FOURTEEN: I Know You're Ethan Hale

My breath catches in my throat. Harlan is looking down and smiling; clearly they are engaged in some stupid, delightful conversation. But when he lifts his head and sees me, his smile drops, and his eyes go wide.

I look at him, then at her, and then back to him. I take a step back. Suddenly, all the alcohol in my stomach, along with the added horror and fury, roils in my gut. I feel my stomach spasm and my throat open.

I'm going to be sick. Now.

I shoot him one final, hurt, betrayed expression, before turning on my heel, rushing back through the dance floor with my hand clamped over my mouth. I need fresh air. I need to get out of this fucking club.

I slam the front door open and by the grace of god, the first thing I see when I get outside is a metal trashcan on the sidewalk. I stumble up to it, place my hands on either side of the rim, and let myself be sick. It is liquid heartbreak and disgust, but at least I feel some relief when I'm done.

I breathe heavily, head still bobbing over the top of the trash can. I rest it on my arm, catching my breath and letting the tears fall.

But then I hear slow footsteps behind me, and I know exactly who it is. The last person I want to see me like this. I lift my head, breathing heavily through my nose, fuming with anger.

Without turning to face him, I keep my hands braced on the trash can, which is the only thing balancing me.

"What kind of sleazeball goes to the same bars as students?" I slur, somewhat less drunk than I'd been before, but not nearly enough.

"This isn't a bar for students," he corrects me. "Students never come here; this isn't a place for kids."

"You're here aren't you?" I ask, slowly steadying myself to stand upright and turning to face him.

Harlan stands a good few feet away from me, watching me, making sure I'm alright but not rushing to my aid either.

“What are you, late twenties?" I grimace at him, and try to keep my lower lip from trembling as I try to stand strong and dignified before him. "You couldn't have been a day out of grad school when you got your job. Which begs the question, actually, just how does someone straight out of school get hired as a department head at a renowned university?"

The silence hangs between us, and now, I'm looking at him just as cold as how he usually looks at me. "But connections'll get you anywhere, I guess. When you come from a rich and famous family, the sky's the limit." His expression isn't as hard as usual, I notice. It is nearly blank. Impossible to read. "And the world is your bitch."

"You need to go home," he says, taking a step forward.

I take a step back, lifting my hands in a "don't fucking touch me” gesture.

"You need to go home," I shoot back, not unlike a fucking five-year-old.

He takes another step, and I dodge him, bouncing to my right and taking another step back, dropping my hands and glaring up at him.

"Why are you so quick to anger?" I ask him. "At first, when I saw you throwing books and shit around your office and ripping it up even when I was standing in the room with you, I thought, shit, this must really stem from some childhood trauma."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he says, though not un-gently, taking another step forward and tenderly wrapping his hand around my wrist, at this point mostly just to keep me standing upright.

"Your mom wasn't around as much as you wanted. But if you'd just waited a couple of years to figure out that everyone has it hard when they're a kid and that things get better..." my voice trails off. And furiously, I search for the words. "You're a selfish kid from a rich family whose parents weren't around for your stupid middle school band concerts because they were off making the world a better place."

"What are you talking about?" he sputters, the confusion and concern now plain on his face.

"I know you're Ethan Hale," I spit. Before, I wasn't sure. But just as the words leave my lips, I know it to be true.

As soon as I say it, the world goes silent and slow around me.

Everything seems to stop. Time doesn't move the same. It is slow, deliberate, causing me to experience everything that comes at me all at once and let it consume me.

The first thing I see are his eyes. I watch them go wide as I feel his hand slip from my wrist. And then, I'm falling, toppling backward, watching him grow farther away from me as my back heads for the pavement.

The loud blare of a car horn breaks my trance, the shining of headlights from my left realizing that time is happening now, and it is very real, and now, very fast.

I feel his hand slip behind my waist and tug me against him. The car horn blazes again as it speeds past me and the headlights die away, and as soon as it passes, the motion he'd taken to grab me has proved to be overshot. He loses his balance and the two of us tumble to the asphalt road below.

I hold my breath for several seconds.

When my eyes flutter open, Harlan is inches away from my face, one arm holding me flush against the chest, and the other resting on the ground beside me, hand cupping the side of my face. He searches my expression as if he’s making sure I'm alright. Neither of us says a word; just stare at each other, catching my breath, wordlessly making sure that both of us seem okay and uninjured.

I furrow my brow, looking to the side. His right forearm has taken the bulk of the fall.

I open my mouth to ask if he is alright, but just before I can, he pushes himself to his feet with a strained grunt and holds out his good arm to me. Lifting myself so I sit on my butt, I hesitate. I don't want to trust him to give me the time of fucking day. He'd hurt and lied to me once, and now he is at the bar with another woman.

But he'd also just potentially saved my life.

Resolved, I clasp his hand and let him pull me up. And just as I'm pulling myself to my feet, I hear the bar door fly open. But mine and Harlan's heads snap around to see who is there.

Rose, Milo, and Jax now stand at the front of the bar, watching me standing close to Professor Harlan with my hand in his.

Harlan doesn't know what to say. Neither do I. Neither of us knows how to cover. So instead, Harlan settles with the very pressing question: "What the hell are all of you doing here?" He pulls his hand away from mine and moves it to hover behind my back – no longer an intimate touch but still enough to make sure I'm sturdy on two feet.

Speechlessly, they keep their gaze fixed on the both of us, eyes switching between me and Harlan, undoubtedly trying to make sense of the situation before them.

"My dad," Jax answers pathetically.

"She with you?" Harlan asks, lazily pointing at me, quirking a brow.

My friends nod without a word.

"I found her out here hurling into the trash can and stumbling into the road. If you let her get this drunk, you shouldn't have let her out of your sight," he criticizes.

"I'm fine," I insist.

Rose steps forward. "We thought she just went to the bathroom," she tells Harlan.

"Hey. I'm right here."

"She needs to go home," he says.

Jax steps forward. "I can take her." He looks around at Milo and Rose. "You guys can stay. I'll take care of it."

I feel Harlan's hand press against my back harder, nearly pulling me towards him.

"I'm headed back that way," Harlan says. A lie. His house is closer to the bar than it is to campus. "I'd be happy to drop her off."

I watch Jax as his brow furrows, looking at Harlan like he'd proposed something totally taboo and inappropriate because, well, he kind of has. I feel my whole body clench with panic.

"N...no." Jax says, shaking his head. "That's okay. We're her friends. Sorry to bother you, professor."

Harlan hesitates before letting me go. Rich of him to be jealous of Jax, especially given the way he and Milo had been dancing all night. The irony of it is almost delicious; Jax isn't interested in me at all because he is interested in Milo, but the way Harlan is looking at him is nearly enough to blow my cover once and for all.

But all at once, Harlan drops the anger, hides it away and buries it deep, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Not a problem. You kids have fun."

Without another look, he walks past my group of friends and heads straight back into the bar. "Get her home safe," he adds behind him, before closing the door and disappearing.

When we get back to the lot, all of my friends are trying to help me into the car. "I'm not that fucking drunk!" I tell them, swatting hands away as they try to guide and steady me, all of us having decided to call it a night.

"Yeah, yeah." Jax mutters, buckling my seat-belt and hopping into the driver's seat, Milo sitting next to him. I think I see them share a look, a smile, before Jax pulls out of the lot and heads for home.