by Ava Paris
I could hardly deal with what had happened - with my side of the thoughts and feelings after what had happened - how could I deal with his side too?
It all felt overwhelming all at once as I took a deep breath and tried to find something at home to distract myself with.
Chapter Thirteen
I had taken the day after we arrived back from Canberra off work and was set to return to work after having a little break for myself. This was something I always did when we had conferences as I needed a chance to reset and recharge that I wouldn’t get if I just threw myself back into work.
Also, there is so much that you take in at a conference. Or at least to me. I take in all the information that I collect, I take in all the new findings, but also other things too. I am finally putting names to faces, doing some ‘networking’. I am meeting people who I only see at conferences because they are based interstate. Some conferences too I meet people from different disciplines, which is always interesting.
So I took the time to do some work around the house, do my laundry and a couple of other things before I got back to work when I wouldn’t have as much time to do these things.
This served a duel purpose, of course these things needed to be done, but they were also good as a way of distracting myself from thinking about William, who was taking up way too much space inside my head. He had me frustrated. He had be annoyed. He had me wanting to hit something. Yet, he also had me thinking about what his lips felt like on mine or how wonderful it was to have him touch me.
I think the most difficult part was trying to sort though my own emotions. I think that was made more difficult because I would alternate between wanting to work through those emotions and not wanting to deal with them at all.
I would go from refusing to even let the thought of him cross my mind and telling myself it was a one time thing and it didn’t matter because it was at a conference anyway to thinking other things entirely. I would start fantasizing. I would start imagining.
Something about his touch, about the softness and warmness of it, meant that when that particular thought arose it made me forget everything else I had been trying so dutifully to distract myself with. Something about his touch had helped me to forget every thought I had in my head and be completely in the moment. It was so powerful that just thinking about that touch now was enough to drive me wild.
He was special to me, I knew it even that early on. I even knew it as I struggled with the thought, as I really didn’t want it to be true. He was someone who meant a lot even though I didn’t quite understand why. Even though I might not want to understand exactly why.
It was nice to have him in my head, but frustrating at the same time. There was no balance, there was no sense to it, it just was. It just was frustrating. It just was pushing me, inspiring action that I wasn’t sure I was ready to take.
So I distracted myself. I already knew he wasn’t good for me if I was this obsessed with him when we weren’t together. If the frustration of it meant I wanted to smack my head against a wall. I also knew there was no way he - or indeed any man - could be as good as I thought he was. No way. Never.
I went on distracting myself for the rest of the day, then went out to get some fatty fried chicken and sat in front of the television watching terrible American sit-coms and telling myself it was fine, there was always tomorrow to be Australia’s most professional professor who has all of her shit together and isn’t at all secretly in love with her colleague from another continent who apparently doesn’t like her quite as much as she likes him. Or whatever.
Whatever indeed I thought as I took a bite of chicken. Everyone has something in their lives that drives them crazy, at least my thing is hot enough that every other woman stares after him when he walks down the hallway at work.
When I returned to work, it was like I had my heart stowed away securely in a locked box. I walked into work, I sat down and got a little work done then took a class, everything was normal. Or, it was normal until I came back from that class and went to grab a few of my things from my office which meant I came face-to-face with William.
“Hey.” He said.
I gave him a small smile and returned his greeting with what I hoped was the same energy, “hey.” I was rifling through things in my handbag so that I had an excuse not to look up at him.
“Would you like to get lunch?” He asked.
“No need.” I said, “I am having lunch on the go today. Have to check on some monitoring equipment in a lake near here. Normally important, but especially important with us using more lake temperature data you know.”
“Can I come w-” He began but I cut him off.
“No need. I will be fine on my own. Thank you.” I told him.
I was out the door with my handbag and a few other bits and pieces before he could say anything more. I didn’t want to deal with him, if he didn’t want me badly enough to tell me, he didn’t want me. This whole thing about him being ‘unsure’ of if he can make it work with moving to the university full time had just been a line I decided. I didn’t need him and I didn’t need his lines. I was far too good for that shit anyway I told myself.
Before now I had spent a lot of energy trying to be the perfect professional professor. I had spent all this energy fortifying myself from any real professional or personal criticism, whether it be about my work or my personal life, or mixing the two. I was beyond that kind of criticism now.
I was strong and independent. I could behave just like a man would at work, I told myself.
My feelings though were a little different to the false confidence I was giving myself. I had slipped and done something I had told myself I would never do. I told myself that the best way to deal with the mistake was to not keep making them. I was being harder on myself than anyone could know. I would re-institute professional boundaries. I had to in the long term for my own health and happiness. For now though I felt too much and had to keep my distance. I needed to regain some control in this situation that felt like it was completely out of my control.
