His Prize Pupil

“Excuse me,” Alana mutters, ducking past the man. “Thanks for the advice, professor.”

Professor?

Fuck that.

“Alana,” I push through my teeth, panic gnawing at my bones. “Wait.”

But when I wheel around my colleague, she’s being greeted by a group of students, some of whom I recognize from my lecture. They must have met her at orientation because they clearly and understandably already love her, one of them throwing up their hands as if to say there you are!

It does not escape my notice that boys belong to this group. They look my Alana over appreciatively, lust tightening the skin around their mouths and I want to commit murder.

Cold-blooded fucking murder.

Mine.

As the group leads Alana away, she turns to look at me and time stops.

It’s like she’s saying goodbye officially to what we have and it’s the knockout blow. I’m flat on my back in the center of the ring, the referee screaming at me to get back up.

And I do.

I regain my feet and let Alana know with my eyes that there will be another round.

Goodbyes don’t exist for us.

5

Alana

I slide the flash unit out of my Nikon and place it carefully in my camera bag, adjusting my aperture so I can try to shoot without it. There is a squirrel eating a student’s lunch in the quad and I’m going to tell him. Eventually. But first I have to get the shot.

My eyes are gritty from crying myself to sleep last night, but I rub them with the back of my wrist and line up the shot through my viewfinder. The squirrel is just about to hit the bricks with one of the napping student’s Cheetos and—

Damn. Missed it again.

Mentally, I nickname that squirrel Speedy.

Wrinkling my nose, I start to fiddle with my camera settings, hoping I can figure out the right mode in time to catch the thief in the act. I don’t have sociology class for another hour and I should be getting something to eat or catching a nap, but I have to distract myself from the fissure that seems to have formed in my heart. It would probably help to talk to Ripley, but I meant my promise to Gavin. I’m going to keep his secret.

Knowing my best friend, if she found out a man broke my stupid, naïve heart, she would wait outside his classroom with a switchblade and carve him up like a turkey.

That bitch is crazy.

I’m kind of avoiding her, because she’ll take one look at me and know I did something dumb. I went and fell for a member of the opposite sex and trusted him not to hurt me. It’s a tale as old as time, isn’t it? There’s nothing special about my personal heartbreak, except I’m the one who has to try and breathe around the broken glass in my throat.

I realize I’ve been staring into nothing for long moments and shake myself, going back to working with my camera settings. What did I think was going to happen when Gavin walked into that classroom? That he would say “damn the rules” and carry me off into the sunset? That’s not how life works. People have responsibilities and jobs and priorities. It’s ridiculous to be this depressed that I wasn’t Gavin’s top one.

And yet.

There’s this…bond that formed the night in the brothel. When I called him that name, when he asked me to call him by it, there was a transference of trust. He took responsibility of my fears and happiness and that title spoken in the heat of the moment…it seemed to imply that his protectiveness would extend everywhere. Never let anything bad touch me.

Especially bad that came from him.

It was an effective illusion, I’ll say that much.

Maybe it’s a good thing I got my first shock of pain out of the way on day one of freshman year. It can only go uphill from here, right?

The bench creaks beneath me, letting me know someone has taken a seat on the other side, but I keep my head down, not feeling much like meeting anyone new.

“Set your command dial to M before you adjust the shutter speed,” comes Gavin’s deep voice beside me. “You should catch him that way.”

Awareness is like a hand around my neck, fingers biting into me from all sides and preventing me from swallowing. “Thanks.” Still refusing to look at him, lest my heart actually leap out of my mouth and complete its death throes in his lap, I follow his instructions. I click the command dial to M and roll the shutter speed to the desired number, raising the camera and waiting, waiting for the right moment before snapping.

There on the display screen is a shot of Speedy mid-leap after hijacking a Chewy granola bar. “Got it,” I breathe, the flush of satisfaction warming me enough so that I can at least breathe again. “Thanks.”