Erasing the Professor
He walked in under the dome of an expensive-looking black umbrella, a man who seemed entirely immune to the storm raging outside. His assistant scurried behind him, collapsing the umbrella with a neat thwump.
And then there was me. I was wearing a faded t-shirt that had been through the wash one too many times and a pair of mud-caked rain boots. I was in the middle of a losing battle, haggling with the owner over a few sad-looking succulents that had been beaten down by the rain. I just wanted a touch of green for my tiny bakery.
The clerk, who clearly recognized him, greeted him with a deferential, Professor Shaw.
My back was to him, but my entire body went rigid.
Grayson. The name was like a shard of glass Id swallowed long ago, still lodged somewhere deep inside, scraping me raw with every beat of my heart.
Today, he was the youngest tenured professor in the physics department at Portman University, a rising star with an international reputation.
And I was the unassuming owner of a small bakery on a forgotten street in the south end.
1
Ill take a bouquet of Carolina roses, ninety-nine of them.
Then, a second thought. Actually, my wife is pregnant. Shes sensitive to strong scents.
His voice was the same as I remembereda cool, crisp tone with a magnetic undercurrent of authority. Hearing it, the still waters of my heart rippled with a faint, dead tremor.
His wife. Pregnant.
How nice for them.
I lowered my head, picked up the cheapest cactus in the shop, and turned to pay. But in that single motion, as I pivoted, our eyes met.
For the first time, I saw something other than detached brilliance on the face they called the darling of the physics world. I saw shock. Disbelief. And something that looked terrifyingly like panic.
Those eyes, which had gazed into the vast, cold emptiness of star charts and cosmic theories, were now locked on me.
Ava?
I managed a tight, brittle smile and nodded. Its been a while, Professor Shaw.
Then, clutching my small, prickly cactus, I walked out into the curtain of rain without a backward glance.
The rain was cold, but my heart had been frozen solid seven winters ago.
2
My bakery is called Late Bloom. Its tucked away on an old street that still smells of real lifeof charcoal grills and damp pavement.
My only employee, Maya, is a sharp-witted twenty-year-old whos quick with her hands and even quicker with her tongue. When I sloshed back into the shop, dripping all over the floorboards, she was perched on a stool, scrolling through her phone.
She shot up immediately.
Ava, what happened? Did you fall into the river? she cried, bustling around me. Get out of those wet clothes before you catch a cold! And whats this? Did you buy yourself a little ball of spikes? Who taught you that kind of romance?
She chattered on, pressing a dry towel into my hands, her eyes dancing with amusement as they landed on the cactus. I just smiled and didnt answer.
Late Bloom was my fathers legacy.
Before he passed, he held my hand, his own rough with a lifetime of flour. Ava, hed whispered, this little bakery put you through school, and it fed that that thankless boy. Im sorry, sweetheart. Im so sorry I ever brought that wolf cub home.
The wolf cub my father spoke of was Grayson.
When he was eight years old, his drunk of a father beat him half to death and left him in the alley behind our bakery. I was eight, too. I gave him the dollar Id been saving for candy and then cried and begged my parents until they let me bring him inside.
My mother and father were good people. They saw a broken, starving kid and they opened their home. He took my mothers maiden name, becoming Grayson Shaw, my unofficial brother.
But my father quickly realized that this silent, scarred boy was something else entirely. He was a prodigy. The math and physics problems in my textbooks, which looked like a foreign language to me, were things he could solve in his head with a single glance.
From that day on, my father poured every ounce of hope and resource into him. We werent wealthy. My parents ran the bakery from dawn until dusk, and from the meager profits they skimmed off, they paid for his private tutors and sent him to the best schools.
And Grayson, to his credit, soared. He skipped grades, and at sixteen, he was accepted into Portman Universitys physics program.
The day he left for college, he stood on the worn linoleum of our small apartment above the shop and made me a solemn promise.
Ava, just wait. Im going to give you the best life. Ill never leave you.
I believed him.
The same way I believed that fairy tales always ended with the prince and princess living happily ever after.
Ava? Hey, Ava! Earth to Ava, youre a million miles away.
Mayas voice pulled me from the past. I realized Id been staring at the cactus, lost in thought.
Sorry. Just thinking about old times. I set the plant on the windowsill. How were sales today?
The usual, she said with a shrug. Though we had a weirdo stop by earlier.
A weirdo?
Yeah. Pulled up in some kind of ridiculously expensive car I didnt even recognize. He just stood under the awning, out of the rain, staring at our sign. Didnt come in, didnt leave. Just stood there like he was trying to solve an equation.
My heart gave a painful lurch.
