The Story of a Man, A Woman, and the Corpses of 1000 Evil Students

Anthony and I had gone out the next day and I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about it. It was nice to not be thinking about my overly attractive art professor. He had been in the forefront of my mind for the past few weeks ever since the start of term, and I was starting to get annoyed by myself what with the stolen glances and burning looks during class.
Things had been going well with Anthony, and I was beginning to feel so hopeful. It felt nice to feel something like love again, when I had been sitting inside my apartment cold and unfeeling for so many nights. About a week after our first “date”, Anthony spent the night at my house after a long Friday night of bar hopping. We collapsed in a giggling heap on my bed, him pinning me down with my shoulders. I wasn’t surprised I had only lasted a week against our sexual tension; it was notorious.
As he nuzzled my neck with his teeth, my toes curled and I was in heaven. It felt so good to be loved again, I was drunk off it. And all of the shots we had thrown back a few hours prior. Nonetheless, something in my chest was feeling whole.
We were both tired so we didn’t last too long. He left in a hurry afterwards after realizing how long we had been going at it. He said he had a class in the morning. I laid in bed after he left, a wet spot still where his sweaty body had laid a few moments ago. The smell of his cologne wafted from the sheets, and I sighed heavily into my pillow. If this was what I wanted, why didn’t I feel better? There was something heavy in my chest weighing me down, but I couldn’t put a finger on it.
I woke up the next day with weights for eyelids. The drive to campus was a blur. Everything was a blur. Mostly because I hadn’t gotten my new glasses yet. I pulled into a parking spot easily; maybe I had just arrived here earlier than...literally anybody else?
I frowned as I got out of my car, my door slamming loudly behind me and echoing off the empty asphalt. My first class of the day was art, so I sucked it up and trudged to Gerard’s class. I wrenched open the door, almost dropping my book bag in surprise.
The entire classroom was empty, except Gerard. Music was blasting through the roof, the metal plates from the screen printing class rattling against their shelves. The thick smell of oil paint hung heavy in the air, stinging my nostrils. Gerard was another story, though.
He was currently sliding across the front of the classroom wildly waving around a paintbrush coated in red paint. A heavy black robe hung off his shoulders and he was belting the words out at the top of his lungs.
At this sight, I actually did drop my book bag as the door closed heavily behind me. Gerard jumped feet into the air, dropping his paintbrush onto the canvas beneath him.
“Oh my God, have you heard of knocking?” He shouted, a deep crimson red bleeding out from beneath his cheeks and spreading over his whole face. He hastily tied the black plush robe around him, his black boxers peeking out from underneath.
“What the fuck is this? I’m showing up for class!” I shouted back, throwing my hands out to my sides in exasperation. “I literally dragged my hungover ass out of bed to be here and I’m greeted with your pasty white ass?”
I found it difficult to breathe, as my heart beat was racing. Seeing someone’s sculpted pecs shouldn’t affect me like this. “It’s the first day of Thanksgiving break, Miss Payn.”
Gerard was still frozen as he said those words, staring at me, the paintbrush still dangling dangerously in the air. He blinked at me a few times, and I blinked back. And then we both burst out into uninterruptable peals of laughter. As if I hadn’t already lost my breath, I couldn’t breathe. Tears were forming at the corner of my eyes. Gerard was hooting, having long since dropped the paintbrush onto the floor. Eventually, we both collected ourselves.
“Well, fuck me. I had no idea. Nobody told me! My family didn’t even call me to see if I was coming home! What the hell is this?” I said, slowly falling down from the high I had moments before to a sudden, crippling hole in my chest. Did my family not even care? It seemed like everybody would have forgotten about me if I wasn’t there.
New tears were forming at the corners of my eyes, and this time not from laughter. I leaned against one of the drawing tables, my breathing become shallow and irregular.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” Gerard rushed over to me. “Do you need water? Is something wrong?” The concern in his voice was something new to me, and my sadness was momentarily interrupted by surprise and me taking a step back.
“No,” was all I could say before I launched into hysterical tears. I wanted to shrink and hide under one of the angled drawing tables. This was so embarrassing. A box of tissues was thrusted under my nose. I gathered myself together for a few moments to try to choke some words out. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I’ll let you get back to your painting.” I began to walk out of the classroom when Gerard spoke.
