Page 26 of Snowed in with the Professor

I sat on the living room floor, textbooks thrown around me, loose-leaf papers crumpled up in balls near the small garbage can I’d carried in. They were my notes, but tonight they sounded like nonsense to me, my thoughts so preoccupied I couldn’t concentrate.

I was studying for an exam; however, my attention wasn’t on any of this. My thoughts were consumed with Seth, with everything we’d done, everything we shared.

It had only been a few days since he’d taken me to dinner and then back to his place, where he claimed my virginity and opened himself up to me. For the brief period of time, we’d been seeing each other, I’d never felt closer to anyone in my entire life.

And yet I hadn’t known I’d been missing anything until that very moment when he gazed into my eyes and told me he loved me.

I picked up one of the textbooks, raised my pencil to my mouth, and started chewing on the end as I read over the compulsory reading. But still, I couldn’t focus, couldn’t concentrate.

I don’t know how long I sat like that, but I found myself smiling occasionally every time I thought of being with Seth, and the memory of how sore I’d been after he’d had me.

A flush swept across me at those pictures of his massive, muscular body over mine.

The sound of a car pulling into my driveway, then of a door opening and closing, had my heart beating. In fact, it probably wasn’t him, not at this hour, but yet I fantasized it was.

I strolled out to the living room window and drew the curtains aside, but it was too dark to see much of anything. And then the sound of three firm knocks on the front door had my heart racing. I peeked out the peephole. Confusion filled me at who stood on the other side.

When I opened it, the huge smile on my mother’s face had worry filling me immediately. She clutched an overnight bag in her hand, the grin on her face looked forced.

“Surprise,” she said a little too eagerly.

“Mom?” I stepped to the side to let her in. I closed the door and faced her, leaning against it and just watching her, waiting for her to drop the bomb I knew she’d come here to drop.

Why else would she show up unexpectedly this late?

“Is everything okay?”

She looked around the small house that I called home while in school. “This place is cute, Grace.” She turned and faced me, but I could see her smile was still forced.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

She set her bag down. “What? I can’t surprise my daughter with a visit?”

I knew my expression was probably disbelieving.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but you’ve never just shown up out of the blue, especially when it’s this late.” I could see the wall she’d built around herself start to crumble. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

She sighed, and I watched her smile vanish. A real look of anguish, wrath, hopelessness clung to her in that moment. I knew what this was about before she even said anything.

My father.

Pearce.

He and my mother had married young. They’d been high school sweethearts, and I knew from enough reminiscing from my mother over the years that my father had been her first everything.

First boyfriend.

First love.

First kiss.

First everything.

So, when things had gone wrong, my mother had taken it hard.

The divorce hadn’t been amicable. My father had up and left my mom, taking a substantial amount of their savings, and ran off with the lady who would become his new wife.

He hadn’t given a second thought to how this would affect my mother; probably even assumed I was mature enough to get through it.

He’d tried to smooth things over with me, going off about being in love and wanting to start his life.

It had all been crap.

He’d abandoned his wife and daughter for a young, new piece of ass. He’d married her shortly after he deceived my mom and clearly had no regrets or shame about it.

A part of me despised him for what he’d put my mom through, for how he’d hurt her.

“It’s about your father.”

Of course, it was. Because even after the years that had passed, he was still fucking her over.

I stepped over to her and gave her a hug. I didn’t know what this was about, but whatever it was had disturbed her enough that she felt the need to come all the way out here to see me.

I pulled back and gazed at her, hating that she felt so lost. She put up a nice face, though, and I knew she did it for me even though I knew how distraught she genuinely was over it all.

“Whatever has happened, things will work out. They always do.” I took her hand and led us into the living room, and we sat on the couch. Her focus was on the textbooks and papers strewn about the floor.

“I’m sorry for just barging in like this.”

I shook my head even though she wasn’t looking at me. “You know you’re welcome here anytime. I’m simply sorry I haven’t been able to get home. School’s been kind of hectic.”

And then, of course, there was my affair with my professor.

Obviously, I kept that to myself. That probably wasn’t a talk we needed to have at this very moment.

“No, you should definitely focus on school. You shouldn’t have to worry about your mom dropping in because she can’t control her shit.”

We sat there in quiet for long seconds. I didn’t want to raise the matter again; felt she could tell me in her own time what was wrong.

But then after a few moments, she cleared her throat and pointed to the textbooks.

“How’s school going, by the way?”

She was dodging, stalling.

She looked across at me and I shrugged. “It’s going.” I felt my cheeks flame as I thought about Seth, wondering what she’d think, how she’d feel if I acknowledged what I was doing with my professor.

I stroked my hands up and down my thighs, suddenly feeling very frightened. I observed the way she knitted her brows. My mother could read me well without me having to say anything.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded and cleared my throat. “What’s going on with Dad?”

She slumped back on the couch and breathed, suddenly appearing very sleepy. “He’s having another baby with Crystal.” My mother stared straight ahead; her unshed tears visible.

I was outraged instantaneously, not because there was another kid coming into the world, not because he had left us to build a new family—because we were clearly not enough—but because my mom was hurting.

“I’m sorry.” In that moment, I hated my father all over again.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I shouldn’t really care at this point, but I swear it’s like a wound being reopened.” She smiled at me, but it was sad, distant. “I wanted to be here with you when you found out.”

Not only had he cheated on my mother, run off with his too-young wife, but every time his happiness came coming back up, it was like a smack in my mother’s face.

“He’s an asshole,” I remarked, and she looked across at me and gave me a sad smile.

“He’s your father. I don’t want you thinking negatively of him.”

“Then he shouldn’t have cheated on you and abandoned us for a piece of ass.” This wrath swelled in me so furiously, I felt my hands shake.

“It was wrong of me to come here, to burden you. But I wanted to deliver you the news in person. I’m sure he’ll call you tomorrow.”

I could only shake my head. “He told you today?”

She shook her head. “No, I was talking with Lydia, and she said she overheard Coleman talking to your father on the phone.”

Lydia had lived next to us nearly my entire life. After the divorce, Lydia had washed her hands of my dad, but her husband, Coleman, still stayed in contact, supposedly.

“She thought I knew already when she brought it up.” She stared at me then. “Not that I expected Pearce to call me and tell me, and honestly I’m glad he didn’t, but to hear it second hand from the neighbor?” She snorted.

I hated that he was still directing her emotions, that he had this impact on her. It was hard for her to even live her own life because I knew she still loved him. How could she not?

Even treachery couldn’t stop anybody from caring. Even grief couldn’t make those sentiments vanish.

“Everything will be fine, Mom. He’s not worth it. Father or not, he wounded both of us, and at this point I don’t want him in my life.”

“Oh, honey. Don’t say that. He divorced me, not you.”

I shook my head. “The way he went about all of this was underhanded in the worst kind of way.” My mother didn’t say anything, and instead I hugged her as we both sat there in quiet, the atmosphere heavy and thick.

He’d done this to her and me, and all I wanted to do was shout and scream at him, to tell him how much I despised him, how witnessing the misery he caused in my mom made me abhor him.

But I didn’t need that in my life. Neither of us did. All we could do now was go on.

All we could do now was live this new life.

And all I could think of on the tails of that notion was how I wanted that new life to be with Seth.