by Geneva Lee
It felt directly into their jurisdiction. Their duty was to consider situations that exited in a gray area ethically. Hadn’t I known that was where my relationship with Roman fell? If the committee was sympathetic, nothing would happen. If they weren’t… I couldn’t bring myself to consider the consequences.
I grabbed my bag off the floor and refrained from throwing it at Brett’s head. “Congratulations. You’ve fucked me over. Does it make you feel better?”
“It does. Say hi to your boyfriend for me,” he said, but I ignored him and made a beeline for the door.
I flipped him off as I pushed open the exit and dug around for my phone. I had to warn Roman. I hadn’t told him that I was meeting with Brett today. We hadn’t talked since he took me home from Garrett’s a few nights ago. If he could speak with his department head before the complaint reached them, we might stand a chance. My heart sank when I saw he’d already texted me.
ROMAN: I need to see you asap.
Something told me I was too late to warn him.
The communications department was nearly deserted when I braved entry. Steeling myself, I silently repeated Cassie’s mantra: I am a badass. I deserve better. I will demand more.
It was easier thought than believed.
Knocking on Roman’s office door, I waited with my heart in my throat for him to answer. When he did, he didn’t look happy to see me. He waved for me to enter quickly. He shut the door, and I knew it was going to be bad. His office was in bad shape. Stacks of ungraded papers, a box of books on the floor. He was always a little messy, but this was different. There was a recklessness in the air that made my own pulse speed up It was clear from the circles under his eyes that he hadn’t slept.
“I just came from a meeting with the dean,” he said.
Uh-oh.
“Brett tattled,” I said in a rush as if getting it out would somehow mitigate what he was about to tell me. “He doesn’t care that I’d already broken up with him. I should have known he’d be a petty asshat about it, but believe me, I had no clue how crazy he could get.”
“I’m glad he's out of your life. He’s unhinged.” Roman tugged at his top button until it popped open. The protective tone in his voice only made me feel worse. He was worrying about me when he should be worrying about himself.
“What did the department chair say?” I asked in a small voice.
“He reminded me that Olympic State has an ethical duty to ensure students receive a top education, and that a sexual relationship with a student undermines that responsibility.”
“A sexual relationship?” Just repeating it made me wince. We could claim things hadn’t gone that far which might mitigate their reaction, but only if Roman had denied it. If Roman had lied, it might save his career. But did I want to be in a relationship I had to lie about? It had been one thing to keep it a secret. This was another thing entirely.
“It’s an apt enough description,” he said.
He hadn’t lied, but that wasn’t what hurt. If the department chair’s comment had stung Roman’s remark sliced to the bone. I swallowed against the threat of tears. “I guess I thought we had more than a sexual relationship.”
“I didn’t feel like it was the appropriate time to correct him.” His lips pressed into a tight line. He kept his eyes trained on the wall over my shoulder.
“You’re the one who called it an ‘apt description.’ My words dripped venom, and if I was being honest, I hoped it would sting half as much as his careless remark had. How could he reduce what we had to something that sounded so vulgar? I wanted to throw up.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” he said, “but this is about more than a job for me. If I'm dismissed as a PhD candidate here, I won't be able to hide why from other schools. I'm totally screwed. Four years of coursework down the drain.”
“What will it take to clear your name?” I asked him. The pit in my stomach grew larger as I stared at him, feeling helpless and unwanted at the same time.
“I don't know,” he said in a low voice. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose as he dropped down in his office chair. “If you weren't a student…”
I swallowed hard on what he was telling me. The only way to avoid destroying his reputation was if one of us left Olympic State. Considering he was already under suspicion, I knew it would make him look guilty if he was the one to leave. “I'll transfer,” I said. “The University of Washington is only an hour away and I'm sure I could get in.”
“Absolutely not. There's no way you're giving up everything you worked for because I couldn't keep my pants zipped.”
“What the hell?” I couldn’t stop the anger from spilling out. “When you say things like that, I feel like you actually took advantage of me. Newsflash: I'm twenty-two years old. I have a 3.9 GPA and I'm about to ace my goddamn MCATs. I'm not some child who you pressured to sleep with you. You are four years older than me, Roman.”
“I'm sorry.” His hand reached toward mine, but I pulled mine back. The last thing I needed was for him to condescend to me right now.
“When we were in Mexico you treated me like your equal. Now I don't know what I am to you.” I choked on the last word, barely able to hold back the tears mounting in my throat.
“You are my equal, Jessica.” He stood and stepped toward me, but I backed away. He didn't relent, instead he kept coming toward me until I was pressed against the wall. He dropped down so that his mouth was hovering over me. “When my department chair came in here, I realized how it looked to everyone else. You can't deny what other people are going to think about us. There’s a reason we’ve been sneaking around. It’s a big joke to your friends, but what's your sister going to say?”
“I doubt she'd care.” I turned my face away from him, unable to meet his eyes. I hadn’t even told him about the Student Ethics Committee, and he was already giving up on us. Maybe I’d be fooling myself that the age difference didn’t matter. It did to him obviously. “We were supposed to end this in Mexico. Maybe we should walk away. Lie. Tell them nothing happened.”