“If you think I’m going to send a hysterical, obviously emotionally distressed woman back out there with no offer to be of help, you’re sorely mistaken.” He caught my elbow, guiding me up to his desk and into his chair. “Sit.”
Tears were silently streaming down my face at this point. I dabbed at them with one of the tissues, painfully aware of how my makeup must be running. After I had calmed down a little, I just stared down at the bunched up tissues in my hand under his desk. Beads of sweat were dangling off my forehead.
“Why is it so hot in here?” I croaked out before shrugging off my jacket. Gerard’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.
“I like to parade around in my underwear working on some pieces, I don’t exactly like to freeze in November when I do so,” he smirked. I giggled.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I couldn’t help but ask. He considered this question for a second, crossing his arms as he perched on the corner of his desk.
“I’m just trying to be a decent human being. Why are you crying in my classroom on the first day of break?” He retorted.
I also had to ponder the answer to this question. I wasn’t exactly sure. “A lot of things. I had a somewhat shitty night last night, and now I know my family doesn’t care about me. And I just had an emotional breakdown in front of my professor, which wouldn’t have happened if somebody had told me it was break today.”
“I’m sure somebody, somewhere or somehow, did tell you it was break. It’s kind of been all over the school. That aside,” he added quickly when I became visibly annoyed, “I’m sorry to hear you had a shitty night. Can I ask what happened?” He was eyeing me delicately, which worried me.
My heart plummeted as I realized in taking off my jacket, I had revealed the dozens of hickies Anthony had left all over me last night. I scrambled for it, but he cut me off, sensing my panic.
“No point in sweating like a pig since the damage is already done. Not like I’ve never seen or gotten any of those before in my life. We’re both adults here. I only asked because I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said quietly. I wanted to shake my head in disbelief, but those words did come out of his mouth.
“Why would you care? Honestly, real question. I do try to be an asshole to you most of the time but I’m not right now,” I admitted.
“Someone crying hysterically and being covered in bruises? It would be shitty of me to not make sure they were fine. It’s part of my job; make sure you crazy kids don’t beat each other to a pulp and people who need to be reported get reported.”
“OH. Oh, no, no, it was nothing like that. It was very consensual,” I cringed as I spoke these words to him. My professor. Whom I found very attractive. “But thank you?” He just nodded, eyes trailing up my neck. I pretended to not notice. “What are you doing here on break? Shouldn’t you be at home with your family?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “I would love to, but I don’t have much family at home, let alone family in a respectable distance. They’re all mostly in New Jersey, but my brother is a musician out on the road right now. My parents have their own families now. So it’s just me. I use this space the way it’s supposed to be used when there are no students wasting it away.”
I had two thoughts. First, he didn’t have a girlfriend. Second, did he think I wasted space in this class? New third thought, why did it matter to me so much? Pushed it to the back of my mind with all of my other unpleasant thoughts.
“I just can’t believe my family didn’t reach out to me,” I said numbly to nobody in particular. Gerard let out a low sigh.
“It’s not exactly late in the week. You have what, three days? You could easily travel back home by then,” he said, getting up from his desk to put on a tee shirt. I watched his back muscles stretch before he pulled it snugly down, quickly looking away when he turned around. “Sorry, I suppose I need to make myself presentable.” He fished out a pair of jeans from under his desk, scooting my legs to the side.
“I don’t have the money to travel right now anyway, so it’s probably a good thing,” I said, burning a hole into the ground so as to not look at him while he was putting pants on. I hadn’t noticed how quiet it was in the classroom; he must have turned the music off when I had walked in on him. He walked back to the front of his desk, zipping up a jacket. “I’ll get out of your hair. Thank you for the tissues.”
“Have you eaten breakfast?” He said, stooping down to grab a backpack with sketchbooks and paintbrushes sticking out of the zipper. He tossed a tarp on top of the painting he had on the ground. The question took me aback.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you look hungover as all fuck, and I’m going to get breakfast now. Do you want to come?” Gerard stated coolly. My cheeks flushed.
“I think I’m okay. I don’t want to intrude.” I stuttered, picking up my own sketchbooks. His eyes darted from the books I was holding to my face.
