His brows shifted on his forehead as he eyed me with suspicion. “Pushed me away? I hope you’re not going to act like you don’t remember kissing me back.”
For some reason, hearing him speak the words, even as softly as they pushed from his mouth, part of me feared that someone in the hall would overhear, that the words would fly through the air, the walls, and far beyond, to the ears of someone like Sheila, who would perk up, ready to attack me for my unethical and illegal behavior.
“I’m not suggesting I didn’t, Kyle. I did, more than once, and I shouldn’t have encouraged it.”
“Well, ya did.”
He sounded angry, like it was all my fault. If he’d expected me to do the thing any teacher would have done—should have done—in that instance, he was right.
“I’m sorry if you feel I did something to violate you, or take advantage. If you need to report this…”
His forehead creased as he assessed my expression, and I could tell he thought I’d lost my damn mind. “I kissed you first, James.”
“And I shouldn’t have acted the way I did. That was totally inappropriate.”
“‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’”
“No. Don’t do that,” I insisted. “There is right and wrong.”
“Yes, but come on. Can we cut this teacher/student BS for a second? I’m eighteen. I can consent.”
“In the state of Georgia, you are my student, so you can’t, actually.”
“Yeah. I googled this shit before now. So what? Would that be true in California?”
“It doesn’t matter what it would be in California. We’re in Georgia.”
“Where the age of consent is sixteen. So you’re telling me some seventy-year-old man can fuck around with a sixteen-year-old here, but I, someone who can smoke and die for my country, can’t kiss my teacher who’s not even a decade older than me? I’m pretty sure you and I both know bullshit when we hear it—and fitting for a state that has something on the books about alcohol before twelve thirty on Sundays, but I guess not for religious reasons because of the separation of church and state. M’kay.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is or why it exists. It doesn’t change that what we did was wrong.”
“Just because something’s against the law doesn’t make it immoral, and you’re smart enough to know that.”
“I’m smart enough to know that morality and ethics are a little more complicated than that, and I’m trying to sort that all out.”
I was tired of trying to have a rational debate around this. None of it had anything to do with our feelings around what happened at the library.
“Did it feel wrong?” he pressed, moving closer, eyeing me as though he dared me to say I believed that.
“Can we not get into that?”
“It’s a little late for that, James.” It was like he was saying my name intentionally, because he knew it would affect me. “I’m just saying I don’t give a shit about some bullshit law that’s about as substantial to me as the pot laws in our backward state.”
“This would be easier if you weren’t so smart. If none of that matters to you, then at least keep in mind that I could lose my job. I could lose everything over this.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Again, his words were hostile, projected on me so intensely, I would have thought he’d kick my ass over it all, the way he did the guy in that alley. “You think I didn’t spend all night fucking googling the shit out of this to figure out what the hell to do about it? You think I would ever do anything…at all…to hurt you?”
It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t anger he was feeling, but hurt, as though he felt I’d thought he’d been so callous in disregarding how it would affect my life.
“I don’t think that at all,” I assured him, and he caught his breath, seeming surprised by how he’d worked himself up.
“I’m sorry. I’m just stressed. Like I said, I was up all night, freaking and worrying that you’d hate me for having started it. Looking up Georgia schools and laws. I went from driving myself crazy thinking you didn’t feel anything more for me, to knowing the only outcome would be you pushing me away and having to deal with that. I hadn’t considered the possibility that it might not go down like that, that you were even capable of wanting anything else. You said you