Chapter 54
There was a pronounced intake of breath. From all of them. They really loved Miss Gilmore's classes; they had, all of them, truly found her an inspiration to behold and she wasn't without a stream of teenage admirers from the male students either, Tilly was all too aware of... So how could this be? Why had she left?
They all quizzed Mr Atkins for the entire time and completely inundated him with grumbled questions, not at all appeased when he said that she'd be back to say goodbye to them all at the end of the course in just a few more weeks but that she'd had to go and that was that. It was all very dissatisfying and upsetting for them all.
Tilly didn't waste any time. As soon as she saw how the others surrounded Mr Atkins with their frustrations and indignant questions she crept out of the room and walked straight down the stairs. She knew she'd only just seen her, when she'd looked down at her from the window as she'd been walking down the path towards her, only moments ago, so she couldn't be far and she just had to see her. She had to understand why. It felt like her universe had suddenly imploded. What had happened since last week when they'd really connected once again after so long? Had she resigned willingly? Had she been forced out? Had someone gone and revealed all about them to Keeler after all? Was she going to prison after all too?
Heart thudding in her chest; tears burning tiny pinpricks into her eyes as she tried her hardest to blink them away, she walked straight out of college and back out towards the Silver Birch trees and the staff car park beyond. She had to be there, packing her things back into her boot. She just had to... Or worse...
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Sure enough, Tilly saw her bending over a large box of art supplies and artwork yet to be marked as she was loading things into her jeep.
"Miss?" she called out, breaking into a breathless run because the jeep looked so far away and she was nearly packed up and Tilly was sure she'd drive away before she reached her. "Miss!... Jen!"
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At the sound of her name Jen looked up. She hesitated when she saw it was Tilly and for a moment the student thought she was going to jump in her jeep and drive off anyway. She was relieved when she didn't. Instead, Jen turned fully towards her and languidly leaned against the warm metal boot she had just closed, waiting for her with a gentle smile on her lips.
"Well hello there. If it isn't my little soul mate," Jen spoke softly as Tilly drew tentatively near. Her voice was quiet - a little subdued, Tilly thought - but still full of warmth at seeing her.
"I thought I might just be able to creep away," Jen continued as she looked at her standing there facing her: Tilly's emerald eyes shining through her tears; her fiery hair glinting in the sunlight and her beautiful rosebud mouth pursed into a determined pout.
For a moment the older woman had to consciously control herself and pull back from reaching out to her and pulling her into her arms and covering her in kisses to reassure her and show her that it was all going to be okay. She almost didn't manage it. As it was, her hand reached up of its own accord to brush part of Tilly's fringe gently out of her eyes and tuck it back behind her ear.
The eighteen-year-old tensed slightly, imperceptibly, at her touch, as she in turn fought with internal passions to close the small gap between them and throw her arms around her older lover. But she also managed it; just leaning her head slightly, gently, into Jen's gesture, which lingered there, her hand slowly, tenderly, brushing against her face and cheek as Tilly closed her eyes and they both felt truly alive and at one with everything around them: the warm, kissing sunlight; the sycamore and birch trees which stood there watching them, waiting and whispering; the brave little bluebells which seemed to lean towards them for a better view; even the distant white clouds...
Everything seemed to sigh.
And then all too soon the moment was gone and Jen had retracted her hand which she crossed with her other arm firmly across her chest.
"But... why- ?" Tilly began, her eyes beginning to fill again with tears.
Jen looked at her and held her gaze for a long moment before answering. "Because... it's for the best." She paused, searching the student's eyes before continuing with a sigh. "Because... I couldn't bear it any longer." She paused again, for added emphasis, willing Tilly to understand... "Because... I went to see Keeler and had a long, long discussion about... lots of things... and he really gave me no option."
"But..."
"It's okay, you know. It's actually fine. Far better than I thought it would be..." The older woman gave a reassuring smile. It lit up her hazel eyes into a rich gold somehow.
"What? Leaving here? Or leaving... me?" Tilly couldn't help but blurt out. She felt her slipping away and wanted to hold on to her forever, fiercely, as though defying an inevitable force, like gravity.
"Oh Tilly," Jen sighed in response. She looked at her student more deeply then. Really looked at her. And Tilly felt as though she was drinking her in with her hazel eyes which shone in the sunlight like gold one minute and then grew darker the next, the more she gazed at her; the pupils dilating with hidden emotion so strong her whole body seemed tense, alert, like a cat ready to spring, and then it was like looking into liquid chocolate. The effect they had on her meant that Tilly was only vaguely aware when Jen continued talking...
