Liliana Vess sat at the faux maple desk in her dorm room, chewing on the tip of the pen her daddy had given her before she came here, Nicolai knew that pens, pencils, sketchbooks, and notebooks were the closest thing his daugher harbored to an addiction, and for that, he was thankful. Given Liliana's history, it could be far worse. But it wasn't, thanks to the support that Josu had given her and the support she had through her "dads," as she called them.
She was completely flustered, an unusual feeling for her, as she had successfully bullshitted her way through International Baccalaureate English with ease. This, however, this—was difficult. She'd written thesis paper after thesis paper and critique after critique, but here she was, struggling with a three sentence prompt. She felt as if she had something more to say than this arbitrary prompt could deliver, and that this was the best and probably the only vehicle she had to talk to him now without fear of being overheard by someone that she didn't want to hear her sentiments. She knew no one—not even Karen—would see this. It would be between her and Professor Beleren.
To Lili, he seemed hell-bent on everything but their formal research papers being handwritten. He said he wanted to know them all as humans, not numbers on a screen. So Liliana heaved a sigh through her nose and did the only thing that had ever felt natural to her. She placed her pen to a sheet of paper.
You obviously collect your papers in alphabetical order because you are type A, so type A it hurts. (Hence the lovely notebooks,) I bet you're INFP, too. So, I'm sure you're quite tired of seeing "I want my teacher to know," or "I want Professor Beleren to know," so I'm going to phrase this as differently as I possibly can.
You, sir, are handsome and it is distracting. Never in my life have I thought someone's eyes could stare down into my soul until the other night. But then, when you started to speak, your words melted like honey off of of your tongue and into my ears, much like my mother's cake melted in your mouth. Your smile is infectious. It hasn't left my mind since the other night. I really wonder what makes or made you smile like that—because whatever it is, I want a part of it too. Another human being hasn't affected me so wholly with a single meeting since, well, never. The only people who could make me crack a smile with just a smile themselves are my brother and my father. And now, you.
You're really intent on all of us learning and that is admirable. I haven't seen such passion from a teacher since the ninth grade. I was starting to think the spark that used to possess those that delivered our education was snuffed out, until you. Until you stumped me with this prompt. It is fifteen minutes until it is due and I am verbal vomiting all over this paper.
You seem to really care for your brother. That is something I, myself, can admire. Did you care for him at a young age? I can sort of see it in your nature. Fatherly, but not fatherly enough to not laugh if he trips down some stairs. Though, could you please tell him to get out of my dorm at a respectable hour so I can sleep?
Really, all that I wanted you to know is that I think it's going to be a great semester with you at the helm. You say you want to know us? Well, this is my invitation. I'm letting you in, professor. The door is open.
But are you going to cross the threshold?
Jace really was glad he'd thought of a box so he didn't have to carry all the binders up two flights of stairs back to his office. He was going to try to get them all read and marked by next class; it wasn't like he had anything else in the world to do. Every fiber of him wanted to grab Liliana's and read it first, but he decided that he would do it the way he always had when he'd graded the stuff Locy didn't want to. Alphabetical order.
He thumbed through the papers that he'd just collected from the class, the prompt he'd assigned last time. He had been thinking about what the various responses could and would be, knowing that much of it would be arbitrary things, just like he'd written in college. Part of the purpose of the prompts was to see how deeply he could get them to think about themselves and how they learned. That would be the key to being a successful teacher, having a successful semester.
He had once penned an essay titled Do You Know Enough About Me to Teach Me? outlining his philosophy on education and why it had to be more than just a lecture. It sat, in his underwear drawer, ready to be mailed into the board. It was far more than any essay he'd ever written. It haunted him. It was his dissertation, though he didn't think it was ready or it would ever be. But right now, that was a distraction. He settled himself with a can of Coke and some chicken tenders from JPeters, and got to reading.
Most of them were just as he thought they would be, about as deep as your average rain puddle on the streets of downtown Greenville. They just said, both literally and not so literally that these students didn't have a clue how to write—so Jace jotted that down underneath the "Goals," section of the composition book he'd gotten for this course.
He then read and read until there were only two notebooks left. He pulled out the purple one, one with gold "runes," obviously hand sketched on the outside with a paint pen. He ran his finger over the mesmerizing pattern, and then opened it to the page he'd asked them to label with their information. She had expertly calligraphed Liliana Kristen Vess onto it, along with the class number and section letter. He then, again, traced over it with his fingers. The binder was tabbed out perfectly, just as he'd asked. He flipped over to her essay.
His eyes darted over her paper without really reading it, at first, just skimming—no one's "verbal vomit" should look that much like calligraphy. The one thing he'd noticed about her was that her talents seemed to be anything that allowed to put her pen to paper and create freedom, whether it was a picture of whatever was sitting in front of her, or spinning words on a piece of paper.
