“I know.” I loosen a sigh and settle into the uncomfortable excuse of a cushion. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate. You’re my professor, not my friend.”
“Who says I can’t be both?”
“School policy?” I guess dumbly.
He chuckles, leaning back and resting his folded hands on his stomach. “There’s nothing against students confiding in their professors. In fact, it’s encouraged.”
I level with him. “There’s a difference in confiding in a professor and finding friendship in one. Friendship opens doors that I’m sure the administration would frown on.”
His head cocks to the side, his brown eyes burning into mine with interest. “Like?”
“Trust.”
“Professors aren’t allowed to be trusted?”
I scoot forward, leaning my elbows on my knees. “It’s like this, Professor Ford. Trust is an intimate thing. It means that you’re willing to open up to a person with anything and everything. That person, then, will be there for you. It’s rare to be able to find that in somebody and have it be pure and genuine. It’ll shift because of its rarity. Lines get blurred. Trust then becomes complicated. Administration doesn’t like complicated things.”
He blinks, taken aback. “Huh.”
That’s all I get. Huh. “We’d be even more complicated because of our situation. I knew you from the past. We sort of grew up together. That adds a layer they wouldn’t like if we decided to be friends.”
“You’re overthinking this,” he states simply, his shoulders lifting. But am I? I’ve always been a goody-goody. I never liked being on anybody’s bad side or getting into trouble. And Carter? I think of the ride home and the flowers and everything he’s done for me with my student teaching placement.
We’re already complicated.
“Maybe,” I relent.
His smirk tells me he doesn’t believe my reply, so he just lets it go. “Regardless of what anybody might think, I am here for you. Nobody deserves to go through what you have. You’re strong, Piper. You always have been.”
That makes me snort. “I was never strong. In fact, I remember Jesse telling me I was a baby whenever I pitched a fit about something.”
His lips quirk. “Jesse’s your brother. He’s supposed to be an asshole to you. But even he was amazed by you at times. Like when the neighbor’s dog bit you in the leg and you managed to fight him off and run back home even though you were bleeding pretty bad. You never cried once. Not even when Jesse rushed you to the hospital once he realized what happened. He said you never shed a tear even when you were getting stitches.”
I rolled my eyes. “They numbed my leg.” I still have scars from that. It wasn’t the dog’s fault I tried to pet it while it was eating in his yard. I got too close and he got territorial. Not once had the German Shepard ever bit anyone. In fact, it was usually the friendliest animal. “If I’d ratted out the dog, they would have had to put it down. I had a classmate who got bit by her parent’s dog and they had to put it to sleep.”
Carter just looks at me.
“Anyway,” I continue, “Jesse bribed me with ice cream after that whole ordeal. I didn’t want to cry because I was afraid he’d go back on his deal. I’m not strong.”
“You are.”
We’ll agree to disagree.
We move onto the actual reason we’re in here, which is to go over the first papers that were due for his 101 class. He shows me the grading rubric and what to look for, then shows me the stack of papers on the corner of his desk. There are thirty students in his class and the paper was a minimum of five pages, no more than ten. My bet is that most of these are four and a half with a work cited page.
When I grab a pen out of my bag to jot down some pointers he gave me, the gift card falls out with it. I pick it up, but not before Carter says, “Still haven’t gone?”
I put it back, giving him a small smile. “I told you before I don’t have a lot of time. I’ve thought about going soon though. I just haven’t worked out the details.”
His brows go up in curiosity.
“On whom to go with,” I enlighten, waving my hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t really matter. I always feel weird eating at places on my own unless I can sit at the counter so it’s less weird. You know?”