Instead, I found myself thinking about Ryan, and how he’d wished me an amazing weekend.
He was so handsy on Friday, always fussing with my tie, but he seemed just as touchy with everyone else.
At one point, he pressed a tiny hand-sewn doll into my palm, no bigger than my thumb, stitched from scraps of fabric and yarn. The hair was a messy blond mop, and the smile was sewn just a little too wide.
He said he’d been making them for his favorite teachers since he was a kid, a way to “remember him.”
I got knick-knacks like that all the time from students, but when I asked if the doll was of him, he insisted it wasn’t, and said it was some blonde cartoon character. I wasn’t convinced, but I kept it anyway.
Now it rattled against my car keys as I drove, the stitched smile catching my eye in the dashboard light.
Lilly broke the silence with a sigh. “I don’t want to fight, Nathan.”
“I don’t appreciate you bringing up that issue in front of my parents. What was the goal? If you have a problem, you tell me.”
She bit her lip, then leaned back in her seat. “I just… I want my husband home by nine-thirty. Your class ends at nine, and your usual office hours aren’t that late. You need to tell this little Ryan of yours that he can’t talk to you after every class.”
I exhaled as I pulled into the driveway. “Lilly—”
“No, Nathan. By the time you get back, you’re too tired to fuck me. I want you home at nine-thirty. Sharp. You’re the boss. You set the schedule—not the students. You.”
She unbuckled, slammed the door, and stalked inside.
All I could do was sit there, staring at the doll.
Little Ryan of yours.
I knew there had to be more beneath the surface. She couldn’t really have been this furious over a male student keeping me in my office for half an hour. I didn’t buy it.
I unlocked the door and found her at the counter, swirling whiskey in a glass. She didn’t look up right away. When she did, it wasn’t a greeting; it was a glare.
I bent to kiss her cheek out of habit. She angled away.
“Really? Two days a week. Me being late has you this upset?” I kept my voice even, the way I did with difficult students.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not just that, Nathan. It’s you giving him a ride, walking him home and—”
“Home? He lives in the dorms. It’s a short walk.”
“If it’s so short, why not let him go on his own?” Her brow arched, but her voice thinned. “And what about that little doll? Of himself? That doesn’t seem strange to you?”
I smiled faintly, almost indulgent. “It’s just a keychain. Probably a cartoon. I think you might be projecting, and that’s—”
“Projecting what exactly?” She crossed her arms.
I gave her a look. “Paul.”
Her scoff came sharp and immediate. “You can’t keep throwing that in my face! You said you forgave me, and now every time I have a problem with something, you bring up that I got drunk once and slept with Paul!”
I watched her, studied the flush in her cheeks, the defensive shift of her shoulders. Two years later, and the guilt still gnawed at her.
“Hey,” I said gently, stepping closer, resting a hand on her arm. “I’m just saying… maybe you’re seeing things that aren’t there. It’s a reflex. When someone’s crossed a line, they start looking for trouble in places it isn’t… almost like they’re trying to justify the guilt they still feel.”
“Oh, don’t psychoanalyze me right now.”
I caught her wrists, lowered them to her sides, not rough, just certain. “Enough. I’ll try to be home earlier. No more late nights in the office. But this jealousy…it’s misplaced. I don’t want it to grow into something that destroys us.”
She hesitated, then nodded. I kissed her temple to close the conversation.
