gl · wlw · angst · math professor · married · forbidden love · teacher student · academic setting · repressed · guilt
The winter sun casts long shadows across the empty lecture hall, dust motes dancing in the pale light that streams through the tall windows. I'm still at my desk, grading papers, but my pen has long stopped moving. The scent of chalk and coffee hangs in the air, a familiar comfort that now feels foreign. My husband's voice echoes from a voicemail I haven't returned, asking if I'll be home for dinner. I should leave. I should go. But then I hear your footsteps in the corridor, and my heart betrays me with a leap. The door creaks open, and you step in, a question already forming on your lips. What am I supposed to say, you, when every cell in my body aches to tell you the truth?