Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
I keep my voice down. “Do you think she killed herself because she wanted to leave? Or because she wanted to stay?”
He lets out a deep harumph. “I think she was a very tragic woman suffering from hysteria. Sometimes there just isn’t much of a story. Now, let’s go inside and get some coffee. The weather is far too gloomy for this kind of talk.”
“Did you want to go for another stroll?” Kat asks me. It’s at the end of our mimicry class, and she’s hovering by my desk.
I look up from my papers and stare at her for a moment. She’s standing here in her pumpkin-colored dress adorned with velvet, a lot more modest than the one she wore on her first day, yet it does nothing to hide her ample curves.
She really is beautiful, I can’t help but think. It’s the kind of beauty that your brain doesn’t process right away because it doesn’t seem quite real. Her face is so round and angelic, especially with her blonde hair like a halo around her head, but her eyes speak differently. They’re full of sass and zest and a maturity that I didn’t expect her to have. Not to mention her mouth, which is always talking back and always keeping me on my toes. If it were anyone else, I would have told her off by now, but that smart mouth makes me want to dole out my own form of punishment in the form of my flat palm on her plump ass.
But of course, I can’t afford to think of her like that, sexually or with any affection at all. I wasn’t told there were any rules against relations with students, but I also don’t want to get myself into any trouble this early in the game. It’s a complication I can do without.
I also don’t know how she feels about me. She is asking me to go for another walk with her, and she does seem to be focused on me a lot of the time. I’m no stranger to students having their crushes on me. I know that I represent something to them, a person in power and control. But when it comes to Kat, I feel her draw to me might be based on the moments our energies met each other. Her emotions in my body. My energy blocked by hers. It must create a sense of intimacy when you know someone’s been sifting around in your brain, in the places you may not even know exist, feeling what you’ve felt.
“If you’re busy, I understand,” Kat says quickly, her shoulders dropping slightly, and I realize I’ve been sitting here and staring at her, not giving her an answer.
“Let’s go,” I say, and I’m on my feet, grabbing my coat.
We go out the doors and into the autumn afternoon. The gloom of the morning has lifted, and there’s even a bit of blue sky peeking through the high clouds. The fog that hovers around the campus is thinner today, letting enough light in to make you squint. A light breeze blows from the north, smelling of frost.
“Are you not cold?” I ask her, though I notice she’s wearing gloves today.
“I run hot,” she says.
“That much I can tell.”
She looks at me askew.
“You’re hot-tempered,” I explain. “I wouldn’t know what your body feels like.” Her brows furrow even deeper. “What I meant was…I mean, I have held your hand before, but…”
“Tripping over your own words, Crane,” she says with a dainty smile. “How very unlike you. You must have been up late again. Another body in the night?”
Crane. Not Professor Crane, but Crane. I like it. So long as she remembers to call me Professor in front of the other students. I wouldn’t want them to think we have a sort of relationship forming.
“Actually, no,” I tell her. “Well, yes, there were the sounds, but I managed to fall asleep anyway.” We stop in the middle of the courtyard. “To the lake or to the woods?” The gardens are lovely, but they are peppered with students enjoying the day, and with all the things we’re sure to talk about, I don’t want them overhearing. I could use the voice on Kat, but she doesn’t know how to use it in return.
“How about the woods today? But we can stick to the edges, walk around the campus that way,” she suggests. “I don’t feel like being in the dark.”
I’m not about to argue with that. We continue to walk along the main path, then converge onto a smaller stone one that goes between a row of tall orange and peach dahlias, heads like giant pinwheels, buzzing with late-season bees. Being in the city for so long, I’d forgotten how soothing nature can be, even when it’s dark and electric and heading toward the decay of winter.