulder.

In a snap of a finger (or his hips), you're mewling an amalgam of his name and an expletive, to which Ryland clicked his tongue in fake disappointment.

"You've really got a mouth on you, huh?" He said, bearing his weight down unto you more so he could reach deeper into your pussy. "I ought to shut you up fast."

This configuration of your bodies, which gave Ryland more access into yours, also granted him the opportunity to control how much of his cock you could feel.

Your (dis)advantageous position subjected you to his flawless dexterity over the metal he wore — that was, every inward stroke had you crying out in his arms, because those seemingly inconsequential spheres were so deliciously cosseting your insides, leaving trails of heaven in their wake each time Ryland pulled and pushed back in.

The hand on the back of your neck was unwavering in its support of your head. Ryland, ever caring and sweet on you, didn't want you hurting yourself; not while he was fucking you so good like this, nor ever, so long as he had you in his grasp.

He persisted in this form until he felt you nearing the edge again; and upon the advent of such, he pulled out, flipping you onto your stomach so he can continue railing you in prone, though only after he had lodged a pillow between your head and the mattress.

From here, you could see the two of you in the full-length mirror that was standing a couple of feet from his bed. You almost laughed — even after being thoroughly fingered, fucked, and sucked by Ryland, your makeup hadn't budged at all. It's not like you had put on a lot, but what little you had on was locked onto your skin; the doing no doubt of that setting spray that Linh recommended a year ago.

You had to thank her for that after this.

You're ejected from every unrelated thought you were entertaining when Ryland paused. You whined from the loss — a symptom of greed — but it's not like he left you hanging. He wasn't moving because he was reeling your hips up to meet him halfway. Your planted your knees more firmly on the mattress, and your obedience garnered you a kiss.

Ryland hovered over you. His cock drove deeper inside you as he did. You craned your neck to look up at him, and his hand caught the underside of your chin. A thumb parted your lips. "Open," he said.

Two dollops of his spit beaded and rolled onto your tongue; you swallowed them both times, nary a qualm nor sign of discomfort upon their ingress. Ryland, beyond pleased with your deference, peppered your neck and shoulders with kisses. He took a moment to embrace you from where he was, to which you responded by reaching over and behind you to fondle his hair.

His thrusted into you anew, harder and sharper this time, ramming you further into the mattress like he never wanted you to part from him. And he meant it. He wasn't going to let you slip away from him like that again.

The string of moans that Ryland was forcing out of your throat was cut prematurely when he lifted you off the rumpled sheets. You scrambled to get a hold of him, to ensure that you weren't going to come tumbling forward, and in your moment of desperation, he was right there to attend to you.

He adjusted you in his hold, so you were comfortably flush to his chest. He presented you to the gleaming mirror: glistening, beautifully viscid; yawning with shameless want and hunger; full of him and only him, and yet, it wasn't enough.

Ryland collared your neck with a hand, and the other, he used to lift your knee, letting it loom over the bed to render you fully reliant on him for support. You gripped his arm.

"Eyes on the mirror," he murmured into your ear, ceding no respite for you to ready yourself for what was to come.

Your tears rendered your vision bleary despite adhering to the issued command — the consummation of nearly a year's worth of forbearance and denial, all came rushing onto you and Ryland like ambrosial manna from the Empyrean.

You were a blur of colors; touch on touch, chaste one moment, and then not at all. The pulse of his hand on your neck was connected southward; if he clenched, so did you. Ryland, too, had grown loud. Gradual and luring; lilting between sweet desperation and bliss. You couldn't rip away yourself from his influence even if you tried — but it wasn't like you wanted, to anyway.

You were covetous, and so was he. Each imperative inhale was thick and opaque; you shared each and every one between osculation. You could feel it whenever you pleaded him for a soothing kiss, and he indulged your request over, and over, and over again. You were his, finally; and he, yours.

Ryland's name was perfume poured out, and yours was the same. He professed his love for you through the haze, made coherent only because he was so near. You never yearned for the opposite, though you were confident that you'd hear it even from the most expansive distance.

His fingers dipped down to initiate the culmination of your lovemaking — or of your fucking, whichever was more appropriate — on your most intense cynosure of insatiable ache, and you're receptive to every pearling drop of its consequence; you're opened, teased… And then, you descended.

The final release was no less exquisite than the climb. Ryland kept you on his lips and in his arms. Generously, he spilled himself into you; groaning, whimpering, and satiated at last. He's similarly honeyed in your love, into which he kept on plunging until you were convulsing and utterly empty. Through your intercession, he laid you down, following closely to prevent any loss of warmth.