You're so type A, she says. Jace pondered that for a moment and sighed that she was right, and that was why he was staring at twenty-six tabbed binders. INFP? Yeah. She was right about that too. He laughed. Was she that good at people, or had he made himself that obvious?
His breath caught in his chest, nothing could have prepared him for the next paragraph, or even the next sentence. Was this paper going to reenforce the things he had been feeling? He hadn't felt like this—not since the disastrous relationship in college. He started with her first paragraph, but didn't make halfway through before his thoughts stopped him in his tracks.
You, sir, are handsome and it is distracting. Never in my life have I thought someone's eyes could stare down into my soul until the other night. But then, when you started to speak, your words melted like honey off of of your tongue and into my ears, much like my mother's cake melted in your mouth. Your smile is infectious. It hasn't left my mind since the other night, and I really wonder what makes or made you smile like that—because whatever it is, I want a part of it too.
Jace read it and reread it, trying to catch his breath. He wasn't the type that caused distraction; he was the exact opposite. He tried to meld into walls and stay there. That's why his dissertation was still sitting in his dresser: he didn't like to talk to his peers. It was much easier to get up in front of a bunch of freshman and speak to them like equals than to get in front of a board of his "peers" and speak.
Your smile is infectious. He thought the same thing about her. Girls didn't smile around him. But it was like these words were speaking straight to what he needed—and that was the exact opposite of what he needed. She was young, a child, his student.
Your eyes seemed to stare down into my soul? That's how he felt, how he saw her, from the very first time she plopped in his office chair. His breath was uneven as he plowed forward into the essay. The butter cake was the second-most thought about thing when it came to the black-haired girl.
Another human being hasn't affected me so wholly with a single meeting since, well, never. The only people who could make me crack a smile with just a smile themselves are my brother and my father. And now, you.
He thought about that. He thought about the phrase "affected me so wholly" and what it meant. He couldn't seem to get her like she got him. She was an enigma, and Jace couldn't help but think about figuring her out.
Actually, he'd seen a good bit of his brother and Karen around campus the past few days, though they were never accompanied by the girl who penned the essay. Jace knew he shouldn't be looking for her period, but his mind did. He wanted to know where she was, what she was doing. And apparently, so did she. Jace didn't know how that made him feel. He felt the tendrils of attachment start to grip at him, and he knew it was wrong, every part of him did, but he wasn't stopping it. The warm feeling started to spread from his belly all the way out to his feet.
No, no, no, he thought. No. No, no, no.
There was a nauseous feeling in his stomach. Fuck, he thought.
You're really intent on all of us learning and that is admirable. I haven't seen such passion from a teacher since the ninth grade, and I was starting to thing the spark that used to possess those that delivered our education was snuffed out, until you. Until you stumped me with this prompt. It is fifteen minutes until it is due and I am verbal vomiting all over this paper.
Good, he wrote on her paper. I'm here to challenge you. Just like you do me—I admit it. I'll see about Will. Good job. Best paper in the class. Nothing like verbal vomit. Thank you for the compliment.
You're the one who sauntered into my door, aren't you, Lili?
Jace capped the pen.
After a fitful night's sleep, Jace walked into his office around ten, early for his lecture. It was barely ten minutes before there was a knocking at the door.
"C'mon in," Jace said. He looked up from his work and was greeted by his gangly brother. "What time are you leaving Karen's room at night?" Jace said, still sleepy.
"You're not my father," Will grumbled. Neither of them were morning people.
"You're acting like I care about what you do." Jace did, but he didn't want to be overbearing on Will. He already resented their father and didn't want any ill-will between him and his brother. "You're distracting one of my students."
"Karen's fine," Will snubbed his brother's concerns. "She's more than fine, actually.
Disgusted by what his brother was implying, he felt an upsurge of sympathy for Liliana, and it strengthened his resolve.
"You know what they say about assuming, right?" Jace said.
"Who else could you even be talking about, Jace?" Will raised his eyebrows.
Jace just smirked at his brother and Will's eyes widened in surprise.
"Apparently you've been keeping Liliana up at night and she told me to tell you to fuck off."
"Have you two been talking?" Will was floored.
"No, well—yes. It was in that prompt I gave them." Jace told him.
"She said that in her essay?" Will said, intently studying the iPhone in his hand.
"Yup, so fuck off, and I'm saying this as the AC," Jace smiled.
"You like her, don't you?" Will cut right to the chase.
Jace felt like he'd been slapped. But then that warm feeling started again. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips.
"I see that grin, slick. She'd be good for you."
"What? Why even—" Jace started, but Will cut him off.
"You didn't say no."
