Then, at last, it’s Thursday, and I walk home from campus while the sun is still up, for once, and then I drive to the fancy grocery store across town. That night I’m up past midnight layering tiramisu and texting an annoyed Eli for tips.
He doesn’t ask why I’m making tiramisu, and I don’t volunteer that information. It probably means that Seth has accidentally spilled his suspicions, and while that’s annoying, I can’t blame him. Keeping secrets from brothers who know you have them is basically impossible.
Friday comes. She’s in class just like always, sitting in the seat in the last row that’s become ‘her’ seat, listening attentively and taking notes, tapping her pen between her fingers the same way she always does. Leaning forward on her elbows, focusing on the blackboard, like she always does.
I, on the other hand, call an asymptote an arachnid and write the quadratic equation wrong on the board. I don’t even notice that I write it wrong. A student has to point it out. It’s not my finest classroom moment, but I survive it, even if I can barely think about calculus.
She doesn’t say anything when she leaves. I consider asking to talk to her after class, just because I want to see her up close and hear her voice, but I don’t. I don’t want to raise suspicions.
When she leaves, she catches my eye, and she nods. Almost imperceptibly, but she does and my heart growls and sputters like a twenty-year-old car, and then she’s gone and I realize that a sophomore is asking me a detailed question about the homework and I missed the first half of it.* * *When I get the email, I’m standing in my kitchen, a notebook in my hand, a recipe pulled up on my phone, trying to take stock of my situation. It’s six o’clock, so Thalia is due in two hours, and I admit I’m feeling a little lost.
I’m also feeling like an idiot for taking Eli’s advice about what to make, because the more I read this recipe, the more I realize that each steps has sub-steps and timing that needs to work out properly. Of course he recommended this as an easy recipe, he’s a goddamn chef. He could probably do this with his eyes closed.
I, however, cannot. I’m a perfectly adequate cook but I don’t think I’ve ever impressed anyone.
I’m reading the recipe yet again when my phone vibrates in my hand and an email slides in from the top of the screen.
The pit of my stomach goes cold before I even read the subject line. All it takes is the email address it’s from.
From: [email protected]
Subject: I knowYou’re morally bankrupt.That’s all. Those three words. I stare at them until my phone screen dims and then goes black of its own accord, and I slowly put it back into my pocket.
Morally bankrupt?
Seriously?
Sex traffickers are morally bankrupt. People who take money meant for charity and buy themselves private jets are morally bankrupt.
I might argue that anyone who knowingly gets in the “15 items or less” line at the grocery store and knows they have twice that many is morally bankrupt, but I’d be willing to hear alternate takes on that one.
Even though it’s silly and over-the-top, the email rattles me. It’s not the charge of being morally bankrupt that does it — is dating Thalia against the rules? Yes. Morally bankrupt? No — it’s the fact that someone knows, and that someone is clearly not happy about this.
But on the other hand, that someone hasn’t reported us to VSU administration. They haven’t even told Gerald, my department chair about it. They’re just sending me emails about my qualities as a person. They’re not even making threats.
And it’s not like I thought I was making an ethically defensible choice. I’m doing the wrong thing with my eyes wide open.
Fuck it.
I pull my phone out, ignore the email, and get back to the recipe that I should have started at least thirty minutes ago.Chapter Thirty-OneThaliaI triple-check the address before I walk up the short path to the front door, even though I’m pretty sure I recognize the car in the driveway as Caleb’s. I mean, I didn’t memorize his license plate number or anything, but it’s a silver hatchback at the address he gave me, so I’m probably in the right place.
As I walk I take the bottle of wine out of the black plastic bag it came in and shove the bag into my purse, alongside my toothbrush, a change of clothes, and a handful of condoms. My boots click on the flagstones, the porch light on, revealing a welcome mat at the top of a few brick stairs.
I take a deep breath before I ascend, because I’m nervous. I’m nervous that someone’s seen me walking here. I’m nervous that I’ll knock on the door and Caleb will tell me he was just kidding about this.