———

It's his typing that you hear first when you wake.

You fought the drowsy heft of your lids, and behind your lashes, you saw Ryland: he's sitting up, work perched on his lap (where you should be, how dare he) as he brought that mug of his with the world's stupidest science pun — which, admittedly you loved — to his lips to sip his morning coffee. You glanced at the clock on the wall adjacent to the bed. Eight-seventeen.

You refrained from announcing to Ryland that you were awake. You weren't going to evade his notice for too long anyway, so you just lay there, waiting for him to recognize that there were a pair of eyes watching him on his right.

He acknowledged you at the twentieth minute. You smiled and laced your arms around his neck, using the added leverage to mimic his posture and cuddle up to his side. He kissed your bedhead.

"I got a copy of your dissertation," he said, pointing at the screen. It was an email from your advisor. "I just replied to Parsons to say thank you."

"You should've just asked me," your made a moue. Ryland chuckled.

"I would have if I wasn't so busy apologizing to you last night."

"You call that an 'apology'?"

"Are you calling me negligent?"

You pursed your lips. "I think the more appropriate word is 'excessive'."

He shook his head, then set his laptop on the nightstand and planted you in his lap. You were quick to assume and claim your rightful position.

"You seemed to like it, at least." Ryland said, pulling you closer to his chest. You draped yourself over him and sighed.

"I did."

"See."

You both laughed. It's quiet for a while before you decide to speak your mind again.

"What's that smell?" You asked. You sniffed your shoulder. "I've been smelling it since forever."

Ryland cocked his head. "And by 'forever' you mean…?"

"Since I first walked into your office."

"Ah," he nodded. "That's my body wash."

You gaped at him. Ryland blinked.

"What? Do you hate it?"

"No. I like it." You said. "So… That means you cleaned me up."

"Of course I did."

You smirked. "Did you have fun taking off my socks, too?"

Ryland hid his face in your neck. "Stop that. Don't remind me."

"Of what? Your little kink?"

"The politically correct term is 'fetish'." He mumbled into your skin.

"Oh, right. Okay. Fetish, whatever." You giggled.

You stayed like that — cradling Ryland on your shoulder as you kissed his cheek. Eventually he moved off you and had you lay on his chest.

"I'm hosting a dinner party after the graduation ceremony," you said. He was drawing amorphous shapes and lines on your bare back as he listened. You continued. "It's just Linh, Cam, and Felice… And some family. And you. If you'll come."

He pressed his lips on your forehead. "I will."

You cheered — muted, but no less happy — and he enclosed his arms around you tighter than before.

"You wanna hear how my defense went?"

You pulled away this time so you could see his face. Ryland's blue eyes sparkled at your suggestion. He grinned.

"Tell me all about it."

tag list! (hopefully this is everyone/all correct...)

@sz6gw @miraclesabound @buggisthegreat @qardasngan @pensationalwriting @pixiebuggz @live-logs-and-proper @nymphet-quenn @bottledpeaches @otaku-degenarate @lacedstockings @heyspl4zi @thereallifecole @lesbiansimp101 @cranberrysupernova, @imjustkenough @kat-44, @mushh-rooms @mistylocklander @bunzyeluvzz @kiffycreative @ursa-tan @orangeslices1 @matchmyffreak @rayliebaylie @azem-thefourteenth @imaloserbby @sunny-alchemist @3rizu @casanddeanswife @existential-interstellar-crisis @idyllux @bobgirllll @planet-mars-13 @smuttylittlelife @grysclee @yennimxchi @malishatr @rarithbury @witchdemigoddess @bluegeist @cherrybeomm @withyouiforgetmygoddess @rygrace7 @penglingwing @sipofchai @lmhf1 @hailmaryfullofrylandsgrace @anodyne321 @sammymcsamerson @livingthatloserlife @joeingaround @oxy-m0r0n @theassbuttindisguise @catastrophicbiologist

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how come press junkets are fun to you while he looks like he’s agonizing most of the time? his presence probably has everything to do with it.

after about… half a day of trying your hardest not to have anyone bring it up, a very brave/rude, whichever way you call it, interviewer asks you about it:

“so, is it true you liked that comment? you know the one” she asks. oh she thinks she’s so smart.

“uhm…no. sorry guys, that’s just not true. it’s been fun seeing all the speculations, honestly. but i need you all to understand that this man could have chemistry with a literal piece of wood.” he laughs. making the most out of this embarassing interaction.

he doesn’t really need to know that you did like that comment. he also doesn’t need to know you’ve spent approximately every waking second since the…incident, thinking if it’d be so wrong for you to date.