“Don't.” His finger pushed my chin toward him, forcing me to see the pain reflected in his eyes. “Yes, we said that in Mexico, but things have changed.”
“You're right,” I said, pushing out from under his arm. “We should never have done this.”
Fleeing the room before I broke down in front of him, I made it outside before the tears started. Cassie was right—we’d made a lot of bad decisions in Mexico.
The worst one I made was falling in love.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The doomsday letter arrived the next day. I found it placed ominously on the bar as soon as I walked into our apartment. Jillian was on the couch, pretending to be absorbed in a psych book. There was no way she was actually reading. Not after seeing the envelope with Student Ethics Committee stamped on it. I picked it up, but my fingers trembled too much for me to open it. Instead I fanned myself with it, leaning back against the counter.
“So I got a letter from the SEC.” I shrugged as though acting casual could dispel the tension in the air.
“I saw.” Jillian slammed her book shut and flashed me a hopeful smile. “Are you going to sit on the board again?”
If only that were a possibility. I loved my best friend for searching for hope in a moment like this. Usually that was my job, but I needed her to provide that service now.
“I wish,” I said in a flat voice, and the fake smile fell off her face. “Nope. This year I thought ‘why sit on the board? They need a challenge. What the hell? Maybe I should have an affair with a teacher, almost get pregnant, and be called up in front of the board.’”
“Interesting plan,” she said in a weak voice. She didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t blame her. Growing up with her mother meant she often had a hard time being comforting, even though she tried to be. But what was she supposed to say?
“And it worked!” I continued in mock enthusiasm, waving the letter.
“Maybe you should o
pen it.”
That was the last thing I wanted to do, but with the proof of Roman’s and mys indiscretion staring me in the face, indignation swelled in me. I was mad at Brett for tattling like we were still in elementary school, and I was mad at Cassie for not stopping me in Mexico, and I was mad at both my best friends for not intervening when I’d clearly lost my mind—and I was livid with Roman for the roller coaster ride he’d abandoned me on halfway through. But mostly, I was angry at myself for being stupid. I’d let Roman distract me from school and my career. I’d left for Mexico knowing exactly what I’d wanted. I’d been so sure when I turned down Brett’s proposal and ran away to refocus on my life. How had I wound up here? The answer was stupidity—the kind that came from listening to my hormones instead of my head. Buoyed by my anger, I ripped open the envelope and skimmed the letter.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“Blah. Blah. Blah. An ethical complaint has been made against you,” I said, adding, “by your douchebag ex-boyfriend. A hearing has been scheduled to determine if disciplinary action should be administered. Due to the serious nature of the claim”—I rolled my eyes—”the committee will also review your place within Olympic State University.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means”—I looked up at her—“they want to kick me out of school.”
Jillian jumped up, dropping her decoy textbook. “They can’t do that!”
“I’m pretty sure they can.” For some reason reading the letter had calmed me, allowing rational Jess to take over. I’d sat on a number of cases involving expulsion. Even when it was considered, hardly any of them ever got that far. In fact, we’d only recommended it in the case of a violent assault between roommates. But we’d never presided over a faculty-student romance case before. It was new territory.
“You need to call Lil,” she said.
“I’m not calling my sister.”
“She’s a lawyer.”
“You don’t bring a lawyer to an SEC hearing,” I said wearily.
“Is it against the rules?” she asked.
“For fuck’s sake, Jills, this isn’t an episode of Law & Order. It’s not even an episode of Judge Judy.” There was no way I was calling Lil in on this one. The more I considered it, the more I knew the committee might recommend disciplinary action or level a fine for poor student conduct, but they wouldn’t kick me out, especially if Roman hadn’t been fired.
“I’ll go with you then.” She lunged for the paper, but I held back the letter so she couldn’t see the hearing date. She and Cassie had been party to my humiliation for far too long. I’d gotten myself into this mess, and I would face the consequences.
“I’m fine. I still have friends on the committee. I bet they’ll laugh it off.” That was a lie. The majority of the committee changed annually to ensure no one went mad with power, as the faculty advisor had informed us. I would be on my own for this.
“Okay.” She sunk back onto the couch, but her eyes narrowed a bit. She didn’t believe me.
“I need to grab a shower before my study group later,” I said, escaping to my room. I didn’t have a study group tonight. All I really wanted was to be alone so I could handle this.
When I emerged later to find Jillian gone and a note on the counter.
Meeting at Garrett’s at 9 for mandatory girls night. No questions asked. No excuses.
Part of me wanted to rip up the note or leave it on the counter and pretend I’d never seen it, but a girls night was too tempting. Along with a lot of utterly ridiculous rules we’d established freshman year, one of the ones that stuck was the no-questions-asked girls’ night. We’d let go of other less-than-genius rules—even Jillian had eventually let go of our boycatching tradition—but we’d kept girls night. It didn’t matter what was going on in our lives, those nights were reserved for being together and being silly. It was exactly what I needed, because otherwise I’d be in my room obsessing over my fate. All I had to do was cancel an imaginary study group and find a way to kill the next three hours.