"I feel everything I ever felt about you just as strongly, if not more so," Jen was saying. "It's simple for me really. I know that I love you. And that I always will, no matter what. I've never had a problem with that. Nothing has changed for me, for all I tried to keep away from you and keep you at arm's length for all this time, it didn't do any good. It just made us both miserable, I see that now. And that's not what I want. For either of us... But still, even though I... we... never had a problem with our love and our relationship, society does, so it seems, and not just about the gay thing too... There are lots of people who think that if you're sixteen or seventeen or even eighteen you're still too young to know what you want and who you are; you're still too young to be getting so... intimate in such a relationship, you know?- "
"But that's- " Tilly started, furious with the world, before Jen interrupted her again, mid-flow.
"Yes, I know that we know it's different than that, but, Tilly, I do think they have a point. Don't you? After all, the law is there to protect you..."
Tilly shook her head vehemently, willing these abstract, judgemental people the greatest of harm, as Jen carried on.
"I just wish I'd met you at a different time, in just a couple more years - even just one year - when we could have been together straight away without any of the stress we've had to work our way through..." She broke off, thoughtful suddenly, as if punishing herself inwardly for not having the strength and will power to have resisted her feelings for the girl when they had first met after all.
"But that's their problem!" Tilly said forcefully, spitting out the words at these people who were ruining her whole entire life.
"But that's still a problem if I'm ever going to be a teacher. Isn't it? And it still runs the risk of stopping you from getting everything you want out of life, because of people's prejudices, doesn't it? Like going to Cambridge- "
"But I won't if you don't want that, if it means staying with you, keeping you in my life..." Tilly blurted out again, desperate now to promise anything just to keep her there, right next to her; wanting, wishing the universe, or God, or whoever, to agree to some sort of deal: that if she gave up Cambridge and a future in medicine, for instance, she could have Jen for ever and ever and ever...
But Jen was being the voice of reason..."I do want that for you Tilly. I want everything in the world for you. I want you to go out into the world and take what you want from it. But not just what you know around here, and that includes me... I want you to go and find yourself, find out what you want, who you want to be. Without me distracting you or defining you..." She broke off again, wondering what else she could say to try to explain and make her see; watching Tilly's fiery reactions to the situation and her decision to leave as they accompanied the fiery emotions that played across her face and the movement of her stunning fiery hair.
"How can you say that? How can you not know that it's YOU I want, and nothing else? How can you willingly take yourself out of my life like this after everything we've meant to each other? Jen...!" Tilly's body broke into sobs.
Jen took a step forward and reached out to take her hands in her own. The sudden soft touch seemed to quieten the teenager almost instantly. "Listen to me will you?" Jen replied, slowly stroking her hands. "I'm not willingly taking myself out of your life. I'm just stepping aside a little to give you room to breathe and be yourself. So that you know what you want..."
"I already know what I want! And it's you!"
"Oh, Tilly, you're still so young..."
"I am NOT so young as to not know my own mind...!"
"Heyyy..." Jen's voice grew softer, soothing her to back to calm. She continued gently, tenderly stroking the student's hands with her own. "Look at me... Look at me Tilly..."
Tilly refused to look up; stubbornly staring at the worn tarmac of the car park beneath her feet.
Jen's soft voice continued unperturbed. "I know that. I'm not saying that... And I know there's only a few years between us, but listen... I've already been away from home and done the university thing and I've been travelling and...well... I've found myself Tilly, I know who I am. I've lived away from home for quite a while and believe me, nothing else makes you get to know yourself and makes you ready to take on whatever life throws at you quite so much as that. You need to do that too. Just like I did. How can you do that with me still there distracting you? ...It should be an exciting time for you, not one where you're already thinking about a set path, settling down with someone..."
Tilly looked up at her then. She had regained her self-control but was still earnest in her response. Once again Jen marvelled at her maturity.
"But don't you see? I'm already thinking about a set path in medicine, aren't I? And now I've found you... when I wasn't even looking... and I already know that I want my future to be with you. I don't want anyone else. I know you regret getting involved with me so soon, that you somehow feel like you've been irresponsible because I'm so, huh, young.." Tilly spat the last word out bitterly. "...but that's utter rubbish! I've always been mature and adult. About everything. Ask anyone who knows me: they'll tell you. And I am being adult about this too. It's so damned frustrating when I keep being treated like a kid... especially by you, of all people Jen. It's rather insulting really."