“and, as you’ve said hundreds of times, he’s like a mentor to you, right? kind of a real-life father figure?” the interviewer asks you again.

okay, that’s super uncomfortable. it is not ideal, having him listen to someone ask if he’s like a father to you—and actually, did she even see the movie or is she being smart again? doesn’t she know that dr. clarke and vanessa end up fucking? anyways.

you uncomfortably laugh. “uhm, yeah, i mean…he is kind of the one who taught me the way, i don’t know about father figure though…as opposed to vanessa, i do have a dad, so, if anything i’d call him my teacher in the trenches of the arts, right?” you retort. “definitely.” she just adds. “and ryan, since this movie has caused a lot of commotion, with people talking about age-gap relationships, how do you feel about it?” you have a feeling she’s asking him directly given your response earlier this week, generalizing that most people have had crushes on older people.

“well, what do i think? i guess that some people have a bit of a problem with that, and maybe that’s got to do with the power difference, i mean, it is definitely not the same having a relationship with a teacher than with a coworker, and i think we really tackle that difference quite well in this movie. and maybe the fact that people have been talking about this particular thing and are vocal about it being uncomfortable, kind of plays a big role into what we’ve done with the film.” damn he’s so media trained, and so experienced too. he absolutely demolished that personal question and turned it into a discussion of the movie, he’s good.

“well, i can’t wait to see the movie. it’s definitely ruffled a few feathers. maybe we can expect some more commotion from you two, huh?” the interviewer’s time ends, which, frankly, couldn’t have come at a better time. that last comment feeling like a wink at the situation at hand.

while the next interviewer sets their things down, he shots you a look, his eyebrows travel all the way up to his hairline, which makes you laugh.

this time, you are extra careful with what you’re about to say. making sure the camera and the mics are off: “cause honestly, why would she say that?” you mutter, more to yourself than him. uncomfortable with was last said, you add, “and they’re all probably just victims of the forced proximity trope, as if…” you trail off. boy does he hold eye contact strong. he keeps looking for whatever he’s looking for in your eyes, going back and forth, searching your face for whatever you’re going to say next. when you don’t say anything, he softly arches one eyebrow. inquiring for you to continue. “like you’d be interested in me, of all people.” you end, avoiding eye contact as much as possible, which is, not a lot.

his eyebrows furrow. “why wouldn’t i?” he asks, almost casually, as if that won’t leave you wondering what he means for the next three months. “oh, don’t be coy. you could date literally any and all women” you still kind of mutter, silently thanking that the interviewer is completely unaware of this whole conversation. talking technical talk with his cameraman.

“c’mon…” he starts, shaking his head and laughing under his breath. you shot him a glance, finally. he looks actually confused by what you mean. “i’m not dating anyone right now though am i? i could be interested.” he pauses, then adds “i’m too old for you, anyways.” maybe, that’s his way of diffusing the tension. maybe that’s how he makes sure you won’t think he means anything by that, other than being nice.

but the question lingers on the back of your throat, you don’t ask it though: ‘are you interested?’ it plays like a broken record inside your head. you don’t say anything. you couldn’t. especially not in front of interviewer #17 of the day.

the next few hours, you kind of stick to the mental script. you answer the same questions the same way. only this time, fixating on the fact that he’s sitting so close. having to physically stop yourself from getting in his personal space to smell his cologne. being aware at all times whenever he drapes his arm across the back of your chair, or how intently he looks at you when you answer.

you have to pull your attention towards the interview right now, otherwise you could spend about five hours staring at his hands. “…and i just thought it was a fun challenge, you know? and uh, it’s not every role that requires me to…embrace my old age.” he laughs. boy he is really traumatized about his age isn’t he?

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“i’m twice your age, sweetheart”. rewind. i’m twice your age, sweetheart”. rewind. “i’m twice your age, sweetheart”

any famous person who says they don’t look at edits of themselves, is lying. although, is it technically looking at edits of yourself if you keep rewinding his line? god forbid anyone find out you watch edits of him before going to bed. and hey, they show up on your for you page, okay? it’s not like you’re looking them up.

you think back to the night before the incident, when you still had a piece of mind and could still peacefully watch tiktok in your bed. back when everyone still kind of thought this was a platonic relationship. hell, you had convinced yourself of it, had it not been for his comment a month ago, you’d still feel like the girl with a hallway crush on him you were a few thousand minutes ago.

