The Hot Professor They Don’t Show In Movies
By: Kayla Perkett
Tags: Love Letters, Affairs, Professor, Love, Memories

He was so open, so kind, so knowing-of-all. Let me know the things that made me wish I hadn’t knew, yet ponder for more. Yes, he taught philosophy. Let it be known that there was no confusion, none I want to think of years down the line. Because I’ve had so many teachers and professors hold long eye contact during their lectures, but his asked if I wanted to know more. Not when I wasn’t looking back. While they did it because I was one of the few kids actually paying attention, he did it to tear down my wall. The wall high school teachers could never reach, let alone chip. The hot teachers, they made it obvious, no game or mystery at all, but him, this professor, he showed his attraction with ease. Led me on twice a week for months, he had beat me at my own game. The whole time we knew nothing would ever happen, or at least made excuses for why it couldn’t. And I was so young. Just a ball of nerves given more attention. I pretended I didn’t want it, it helped my case that I hated getting stares, but he was the exception.

He watched me while I wrote, watched me while I fake-thought, watched me while I looked to the board. I was left disappointed when she looked down as I was leaving. I knew from the beginning that I was going to miss it. His class, his face, his loud voice, his calming voice, his birth mark, his left hand, the way he walked up and down the aisle, just everything. I reminded myself every day to remember something, anything. Even if it were a conversation I had with a classmate during one of those 2 hour periods, at least it would link back to him.

It’s been over a year, I’m even past 18. I wonder if he still remembers me, if he tried hard to forget me, if it wasn’t hard at all. Unlike all my other could-have-beens, I tried hard to not forget him. It makes me sad that anytime I think of him. My plan’s always to go back to the way it was, just in my head, but the features in his face fade, little by little. It’s what happens when you think back on a memory, because every time you think back on a memory, the memory of that memory becomes the new memory. Shorter timeframe, less details, he told me that. It’s I kind of boring that we never took it anywhere, probably a let down to many, but no one can take away the feeling I got during that semester. We find guys like that all the time. The ones we do our hair for, the ones we get dressed for, the ones we play hard-to-get for; the ones who we know we don’t plan to be with forever, but that time forever can’t be forgotten.

In the last several weeks of the semester, he had mentioned he had a wife, and then oddly made note to mention her at least once a week for the rest of the time being. Now he never had a ring on his left finger, the entire time of those bittersweet 16 weeks. I could never tell if he was lying, like as if he was purposefully hiding the ring in between classes, or if had been at the cleaners for a long time, or maybe him and this “wife” didn’t do rings and were one of those couples who felt that it didn’t signify their love. Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t wear it to lead me on to think he wasn’t taken, just to see the look on my face when I found out otherwise, who knows. Although it’s just now occurring to me that he might have lied just so I wouldn’t think he was lonely. Did part of me in some way, see him being with someone else? Of course. There was a time were I’d never admit it out loud. Professor, who’s name I will won’t say, do you have any other classes?