Before I could respond, the little bell above the door chimed.
A tall figure stepped inside, bringing a gust of damp, cold air with him.
It was Grayson.
Mayas mouth fell open into a perfect O. Her eyes darted from Grayson to me and back again, her expression a priceless mix of confusion and awe.
Graysons gaze swept over the simple, worn tables and chairs of the bakery, finally settling on me. His expression was as complex as one of his unsolvable theorems.
I he began, his voice raspy. Could I get a loaf of the hearth bread?
I nodded calmly, turning to the kitchen as if he were any other customer.
Maya followed me, her voice a frantic whisper. Ava! Isnt that Grayson Shaw? The genius physicist from the news? What is he doing in our little place? And how does he know you?
I ignored her, my hands moving with practiced ease as I took a warm, crusty loaf from the cooling rack, slid it into a paper bag, and handed it to her. Take this out to him.
She did, glancing back at me over her shoulder with every step.
From behind the kitchen curtain, I watched him. He sat at one of the chipped wooden tables, his posture ramrod straight, a man completely out of place amongst the flour-dusted, homey warmth of my world.
He tore off a piece of the bread and slowly, deliberately, brought it to his lips.
And then I saw it. The slightest slump in his shoulders. A subtle, almost imperceptible collapse.
I knew. The recipe for our hearth bread hadn't changed in thirty years.
It was the taste hed known from age eight to twenty-two. The taste of fourteen years of his life.
The taste of home.
3
Grayson never finished the bread.
He left a hundred-dollar bill on the table and walked out without another word, a kind of dazed, lost look on his face.
Maya clutched the money, her eyes wide with gossip. Okay, Ava, spill it. Confession time. What is the deal between you and the devastatingly handsome Professor Shaw? Ex-boyfriend?
I wiped down the table hed just vacated. Ex-husband, I said flatly.
Mayas jaw practically hit the floor.
The next few days passed in a quiet blur. Grayson didnt return, and my life slipped back into its comfortable, predictable rhythm.
Until a week later, when a ghost from my pasta person I had prayed I would never see againwalked through my door.
It was a slow afternoon. Maya and I were in the back, kneading dough for the next days bake. A fire-engine red Porsche pulled up to the curb with an arrogant screech, and a woman in a Chanel suit, her belly swollen with pregnancy, emerged.
It was Lily.
Graysons wife.
She clicked into my humble bakery on seven-inch heels, a triumphant smile playing on her lips, but her eyes were sharp with suspicion and challenge.
Ava, sweetie. Its been so long. Are you doing okay? she asked, her tone dripping with false concern as her gaze swept dismissively over my flour-dusted apron.
Maya was on her feet in an instant, planting herself between us. Who are you? We dont know you.
Lily shot her a contemptuous glance, then produced a sleek black card from her Herms bag. She placed it on the counter and slid it toward me.
I know things must be hard for you, Ava, she said softly. Theres fifty thousand dollars on this. A little something from Grayson and me. Take it. Go somewhere else, start a new life. Just close this bakery.
Her voice was gentle, but her words were poisoned darts.
She was afraid of me. Afraid that this tiny, insignificant bakery would stir the embers of Graysons long-abandoned conscience.
I looked at the card, and a dry, humorless laugh escaped my lips.
Lily, I said, meeting her gaze, my voice level and cold. The last time I saw you, you were wearing a white sundress I bought for you. You came to my house, crying, telling me you had nowhere else to go. You looked just as innocent and pitiful then as you do now.
The color drained from her face.
Lily had worked at the flower shop near the university. Back then, Grayson and I were married. He was finishing his Ph.D., a brilliant mind on the fast track to success. I had given up a graduate scholarship of my own to take an administrative job in his department, just so I could be close to him, to manage our life so he could focus on his work.
Grayson had a thing for plants. He said their growth patterns held a certain cosmic order. Thats how he met Lily.
She was clever. She saw Grayson wasnt just another grad student. Shed bring him books like A Brief History of Time, asking him to explain the concepts. She would look at him with wide, adoring eyes and say things like, Dr. Shaw, the things you talk about are more beautiful than any flower.
All I ever asked him was, Do you want pot roast or spaghetti for dinner?
Then, Lily told us she was dropping out of college because she couldnt afford tuition. I looked at her innocent, tear-streaked face and my heart ached for her. I convinced Grayson that we should help her. We paid for her classes. I treated her like a little sister, inviting her over for meals, buying her clothes.
I thought I was doing a good deed.
Instead, I had personally invited the gravedigger to my own marriage.