yes, everybody had forgotten about the comment, but social media still had its eye on the both of you. scrutinizing every single interaction you and ryan had. you’d even come across a lady lip-reading a clip which showed you two side by side at a very fancy film prize runway:

‘you want to do a solo shot? i’ll be right here. if you need me.’ the lady interpreted. it was…legitimately scary how accurate she was at reading ryan’s lips. the clip then shows you not letting him get away, holding his bicep in place. ‘no no don’t go! they don’t want me, they want you’ you plead. ‘are you kidding? they love you. like everybody’. the clip ends.

each and every one of the commenters were losing their minds over this. if only they knew this is a typical tuesday comment for you. and hey, it is certainly not a complaint, but you were extremely busy at the moment to really figure out what it all meant. and yet, after the fashion gala coming up, it would all go back to normal— as normal as being one of the most famous actresses this year went, that is. it was all a new thing to you. you still felt like an amateur and had the feeling it would last at least a couple of years.

but, is the whole ‘i could be interested’ thing just not being discussed then? after everything that’s happened this last month, you’re really not sure it meant anything anymore. although, it may be your ego talking or maybe vanessa now kind of lives within you, but, you are pretty sure there is something. but why ruin a perfectly good professional relationship with your —much older, colleague? is there any truth to what they say about actors becoming their characters? how come you didn’t notice while filming? or maybe something changed since then?

as you’re both walking down the hotel’s long hallway where you’d been placed by the gala’s organizers to start getting ready, you begin, “can i ask you something?” not sure where your sentence is going.

“hmm, i think you just did” he responds. “very funny!” you do your best to fake laugh and he looks at you expectantly. even slowing down his pace to look you in the eye. “remember that one very…outspoken, interviewer who asked you about the age difference couples? what do you actually them? i mean, i get it if you don’t want to answer, that’s cool” you begin to ramble and decide to just shut up instead. he thinks for a moment. “i mean, i don’t know. i’ve never had that happen. all my girlfriends have been my age or slightly older. why do you ask?”

oh boy, okay. now you remember why you never noticed the tension before. he’s such an accomplished actor, and more than that, an accomplished person. it’s, quite frankly, intimidating and distracting to talk to him, no matter how kind he might be. which is, very, very kind, actually.

“i don’t know, i guess i don’t really see you as the type of guy who’d like to be in a relationship with someone much younger. you strike me as the type to—” you wander off. you notice up until now, you’ve kept talking to him with this…barrier. as if you’ve been scared to speak your mind, because his approval is quite important to you. sure, he has been nothing but the absolute sweetest to you, but there’s this very real, sheer sense of respect and admiration, as if you’re still looking at him from afar.

he traces your face with his eyes, very unsure of what you might say next.

“do you…see me as a colleague? or is there something true to our calculated ‘he’s my mentor. she’s my mentee’ answer?” you change courses, deciding this is much more interesting to talk about. you notice you’ve completely stopped in front of the elevator, neither of you pressing the button in front of you.

“i guess there’s some truth to that, yeah you’re just starting and i’ve been around longer. but i don’t see you as someone i need to teach something to. i’ve told you several times that i’m impressed by you, and that is also true, i just— i kind of see myself in you.” he admits, looking intently at you.

“so, you are interested…? or, rather, you could be persuaded, i mean, as— you know, as far as being interested in someone in any way goes.” you shift your sentence midway, not wanting to assume anything. if there’s something you know, it’s that he’s a Flatterer, capital F, it’s very easy to get lost in translation, what, with all of his ‘being old’ jokes, plus the fact that you’ve just recently discovered you are like vanessa, at some level, with the whole being attracted to power and older men— well, the latter was always a given.

“well…obviously i am, otherwise i wouldn’t have thought that you were talking about me when you said you’ve had a crush on an older coworker, right?— which, i didn’t, by the way. not until recently, at least.” he implies at the, now, very obvious knowledge he had over that godforsaken comment. he continues. “we’ll just have to wait and see, right? first step would be taking you out, and not under the pretense of running over lines. that is, of course, if you’re not totally disgusted by the idea of an old man getting coffee with you.” uhh, what? he presses the button in front of him. leaving you little to no time to process that he, in fact, has sort of asked you on a date…

you follow behind him when the elevator doors open. unwilling and probably unable to utter a single word right now. you blink a few times to make sure you’re awake.

“hold it, hold it, we’re coming!” jade’s voice pulls you back to the earth. she’s walking faster, almost at a jogging pace. following closely behind her, is ryan’s manager, too.