It’s difficult to put up boundaries - which you need to have a level head for in my experience - when you can’t keep your cool around someone, where your emotions seem entirely under their control and not your own.
So I would make space, then if need be - if he didn’t head back to Sweden before I managed to calm myself down and re-institute some of those all important professional boundaries - I would make him aware of my shiny new boundaries. I would make him aware that we really did have a professional relationship, regardless of whatever had personally happened between the two of us.
Until then, I had a bunch of plans to keep me busy and out of his way which I would be undertaking. Checking these monitoring devices during my usual lunch break was just one of those all important plans.
Chapter Fourteen
Things had been going okay with my new found professional boundaries, or at least they weren’t going too badly. I was taking labs and lectures, keeping busy at lunch time with things William couldn’t invite himself along to and generally just trying to not fall too hard for this guy who was obviously not as into me as he needed to be to make anything work between us, or even to make it okay how into him I obviously was.
All of my careful planning and avoidance didn’t last forever though. One Friday when I was rushing across campus on my way home William rushed up to me.
“I need to talk to you.” He said.
I wanted to move faster, to run away from him, but I couldn’t manage it. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, I just. I need to talk to you.” He told me.
“William, I can’t right now. Can’t it wait until Monday?” I asked, hoping I could put him off for longer, until I had the boundaries I knew I needed in order to talk to him. The boundaries that I felt would give me the strength to deal with whatever rebuff or rejection I was sure was coming.
“No. It must be now.” He told me as he reached down and grabbed my
hand, drawing me towards the buildings I had just left, the buildings where our offices are.
I wouldn’t be moved though, I just stood there, feet glued to the spot.
“What is it?” I asked.
William stared at me for a long moment before changing tack.
“Can I come home with you?” He asked me.
“Home? With me?” I asked, my mouth going dry. What was he on about?
“Yes.” He told me, now walking in the direction of my home. Unsure what else to do, I just followed him. He walked, I followed. I felt silly, but I didn’t know what else to do, and at least we were headed in the direction of my home, which was exactly where I wanted to be anyway, even if it wasn’t with exactly who I wanted to be with in that very moment.
The walk back to my house wasn’t filled with easy conversation as time with William usually was. We walked together in silence until I reached the front door, took out my key and let the two of us in my home. I tried to suppress the thought of the last time I had let us both into a room and what had happened between us that night as I did so.
Once we entered, I asked William if he wanted some water.
“No, thank you.” He said before quickly telling me, “actually, yes, I will have some water. Bring it in a glass you don’t mind being broken.”
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow, “you came here to break my glasses, William?” I asked.
At this he shook his head. Of course that wasn’t what he was looking for. I had said what I said for a joke, one which wasn’t being taken particularly well. I didn’t even get a smile for my efforts.
Whatever I thought as I headed into my kitchen to pour him a glass of water. I poured the glass directly from the tap and when I turned around, William - who I had thought was still in my lounge room - was standing almost right on top of me. I dropped the glass. It fell to the ground and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces which flew in every direction along with the terrible clatter.
“Fuck!” I cried as glass flew everywhere.
A second later though, I was standing there holding the glass - which was completely together - and staring down at it in disbelief. William was across the room, rather than in front of me.
In the blink of an eye, my glass went from being shards on the ground - I felt the water hit my legs, I was sure of it, and heard and saw the glass shatter - to being full and complete in my hand and William who had been right in front of me was now across the room. How had he gotten there so fast?
“Okay, what the fuck?” I asked, seriously confused now.
“I didn’t alter your memory.” William told me. “Like I do all the time when this happens.”
“You do, what?” I asked, looking from William down to the glass in my hand again, the water within it now shaking along with my hand. I was shaking.
“I normally alter your memories, because it doesn’t make sense, does it?” He asked.
I put the glass down on the kitchen bench, scared that the water would spill, my hand was shaking that violently.
“What?” I asked.
“What just happened, really happened. I came in, stood too close to you, you dropped the water, I made the water and the glass go back together and back into your hands before backing off.” He told me.
“You, what?” He asked me.
“Have you never noticed anything strange or weird happen around me?” He asked me.
“You, what?” I asked again. Nothing he was saying felt like it was entering my brain at all.
William took a deep breath and walked over to me, he wrapped his arms around me and held me close.
“Just breathe.” He said and I noticed as he said it that my breathing was all out of whack. I tried to take deep, slow breaths, instead of the short, sharp, harried breaths I had been taking.
After he held me for a while, I pushed him away.
“What is going on?” I asked.
“I thought it would be easier to show you the first time, then tell you.” He told me. “I didn’t imagine it would be this difficult to tell you this. Are you okay?”