"William—"
"You can't lie to me, Jace. You do! You two sat and talked for three hours last week! What do you even talk about for three hours?"
"Remind me to tell Karen I feel sorry for her," Jace said, voice thick with snark.
"KK said she never shuts up about you, and she really always smiles when she's doing your work. She's three weeks ahead of your syllabus," Will said.
"You realize, that if even if I hypothetically liked her, how unethical that would be, how prohibited it is?"
"That doesn't matter, Jace."
Just as Jace was prompting his rebuttal, if he could call it that, there was another sharp knock at the door, startling him and disrupting his argument. It had been nearly an hour. Will was starting to encroach on his lunch time. Which was probably what he wanted, he didn't want to eat the caf, he wanted to go out with Jace.
"Come on in," Jace said for the second time.
He was floored. He knew that Will and Karen had orchestrated this. They had to have.
"Hey, Lili. Hey, angel," Will said, just as he was getting up to kiss Karen on the cheek, trying to be smooth, but promptly falling on the boxes Jace had shoved under his desk.
Liliana snorted as Will fell into Karen, and Jace couldn't help but smile himself.
"Karen," Will said, knowing that he was being snubbed by his brother for his earlier behavior. "Let's go eat lunch." He looked around the room, locked eyes with Liliana and then turned to Karen. Liliana realized what had just happened. This was a "them" thing. She'd let Karen have this, but she would be sure to let her know that she shouldn't have drug her alone, especially since Karen had long since decided that she and Jace shouldn't, and Liliana knew that, too, but she could help but feel what she did.
The heart wants what it wants, was always Nicolai's old diatribe, but would he say that even when he was staring down the table at a thirty-something? NO, Liliana stopped the thought in her head. The couple smiled, William just a tiny bit smug, and exited the educator's office.
William grabbed onto Karen's hand and they walked the pristine campus back down to Furman's dining hall.
"Don't think I don't know what you did, Will," Karen said, kissing his cheek.
"What on earth are you talking about? We were going to meet for lunch, you and Liliana and I, and she chose to stay in Jace's office."
"You knew she would! You understand you're getting them into a bad situation? She's been hurt, so badly, and it was at my hand, it was my fault. And I can't let it happen again.
"Jace won't hurt her, I promise. He's so kind, so gentle…" Will trailed off. His brother was his best friend, too. "And he deserves someone to make him smile. And have you listened to Liliana?"
"I-I know, I know, Will" Karen said, "But she has a terrible track record. Nobody sees her for her, and… Is Jace even capable of that? Is he going to see her?"
"Jace is top down-"
"What the actual fuck does that mean?" Karen said. She didn't know if he was insulting her.
"He won't date anyone, no one, who doesn't challenge him. And that's just Jace Beleren," Will said, shrugging, filling his cup up with Dr. Pepper.
Karen shrugged, still worried about her best friend. She knew what Silver had done, the damage he had done, even if he hadn't meant to, even if they were still family. Nothing could tear them apart, but she didn't want to have to calm Liliana's tears.
"Do you trust me? Will said, reaching across the table, grabbing her hands in his.
"I- I-" Karen knew this was the moment that she had to make a choice. Did she let go of Grimsley and let the boy—man—in. "I want to. Will you s-show me how? I'm not very good at it," Karen finished lamely.
"KK? What on earth happened? Will said, placing his lips to hers.
"What didn't?" She said, her broken voice barely above a whisper.
"Have a seat," Jace said, and Liliana thought his voice was more like a croon, his words doing more for her than what Silver could with his hands. Jace thought that he had absolutely no impulse control. Liliana took her usual seat, a smile on her face. Jace couldn't help but smile, too.
"Your writing skills are a thing to be praised—" The professor started, just as Liliana put her feet on his desk. Jace loved it. He loved her playfulness, but he tried to keep an air of professionalism.
Jace clenched his jaw, not in annoyance, but out of habit. Liliana's stomach leapt into her throat, That face shouldn't have incited such a reaction in her, but she didn't want it controlled. She wanted to let it burn her from the inside out. She wanted him to burn the taint that Silver gave her, Liliana wanted new memories burned into her head, that's why she had came here, to get away from the ashes that her past life was in. Though her life had been forged in fire, she wanted something new, she was aching for it.
Nothing, not one thing, could have prepared Liliana for Jace's next words. He tried to infuse them with his teacher voice, but it didn't come out like that. Even to the professor, it sounded oddly sexual.
"What did I say about that?" he said, gesturing to her feet.
Liliana blushed and bit into her thumb and Jace fought the feeling, far more than just the warmth this time, this time it was pulling in his stomach, in his chest, everywhere…
He sighed and rolled his neck around, looking at his watch. It was lunch time, so he did what he hadn't in close to six years.
"Can I get you something to eat?"