It was the midweek lull at Garrett’s. A handful of guys were sharing a drink at the bar, but even the dinner crowd had come and gone. No doubt Cassie would have already sweet-talked Frank into letting us use the “weekend-only” karaoke machine. It wouldn’t be the first time. I was going to need several drinks first.
My eyes swept the bar, but the girls weren’t here yet. It was just like them to set up a mandatory girls’ night and then be late to it. But as I plopped onto a stool to wait, the door swung open and Lillian stepped inside.
I’d drafted a pissed-off text to Jillian before my sister even spotted me. This was betrayal worthy of execution in my book, which meant it was a good thing she hadn’t bothered to bring her here herself. Jillian needed a butt-the-fuck-out intervention.
Lil caught sight of me and waved. There were lines under her eyes and I noted the wrinkles in her suit as she approached. Not only had my sister been dragged into this, she’d been busy from the looks of it.
“Working late?” I asked. The question came out sounding as lame as I felt. My big sister had been called in to save me. Could things get any more humiliating?
“I stayed at the office last night. Big case coming up.”
Guilt overtook anger as I took in how disheveled she looked. Lil already worked around the clock and now she had to come all the way out to Olympic Falls. I wasn’t simply screwing up my life. I was wrecking hers.
“So Jillian called you,” I guessed as I led her over to a table.
“No,” she said. “You sent me a text message saying you had an emergency.”
“That’s funny I don’t remember doing that.” I gritted my teeth as I spoke, making a mental note to buy some sort of waterproof case for my phone. From now on I would have to take it into the shower with me.
“You said you needed my legal help,” Lil prompted. “What’s wrong, Jess?”
Jillian had intentionally made sure I couldn’t back out from telling my sister what was going on. I considered lying to her about a nonexistent speeding ticket, but Lil knew my driving record was more spotless than Snow White’s. Plus, I didn’t have a ticket to fix. I was still searching for an excuse when she reached out and grabbed my hand.
“I love you, kid. No matter what. I know it was Jillian who sent the message, but I hope you’ll tell me what’s going on.”
I crumbled, the logic holding me together cracking, and the story spilled out of me. All of it. Lil managed to order us two drinks without interrupting me. She nodded in the right places, and when I got to the pregnancy scare, the muscles in her jaw tensed, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. My version of events included plenty of self-flagellation on its own.
“First of all, you aren’t stupid and you aren’t an idiot,” she said when I finished. She drew a steadying breath. “How old is this professor?”
“Twenty-six! He’s not even a professor. He just finished his doctorate last week.” My voice broke as I remembered my plan to jump him in his regalia. I’d planned to go to his graduation. I had wanted to share that with him. How had things fallen apart so quickly?
“So mostly this is all bad timing and not an abuse of power.” She was already starting to form her argument. I could see it in her eyes as she thought about how she would spin this case.
“I don’t need you to do anything about this.”
“Like hell,” she said. “I will be at that SEC hearing. He might be an instructor, but if he was a graduate student, then this is clearly a case of a student relationship. You weren’t in his class, right?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head. “Not this semester.”
“And you didn’t sleep with him while you were in his class, did you?”
“No.” I half-expected a spotlight to flip on overhead as she interrogated me. Jillian was always telling me I had a doctor mode. My sister had a lawyer mode. Still, I was comforted by her argument that Roman and I were in a purel
y student relationship. She was right after all. I’d known that until Brett start messing with me. Hearing my incredibly smart sister say it made it finally sink in. The trick would be to get other people to see it that way.
“If this was a real case, I wouldn't even take it to court. I'd have had the charges dismissed before the ink dried on that letter.” Lil took a swig of her beer and grimaced. “Nothing like the good old university ethics system.”
“Weren't you on the Ethics Committee at Yale?”
“Sure.” She shrugged like I’d asked her if she had wrote an essay in college. “You had to be in law school. It was pretty much a requirement, but I thought it was stupid then. We have an actual court system for a reason.” Something about seeing Lil's hackles up made me smile, but she pointed an accusatory finger at me. “You might not have done anything to get you kicked out of school, kid, but that doesn't mean you were smart.”
I wished I could hide under the table. I'd opened up to her like a book, which meant she knew all the drama I'd been through with Roman.
“There’s something about your story that I’d like you to clarify. What did you mean by 'I thought I was pregnant?’” she asked.
Right now the ability to turn invisible seemed like the greatest super power in the world. Unfortunately, I didn't possess the skill, so I had to answer her. “My period was late. I'd been having sex so I assumed.”
“Did you take a test?”
“No, I'm pre-med but that didn't occur to me. I was planning on waiting to see if a baby fell out.” I stole the line from Jillian. But Lillian wasn’t going to let me hide behind sarcasm. We both knew that mistake wouldn’t have been so easy to handle.
“Don't be a jerk,” she said. “Getting into a relationship with a grad student might not warrant getting kicked out, but how did you plan on staying in school if you got knocked up?”