Jen was thoughtful when she answered. She pulled the younger woman gently towards her first, to come to rest against the back of her jeep, beside her, to take the weight off their feet a little while they talked. She had already scanned the area to make sure they weren't being overlooked. It really wouldn't do for her to be seen holding hands and speaking so intimately with a student, even if that student was old enough and even if she had just resigned and was in the process of leaving the campus... but the coast was clear: no one was around and they were hidden from view of the college by the line of tall trees - unless someone actually came out looking for them, which was doubtful. She leaned closer into her and lifted one hand to stroke the side of her face tenderly, lovingly.
"Listen Tilly, I love you. I am always going to love you. I know that now. It's simple... But if I want a life with you, it seems I have to make a sacrifice...for now..."
She smiled gently, the smile reaching her eyes and igniting them again as she looked at her, disarming the younger woman again in an instant, who hung on her every word as if her life depended on it...
"...and at first I resisted that; I refused to accept that. I thought that my career was more essential than any feelings. After all, feelings don't pay the bills do they? ...But as time went on I began to realise that I'd got it all wrong. What's essential to me is you. Far more than any career in teaching - at least for the time being until I can find another job teaching Art in another school. And I realised that that's ok... because I love you..."
Once again she broke off and looked away at the tree tops where they stroked the balmy air in slow, lazy swirls. She chuckled to herself and the mischievous glint in her eyes made Tilly feel as though she had been caught by electricity.
"...And I told Keeler as much too! Ha! You should have seen his face... I just marched into his office and told him." She grinned at Tilly then: an open, honest, relaxed grin of affection.
"Oh my god Jen! What on earth did he say?" The sudden news broke Tilly out of her trance: she was determined to know.
"I said that I'd fallen in love with one of my students and what should I do? Oh, he asked me a few awkward questions... Of course I didn't tell him everything..." She frowned and Tilly saw the inner conflict return again to her face. "He said it didn't matter if nothing had come of it, that I had still developed feelings for a minor which still meant that I could be prosecuted even if you were eighteen now... And as soon as he knew it was you all those accusations that Angel made about us came back up to the surface - which was far from pleasant - at one point I saw him reach for the phone and thought that was it, he was going to call the police on me- "
Tilly's eyes were suddenly wide with fear. Jen stroked her arm for reassurance.
" -Don't worry, he didn't: I dealt with the accusations fine - and without lying too, which I would have found impossible to do - but it made him even more restless to let me go. So he took out my professional development file and told me I was an outstanding teacher and he hated to lose me but lose me he must if I was going to walk away from the situation without facing charges. He told me to apply elsewhere and said that by all means he was a willing referee for any future jobs I might find... I've been looking for jobs further south, near to... Cambridge perhaps...?"
They both smiled at that.
"...Although... there are no teaching jobs whatsoever at the moment! So, in the meantime, I'm going to start work at the Art Gallery in town - yes the one where you first saw Angel - I'm having to start almost straight away, which is why I've had to leave college so soon, but I'll be back for the end of the course... I'm going to just appear with a bunch of cakes for everyone..." Her eyes twinkled as she talked. "And I've got some great ideas about leading some Art History classes at the gallery and teaching some painting and ceramics classes to OAPs and adults... so I'm really looking forward to that actually. It'll be a way of continuing to teach and do something productive which I can use in any job applications..."
She paused, and lifted Tilly's head up gently to look into her eyes. "And then you can go and get your results, have a great holiday break with your friends, go to university and then... we'll see. And if you still want me as you think you do then, great! ...And if you find that you've moved on, or you meet someone else, well, I'll just have to suck it up I guess, but I'm tough, I'm brave Tilly, really, I'll be okay."
Tilly started to argue but Jen silenced her, pressing a gentle finger to her lips.
"You have to do this Tilly, for me. Please. And I have to let you go..."
She took the younger woman's face in both her hands and gazed lovingly into her luscious emerald eyes which were once again shining with baby tears.
"Fly away little bird... Be free. I want you to find yourself without being defined by me, because I love you and so I want to set you free..."
She kissed her tenderly on the lips, drawing her into her in a fluid motion as effortless and natural as a sigh. It touched them both in deeper ways that no one but the two of them could have understood; it marked a moment - of ending something, but of also starting something else, something new and hopeful between them.
"...and with any luck you will come back to me, and we'll live happily ever after." Jen smiled down at her again. "I'm not going anywhere Tilly. I'm always going to be here, or nearby; rooting for you; supporting you; wanting the best for you. No strings. Like I said. Because I love you..."
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