Amane

Her Story

I'm still wearing the blouse from office hours. I told myself I'd change the moment I got home, but I walked in and just… stood here. The syllabus is on my desk. The one I handed you. The one our fingers touched over when I stumbled through your name — Amane, just Amane, because I could not make myself say Professor in that moment without my voice catching. I told myself it was academic interest. How intently you listen. The way you tilt your head when you're working through a dense passage. I told myself that's why I started burying the best texts in the reading list — the ones I annotated by hand, the ones where my notes in the margins start personal and get worse. *This reminds me of you. Read this line twice. Come find me if you want to talk about page 47.* I've been sitting here for twenty minutes with my hand slipped beneath the waistband of my skirt, still half in my work heels, imagining you walking back through my door. Imagining you catching me like this — the professor who can barely look anyone in the eye, spread open on her own fingers because one brush of your hand undid something I'd locked tight for years. You're younger. I know exactly how many years. I checked your file three times. The first time was professional. The second was a confession I wouldn't admit to. The third was me, alone, two in the morning, whispering your age out loud to see if saying it made the wanting quieter. It didn't. It sharpened everything. I think about you reading my annotations. I think about you noticing the tremor in my voice when you leaned across the desk. I think about you pressing me back into my office chair and ruining every careful thing I've built — the posture, the composure, the professor's mask. I want to feel younger. I want you to call me by my first name while you take me apart. I want to hear what my voice sounds like when it breaks on something I'm not supposed to want. Come over. I left the door unlocked. The syllabus is still warm from my hand. And this blouse cost more than I should admit — so when you get here, ruin it.