The Professor and The Secret Alpha

Symbolism is one of those things you can't teach. Not really. 

You can explain it until your voice gives out, draw diagrams, put quotes on the board - and some students will still look at you like you're describing a color they've never seen. 

The ones who get it, get it because something clicked. 

Because you asked the right question at exactly the right moment and something behind their eyes shifted.

That's the job. Finding that moment.

"Forget what Gatsby wants," I said, moving between the rows. "We all know what he wants. What I'm asking is - why does he still want it? He's rich. He's made it. He's standing on a beautiful lawn. So why is he still staring across the water at a green light?"

The class went still in the way that meant something had landed.

Maya Chen had her hand up before I finished the sentence. 

Devon Okafor, next to her, was chewing on his pen and staring at the ceiling the way he did when something was turning over in his head. 

I called on Devon first, partly because Maya would get her turn, and partly because Devon needed the push.

He sat up. "It's like... if he actually got her, it'd be over. The dream only works because she's still over there. Out of reach."

"Yes." I pointed at him. "Exactly that."

The class shifted - that small, almost imperceptible lean forward that meant we'd hit something real. I felt it too, that little spark of a discussion finally finding its footing. It never got old.

And then I glanced toward the back left corner and felt it go out.

Ethan Blackwood was staring at his desk. He wasn't sleeping and he wasn't on his phone. He was just gone somehow, sitting right there in his chair, watching the whole room from somewhere very far away.

Three weeks ago he would've jumped in before Devon finished his sentence. 

He was the kind of kid who made other students rethink things mid-thought, who got a little too loud when he was excited about an idea and didn't seem to notice or care. 

Lately he had been too distant and quiet in classes and I had no idea what was going on with the poor boy, but I had to help him out because even his grade weren't doing well.

I looked away and let him have the desk. For now.

After the bell I was cleaning the board when Sandra showed up in my doorway, one shoulder against the frame, arms crossed, already wearing the expression that tells me she had something to tell me.

"Sooooo....its Friday and the whole department are having drinks tonight at Giacomo's. You are invited of course..."

"I can't."

"I haven't even finished."

"You don't need to." I dropped the eraser in the tray. "I have papers."

"Oh my God, Lila." She pressed her fingers to her forehead like I was giving her a headache in real time. 

"Every single week it's papers. You always have papers. Teachers have had papers since the dawn of time and somehow the rest of them still manage to eat dinner with other human beings occasionally."

"I'm very productive."

"You're a hermit."

"A productive hermit."

She stepped into the room, which was new - Sandra usually delivered these invitations from the doorway like she was afraid of what I'd say if she got too close. "Two hours," she said. "That's all I'm asking. You come, you have a drink, you pretend to laugh at Marcus's jokes-"

"I do actually laugh at Marcus's jokes."

"-and then you go home to your papers and your cats-"

"I don't have cats."

"-and you sleep peacefully knowing you spent two hours being a person." She looked at me. "You remember being a person, right?"

I laughed, and it surprised me a little because it was genuine. "Next time. Sandra, I promise."

She shook her head and left, still making a face.

I stood there for a second in the quiet she left behind. 

Married to your job - that's what she'd called it last month, half-laughing, and I'd let it land like a joke because it was easier that way. 

What I couldn't explain - what I didn't know how to say without it sounding worse than she already thought - was that work wasn't something I hid inside. 

It was the one thing I understood right now. I came in, I taught, the kids pushed back or they didn't, and at the end of the day something had happened. Something concrete. 

The rest of my life didn't feel like that lately, and I didn't particularly want to examine why.

I grabbed my bag and went to find Ethan.

Coach Harris had cornered me after the staff meeting last month. Blackwood's my best player. If his grades don't come up by mid-term, I lose him. I'd said I was watching it.

It was time to stop watching.

I found him in the bleachers above the gym, three rows from the top, phone in hand, watching the other boys shoot around below him like he was on the other side of a window - present in the building but somewhere else entirely.

I climbed up and sat beside him.

He clocked me immediately, and you could see him recalibrate in real time, working out what this was and what it meant.

"Ms. Monroe."

"Hey." I didn't launch into it. I looked out at the court for a moment and let the silence sit there without filling it. 

Then: "What's going on with you?"

He looked back at his phone. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"Ethan." I waited until he glanced over. "I've read enough of your work to know what you sound like when you're actually trying. Your last paper didn't sound like you. The one before it didn't either." I paused. "I'm not here to pile on. I just want to know if you're okay."

His jaw tightened and he didn't answer right away, and I didn't push him to.

"I'm fine," he said again, and this time his voice came out quieter, which usually means the opposite.

"Okay." I shifted to face him slightly. "Here's what I'd like to do. I want to reach out to your dad this week - not to get you in trouble, I want to be really clear about that. I just think it helps to have everyone in the same room so we can figure out what you actually need. Does that work for you?"

Something crossed his face when I said your dad - but it was there and then it was gone, folded back up somewhere I couldn't see.

"Yeah," he said. "Sure."

"And if something's going on and you want to talk - not for a grade, not because I'm checking a box - you can come find me. Okay?"

He nodded without looking up.

I stood, pulled my bag onto my shoulder, and left him there in the bleachers with the hollow sound of the ball echoing below and whatever he was carrying that he hadn't yet found words for.

My apartment was quiet when I got home, and I had gotten good at quiet lately. I changed my clothes, stood at the counter eating leftover pasta I didn't really want, and stared out the window at the parking lot while the sky went dark.

My phone buzzed with my mom's name on the screen.

I watched it ring.

Then my sister called and I watched that one too.

Then a text came through: We're worried about you. We've been trying to reach you for weeks but you keep ignoring us. You keep pulling away. Please just call us.

I turned the phone face-down on the counter and stared at the ceiling.

I knew exactly what would happen if I picked up. The careful voices, the questions dressed up as concern - are you eating, are you sleeping, have you thought about talking to someone - and underneath all of it, the thing nobody would say out loud but that I'd feel in every pause: it's been three years, Lila. Shouldn't you be doing better by now?

Maybe. Probably.

I wasn't.

Ever since I walked out of Adrian's apartment three years ago, the only thing that made sense to me was my work, and I loved it that way.

I didn't have the time or zeal to socialize or get tangled up with another man again.