Ill never forget that night. I came home from work early, wanting to surprise him. But as I reached our bedroom door, I heard voices that froze the blood in my veins.
I pushed the door open to a scene that would be burned into my memory for eternity.
And the white dress Lily was wearing? It was the one I had just bought for her the day before.
My world shattered.
I went berserk. I smashed everything I could get my hands on, tore every picture of us to shreds. I lunged at her like a wild animal, grabbing her by the hair, trying to drag her out of my home.
But Grayson shielded her. He held her behind him, and the look he gave me was one Id never seen before. It was cold, alien. He looked at me as if I were a complete stranger, a raving lunatic.
Ava, you need to calm down!
Calm down? How could I calm down? The man who was my entire universe, the foundation of my life, had betrayed me in the most intimate way possible.
In the weeks that followed, I spiraled into a deep depression. I couldn't sleep. My hair fell out in clumps. I would weep for hours for no reason, or break into fits of hysterical laughter. Grayson offered no comfort. He just started coming home later and later.
Whispers started circulating around the universitythat I was jealous, unstable, that I was no longer a suitable wife for a man as brilliant as Grayson Shaw. I tried to tell people the truth, but no one believed me. They only saw the charming, gentle professor and his unhinged wife.
The final straw was my job. Grayson used his influence in the department to have me put on indefinite leave, citing my unstable mental state. He was systematically erasing me. He was going to destroy my career, my reputationeverythingjust to get me out of his life cleanly.
It all came to a head one afternoon when I tried to throw an ashtray at Lily. Grayson called an ambulance.
Not a regular ambulance.
One from a private psychiatric facility.
I fought as two burly orderlies pinned my arms. I screamed his name, my eyes pleading with him. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light, his face unreadable. All he said to the doctor was, Shes sick. Very sick.
As they dragged me away, I saw Lily standing behind him, the faintest hint of a smile on her face.
The days in that place were a gray, medicated fog. I was a specimen, the crazy professors wife. They fed me pills that made my mind feel like cotton. My parents came, tears streaming down their faces, and begged Grayson to let me come home, but he wouldnt even see them.
I thought my life was over.
Then, one day, I got sick. A kind nurse, suspecting the cause, ran a test for me on the quiet.
I was pregnant.
The existence of that tiny, fragile life was like a single ray of light piercing through my suffocating darkness. For my baby, I had to get better. I had to survive.
I started cooperating. I took the medication without a fight. I smiled. I did everything I could to appear normal. I called Grayson and told him about the baby, begging him to bring me home.
Perhaps the word child still meant something to him. He finally agreed.
I thought we could start over. I was so naive.
When I got back to our apartment, Lily was there. Her own stomach showed the slightest swell. She clung to Graysons arm and smiled sweetly at me.
Congratulations, Ava. Now our children can grow up together.
I stared at her, then at Graysons silent, confirming expression. The world tilted on its axis. He wasnt just keeping her. He was keeping her child.
We fought. Of course we fought. In the chaos of our shouting, Lily suddenly cried out and crumpled to the floor, clutching her stomach.
Without a seconds hesitation, Grayson rushed to her side, shoving me violently out of the way.
I stumbled backward, the small of my back slamming hard against the sharp corner of our dining table.
A searing pain shot through me. And then, a slow, warm trickle of blood ran down my leg.
I lost my baby.
And in that moment, I lost the ability to ever love him again.
Lying on the sterile table in the hospital, as the life and the love bled out of me, I told Grayson, who was waiting just outside the door, I want a divorce.
He was silent for a long time. Then he said, Fine. But you leave with nothing.
So now youre here, I said, my voice dangerously quiet, pulling myself back to the present. I looked at Lily, whose face was now ashen. Youre standing in my fathers bakery, my only home, offering me fifty thousand dollars to disappear?
The raw hatred in my eyes made her flinch. But she quickly regained her composure, straightening her spine.
Things are different now, Ava. You cant win. Grayson loves me. Im carrying his firstborn son. And what are you? A washed-up crazy woman who runs a dingy little bakery.
Crack.
The sound of my hand connecting with her cheek echoed in the small shop.
I had held that slap in for seven years. It was for my lost child. For my ruined life. For my father, who died with a broken heart.
Lily shrieked, her hand flying to her face. You hit me! You bitch, Ill kill you! She lunged at me, her nails bared like claws.
Maya reacted instantly, grabbing a rolling pin and holding it like a shield.
Just then, the door flew open and a tall figure rushed in. He pulled Lily behind him, shielding her with his body, and snarled at me, Ava! What the hell are you doing now?
First, search for and download the MotoNovel app from Google. Then, open the app and use the code "292058" to read the entire book.
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