hall is now on the phone. I indicate that I want to talk to him, and he covers the mouthpiece with his fingers and looks up.
“There’s a student on the fourth floor, Selena O’Neal, who has locked herself into the dome. She has shown self-harming behavior before and,” I add maliciously, although I don’t believe this for a second, “she may be suicidal. If I were you, I’d hurry up and get her out of there.”
He stares at me as I walk off. “Hey! Hey, you can’t just—”
“You rather than me, baby!”
Outside in the dark parking lot, the cool drizzle on my face feels wonderful, and I stand with my eyes closed for a long minute before I get into my car.
Now what?
Talk to Giles, I guess.
Poor Giles.
I’m about to turn the ignition key when the passenger door opens and a man flops into the seat.
“For fuck’s sake!” I yell at him.
“Yeah, I know.”
My heart is pounding in my chest, but I am so ridiculously relieved to have him near me, and evidently in a state of wry composure, that I start giggling. And then I’m crying again.
“Sweetheart,” he says, drawing me against himself across the barrier of the emergency brake. “You really have to stop this, or I’ll begin to take it personally, this crying.”
“It is personal!” I sniffle onto the waterproof shoulder of his Barbour. “I d-don’t want him to humiliate you again! In f-front of everybody! I’m so sorry, Giles! I’m sorry I-I’m so s-sorry I didn’t stop you!”
“Didn’t stop me doing what?”
“F-Fucking m-me!” I cried so much during the past few weeks, but it was nowhere near enough.
“I didn’t fuck you, Anna. I made love to you.”
“Oh!” I wail. “Don’t be sorry you did, Giles!”
He pulls me closer, laughing quietly.
“Why would I be sorry? And why would I be humiliated? Because now they all know that the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the whole college likes me to make love to her? That’s not how humiliation works among men, Anna! It’s you I’m worried about.”
“You don’t m-mean that!”
“Which bit?” He pushes me away a little and scans my face. “Well, Kay Chang is a very beautiful woman, too, perhaps I was too quick with the superlative. And there’s an assistant professor over in the art history department, she’s a right little stunner, and—”
“Don’t be like that,” I whisper and pull his head down for a kiss.
“Do you remember?” He cups my face in his hands and kisses the corner of my mouth.
“Oh, yes…so silly of you not to come in when I invited you. We lost weeks, because of that, Giles, and we have so little time anyway!”
He hears me well up again and draws me into a bear hug. “I know, love. But I’m not sorry that we started this, and I would hate to think that you are. Are you?”
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I shake my head.
“Do you regret giving Louise Randall the file?”
“No! I hate you for leaving me!”
“Anna—”
“Shut up!” I don’t know where this comes from, but now that I have blurted it out, I can’t stop. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why do you never tell me things?”
“Anna, I’m in love with you.”
“That makes it worse!”
He grins, ruefully. “Probably.”
“So why leave me?”
“Don’t I have to?” he says, looking into my eyes. “How can I start an affair with a colleague on tenure track unless I know I’ll be gone before any damage is done?”
“Oh, ha-bloody-ha!” I jeer. “Damage? Like what? A compromising photo? Like my broken heart?”
“It won’t break your heart.” He is sitting back in his seat, staring out the windshield.
“Not it! You! Of course you’re breaking my heart! You’ve been breaking my heart ever since I first saw you, you arrogant English git!”
“Don’t say that, Anna.”
“So you want I should fuck you but not love you?”
He smiles at my syntax.
“I don’t expect you to love me.”
“You mean you don’t want me to love you! Because that would be so inconvenient, wouldn’t it? It would complicate our nice, easy, fluffy little affair!”
Giles shakes his head. “No. You’re saying things you know are not true.”
“And to think that I have been so ashamed of chickening out and hurting you. And all the while you were just having a farewell fuck. Wow, Giles. That’s…pretty shitty behavior.”
“What the hell did you expect? You knew this…we…have no future! You knew this would hurt in the end!”
“Yes, I knew it would hurt, but I didn’t know how it would end, or when!