“Tell me what?” I asked, more confused than ever.
“To tell you that I am an alien.” He told me.
“An alien?” I asked.
“An alien.” He confirmed.
“As in, you’re from somewhere else? Because I know you’re from Swe-” I began.
“No, not Sweden. I am not from there. It is a nice place though, when the weather is okay. Which it isn’t often, but you know what I mean. I am just not really Swedish.” He told me.
“Not really Swedish?” I asked, repeating his words like they were a question.
“Yes, I am not really Swedish.” He confirmed.
I tilted my head to the side. “What does that mean? You are an alien, and not really Swedish? And how does this - the glass broke!” I told him, still shocked about what had happened the last sentence was a little higher than it should be.
“Come with me.” He said, walking from the room into the lounge room. He sat down on my couch and patted the spot beside him. Obediently, I followed.
Sitting down beside him I looked him squarely in the eye. “What is going on, really?” I asked.
“I am really an alien.” He told me.
“No you’re not.” I told him.
“Yes, I am.” He told me.
I shook my head. Aliens - as in the little green men - didn’t exist. Or, if they did, we hadn’t found them yet. I knew humans had been looking, after all. So many people were obsessed with aliens after all.
“I am part of a team who are monitoring human activity on the planet. We are collecting data about you to further understand how highly technological societies um, manage to only grow so far.” He told me.
“No you’re not, you’re a climate scientist from -” I began.
He just held up his hand and shook his head then. I could feel he was beginning to lose patience.
“No. I am not.” He told me. “I am an alien who studies other species. My people crash landed in the Australian desert and I was told I would have the opportunity for an extended mission here as a result of that crash landing, which I was excited about. I wanted to embed myself with you. I had come across your work before and loved it. It isn’t just the findings, but you had this flair in your writing. A flair I hadn’t seen before though all of my studies of your species. Then once I saw you speak and-”
“You loved my work?” I asked before the ludicrousness of asking him that question in this situation became apparent and I smiled to myself. My ego really couldn’t be helped.
“Of course I did. Everyone loves your work.” He told me.
Just then something occurred to me. “So, you can change my memory, or something?” I asked.
“Yes.” He informed me. “In the kitchen, you saw how fast and quietly I move, and also my ability to re-form broken objects and manipulate matter. I didn’t do anything to your memory, but I have in the past.”
“Have you changed my memory a lot?” I asked.
“I do it all the time, usually after I make a mistake or someone is confused to see me in the office or classroom and they say something. I have planted things in most peoples memories about emails and phone calls they had with the Swedish university before I had arrived, but none such correspondence took place.” He told me.
“Right. Okay.” I said, although I found it all a bit too rich. How could he expect me to really swallow this crap?
“So you’re an alien from, somewhere else in the universe. You came here to study humans, and fell from the sky into the Australian desert before taking a visiting professorship at my university in order to gain access to me, and my work. You also have a fair number of special powers which you have been using on me and my work, is that all correct?” I asked, thinking I had hit every point in that few sentences.
“That is correct.” He informed me.
Just then I stood up. “Well, that has been interesting. Thank
you for coming by William but I am going to have to ask you to lave.” I told him.
“Ask me to leave?” He asked.
“Yes, ask you to leave.” I told him.
“Why?” He asked.
I leveled my eyes at him and told him in a monotone, “you know why.”
Chapter Fifteen
What an idiot. There I was thinking I had to let him go because he didn’t really want to stay with me, and trying to get my mind and my heart around that one, and then he comes and drops this huge bomb on me. This huge, unexpected bomb.
Just who does he think he is kidding?
I am a scientist, for gods sake. Surely he doesn’t think that I as a member of the scientific community am going to believe some stupid rubbish he told me about aliens and him coming from somewhere else to study humans then getting stuck here and having to pretend to be a professor so he could just be close enough to me to learn about me and my work. I mean, what was he trying to do? Inflate my ego right before he left me?
I really hope it was a joke, and not a mental break down. I didn’t need that when we were alone in my home, rather than at the university where I might be able to get some more support from those around me. I was glad he had left when he was asked to and hadn’t put up a fight, that would have been awful!
He did seem too real, so genuine when he was here. He seemed to really mean what he was saying, which was a little scary if I am honest.
But that’s fine, he can be crazy or disingenuous, I have more important things to do. Also, I have to check on when he is actually leaving. He has been hanging around campus for a very long time now, surely it can’t be long.
I can imagine he would have wanted to stay around for the climate conference, but surely by now it is time for him to leave. His university will be missing him. Or maybe they won’t if he pulls this type of stunt a lot.