Professor Oakley and I won't see each other during break. Instead I'm going to spend the next three nights at a water park to soak my troubles away. My mother got us a ridiculously expensive room and Evie is going to join us. We are also bringing Evie's little five-year-old cousin named Doug. Doug is cute, I'll give him that. His hair is extra curly and tight.The water park is called the Big Bear Lodge. Bear themed photos, posters, and mascots flood the hotel in an obnoxious way. If I remember that this place is for children it makes it easier to be here. A man in a large bear mascot costume greets us. He hands out lollipops and stickers. They give us wristbands so we can enter the water park.As we check in I see another family entering the Big Bear Lodge. There's a man who looks just like Isaac Oakley waltzing in. He's carrying a child who appears to be two with brown hair. Another child is holding his hand who appears to be four. She's a little girl with cute pigtails and matching

It's nice to be hours away from the university. It's a little weird that my mom has seen Blake. But in a way it's also nice. It's nice that she has an idea of who he is. She doesn't know what he is, or at least I hope not. If it ever got leaked that I am in love with my professor, and that he loved me back. Well that's the day I hope never comes.For our date, Blake takes me to a nice Italian restaurant but there's a twist. It has a dance floor. He once said he taught ballroom dancing. Nothing is sexier than watching men move women with Latin rhythms. They guide them and turn them in ways that resemble sex."Blake, how did you even know this place was here?" My cheeks turn a bright red, a cherry pink forms. I can see it on my face in a mirror on the restaurant wall."Are you blushing? That's adorable. Yes, I knew it was here. A long time ago, I took Stacey here. It was ten years ago. I'm old, remember.""You're not old. You're hot as fuck," I say loudly as my voice echoes across the r

Fall break is over. I didn't see Blake at the hotel before checkout and he didn't text me back. Luckily Spencer wasn't around for the rest of the weekend either. But my mother and her spying still lumes heavily in the air. When I was little my mom used to watch Scooby Doo with me and read Nancy Drew stories. Both of these tales are about mysteries and solving them, and like a detective she has figured me out. Thanks Motherly Sherlock for making me feel guilt and shame about my young adult decisions.Growing up we were always taught to make the right decisions. But how can you know what the right ones are, if you don't sometimes experience the bad? My mom would tell me not to go to high school drinking parties, but why? After attending a few I now see why it is bad. Are we not to discover evil and hurt for ourselves so we grow on our own? I can't learn from her past mistakes if she doesn't tell me about them. I can't learn from what she did if she doesn't speak up to teach me. Did she

I know Evie means well and I'm sure Benjamin will be able to provide us with a means to blackmail Dante. But regardless of all that, I want to see Blake again before I walk the valley of death. The valley of death is where I protect Blake and am as exposed as I can be. It's where I am naked and nothing. It's where the ugliness of my shame destroys my soul which I can no longer protect. It's where I am both predator or prey depending on whose asking. It's the place I fear most at night when the lights go out.My phone beeps and it's Dante. He's already sending me sexy outfits to buy. The slut shaming I will receive a Nordstrom University will be gut wrenching. It's as if it already happened and everyone knows. I mine as well be naked in the street with my body exposed for them to mock. That's what Dante's text has done to me. My anxiety is high and my hope wanes. Hope is the only thing getting me through this turmoil and now that's gone to.I open the text and one of the swim suits is

The rest of Thanksgiving break flies by and I'm back on campus. My homework has all been turned in and I somehow might manage to pass all my classes. I figure if I really sucked this semester, I can just drop out and try again online or enroll somewhere else for the following fall. It's amazing to me that the fall semester is almost over. In that time too much has happened, and my emotions are haywire.Evie and I play catch up upon my return. Her parents are getting a divorce, and her Thanksgiving was a shit show. Benjamin was her saving grace, and I'm glad he could be there for her when I couldn't be. If it weren't for Benjamin, Evie wouldn't have had anywhere to celebrate Thanksgiving. Even my own family didn't really do anything for Thanksgiving. My mom made frozen pizza and played the New York Thanksgiving day parade on her television.When you're a kid holidays are magical and the people who gather to celebrate them make the magic come alive. But as an adult I'm starting to see t