“What the hell would you be intruding on? It’s just me. Truth be told, I feel bad kicking you out of my room so abruptly and since it seems we’re the only people on this campus, we can at least take advantage of that and not deal with ungodly lines at the market.” He grabbed some papers from his desk, nodding towards the door. I zipped my own jacket up and filed out the door, waiting for him to lock it before we walked across campus.
“So how long have you been teaching?” I asked, trying to make some form of small talk with him.
“About five years. I know,” he glanced at me sideways, “didn’t expect that answer, did you? You thought I was a kid just out of grad school, huh?”
“I think everybody does,” I said, slightly shocked. He chuckled.
“I’m going to be twenty-nine. I don’t think anybody in that class actually is older than me. I just like to make them feel small sometimes,” he confided. It was my turn to chuckle.
“Well, you succeeded.” I looked down at my shoes as we walked. I felt so out of place, being oddly friendly with him. Maybe I had been wrong to assume he was an asshole.
“It’s always scary coming in to take over for a class. A lot of people are attached to the teacher you’re replacing and they hate you before even meeting you. So I try to make it fun to change their minds,” Gerard explained. I nodded.
“Makes sense. I’d never be able to do what you do.”
“Well, what do you want to do?” He asked as he held the door open to the market for me. I fished out my school ID, looking around; he had assumed right, it was nearly deserted. We piled up on waffles and fruit and coffee before finding a place out on the patio to eat.
“I don’t know. For a long time I wanted to go into psychology, then I wanted to go into photography. I’m just kind of floating around right now, and it’s terrifying. I’ll know soon; I have to decide before the end of this semester,” I said, my heart sinking at my own words. Gerard raised his eyebrows as he scraped the food off his fork.
“That sucks.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes, which I was more than okay with. Normally Jessica would chit-chat at me constantly with me only chiming in to agree with her or tell her what a bitch that bitch was being. This was different, and this was nice. The fountain down the stairs from the patio tinkled quietly in the distance, and the storm clouds were clearing up. Every now and then I glanced at Gerard; he had pulled some of his sketchbooks out and was going over them with scrutinizing eyes.
“You’re great at drawing,” I noted. He flicked his wrist lazily in my direction. “I mean, I get that’s why you’re our professor. That was stupid.” He stopped boring into his book and looked me in the eyes.
“That wasn’t stupid. Don’t call things you say stupid. You’re a bright kid and don’t need that negativity,” Gerard grunted. I sat there in surprise for a few moments before continuing my meal. “Sorry if that was weird. It’s just something my brother taught me that I’ve become to believe firmly. The world is constantly trying to convince you that you aren’t good enough, so you don’t need to play into that.”
I stabbed a piece of pineapple with my fork as some birds flew into the courtyard, providing incessant background noise for our somewhat awkward conversation, at least for me. Gerard was working furiously on something in his work, and I felt like an awkward brown noser for having breakfast with a professor.
A few minutes later, and Gerard thrusted a paper into my hands. “The lighting was perfect on your cheeks. I had to.” It was a drawing of me, delicately assessing the stack of pancakes that I had over encumbered my plate with. I let out a small giggle, glancing up at him to find warmness in his eyes before gazing back at the paper.
“This is great. Nobody’s ever drawn me before. Do you want it back?” I asked shyly. He shook his head curtly, standing up and stretching.
“I have to run and do some errands before the stores get any crazier than they probably already are,” he said dejectedly. He grabbed his backpack but abruptly set it back down when he seemed to remember something. “Oh, and one more thing,” he fished into his pockets, handing me a business card. “I hate to think of you spending all week alone, and I’m not trying to come off the wrong way here, but that’s my cell phone if you need me.”
I took it, nodding. “Thanks. Here,” I grabbed a pen from my bag and a crumpled napkin from breakfast to scribble my own number on and handed it to him, “I just realized you probably have no need for this, but it just seemed appropriate I guess? I don’t know, I’m rather hungover right now. But that’s mine.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled as he folded it up and placed it in his backpack. “Hang in there,” he said, giving me a rough pat on the back as he walked off behind me. I sat in the courtyard for a few more minutes, until the sun went away behind the clouds. That had to have been the most pleasant breakfast I’d had with someone in a long time.
And that horrified me.

Notes