I stop in front of my office door, a slow realization dawning on me like an iron fist around my stomach.
“Thalia,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“No,” I say, turning the knob on my office door and entering. “No, Thalia, no, that’s not what I’m — did you get a letter, too?”
“My advisor gave it to me,” she says. “My hearing’s Thursday, I guess that’ll happen and then afterward they decide how much more they need to investigate and from there they’ll hand down a judgement —”
“Why?” I ask, an utterly useless question.
“Because I was in your calculus class,” she says, like she’s confused about why I’m asking.
“Why are they going after you?” I ask, the fist around my stomach tightening. I’m nauseous, desperate, shaking. I want to grab books and throw them across the room, upend the whole bookshelf, throw it out the window.
This was my wrongdoing. I was the teacher, she was the student. I had the responsibility. I’m the one who fucked it up, who threw caution to the wind, and it should be me paying for it, not her.
“Because I agreed to uphold the university’s standards of morality when I took their scholarship money,” she says. “Can I see you? Please?”
I didn’t know. There a tightness in my chest like someone’s wrapped a chain around it, put an anchor on the other end, and thrown it overboard, because I didn’t know.
This whole time, I thought it was just me. Maybe that was shortsighted, or naïve, or just stupid, but it’s what I thought.
“What will happen to you?” I ask, staring down at my desk.
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “Can I come over?”
“You have no idea?”
There’s a long, long silence on the other end of the line.
“Someone got expelled last semester for immoral behavior,” she finally admits. “But it was for something completely different.”
I close my eyes, the feeling in my chest nearly choking me.
This is my fault and my fault alone, I think.
“I don’t think we should see each other until our hearings are over,” I say.
“Caleb —”
“I’ll talk to you later,” I say, and hang up my phone as gently as I can.
I don’t know what, exactly, I’m going to do, but I’ve got an inkling. The germ of an idea, if it comes to that.
What I don’t know is whether Thalia will forgive me for it.Chapter Forty-FiveThaliaWhen I get home, none of my roommates are there. I’m not surprised, because they’re all at least as busy as me if not more so, but I wish they were because I ugly-cried all the way home and at least want someone to sit on the couch with me and pet my hair and tell me it’ll all be okay.
But they’re not, so I lock myself in my room and cry. It’s pathetic. I know that I should be researching how to beat an ethics violation charge, or at least learning about the Byzantine process that I’ll be navigating, but I can’t. I’m useless.
I know I shouldn’t be so shocked and upset that I’m reaping the consequences of my actions, but that thought only makes me feel worse, not better. I did something and I got caught and I’m just upset that I got caught, how stupid is that?
Really stupid.
I cry harder. I cry for myself, because I’m definitely at least getting put on probation for a year, which means I won’t graduate in May and probably pushes graduate school right out of the picture. I cry because I might get expelled with one semester left to go.
I cry because I can only imagine my parents’ reactions when they find out why I’m getting kicked out of college, because despite everything they were so excited about me graduating.
And I cry because I’m certain I’ve fucked Caleb over, too, and he won’t even talk to me. I know he’s probably just being smart, and I can’t blame him, but right now everything hurts and especially that.
Finally, I cry myself to sleep.* * *A few hours later, I wake up because I have to pee. The lights in my room are still on, and I’m still in my clothes, half under the covers and half on top of them. My bedside clock says it’s two in the morning, and I feel like shit.
I drag myself out of my bed, pull my now-incredibly-uncomfortable jeans off, and head for the bathroom in my shirt and underwear. If they’re not asleep, my roommates have seen me in my underwear before, and also, I’m about to get kicked out of school so who cares about anything?
I hit the lights in my room before I open the door, but our living room is dark, the only light the glow of a single open laptop on the kitchen table.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice down, but Margaret’s got her headphones on and doesn’t move as I cross behind her, on the way to the bathroom.