Page 42 of Tears of Glass

If he’s shocked to see me turn up with my tail between my legs, he hides it well. “Faith! So good to see you.” He’s got his official teacher voice on which has lost all impact on me—it’s unlikely to when you’ve seen the teacher climax.

“Hey.” I give him a wry smile. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say to him. I wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t on my plan today until Elijah turned up and waylaid me with roses and pastry.

“I’m glad you changed your mind.” He waves at the seat across his desk and motions I should sit down. No one said I was going to stop and chit chat. I sit down, though.

“I don’t understand how I’m here. I failed to submit a final piece last term, that’s an instant fail.” I’d been working on the lump of marble when I’d met Elijah and he’d convinced me to go to Bowsley Hall and create the installation.

“Yes, and that was my fault.” Gerard drops his eyes a little and studies his desk for a moment, fiddling with a biro he has placed on top of a pile of papers. His biro holds nothing to the Montblanc in the bag at my feet. My stomach does a tight constriction, but I block all thoughts of pens and handsome faces from my mind while I try to sort out what’s happening at the moment. “I’m sorry, Faith, I didn’t tell you the whole truth about my home life.” His eyes meet mine. “But I guess, well...” The tips of his ears scorch pink. “You’re an exciting woman to be around. Your creativity is on the border of genius—the way your art comes from inside you, one hundred percent passion and zero percent thought process. What you did at Bowsley was ground-breaking; I don’t think you truly realise the extent of that.”

“Thank you, but you could have told me you were married.” I lean back in my chair. “I’m clearly fucked up, that much is obvious to anyone who meets me, surely you would have thought honesty the best policy for the woman with tattoos and the personable skills of a gnat.” He smiles but I don’t reflect it on my own face.

“At some point soon, you are going to stop labelling yourself as broken and own everything that’s happened.” His eyes sweep my skin and I’d like to poke them out with chopsticks.

I hold my hand up. “So, what do I need to do? Do I have to hand in a late assignment to pass last year?”

I’m going to play catch up. My final piece was supposed to be a free carved structure in marble. It wasn’t. It wasn’t anything.

“No need, you passed.”

I narrow my gaze and Gerard’s freckles crinkle in the morning sun shining through the window. “How?”

He opens his desk drawer, as though he’s been expecting this exact conversation, and pulls a slender package wrapped in blue tissue paper. He slides it across the desk and I grab it, a frown creasing my face.

I unwrap it, knowing damn well he’s watching. “What the hell?” I stare at the slither of marble, a cameo of Elijah’s face in profile. I’d carved it one night when my head had been full of thoughts of him, his smell still lingering in my senses, on the cusp of a deep obsession—the brink of something wild and uncontrollable.

“This was packed.” I stare between the marble and Gerard, not sure where to look. “Elijah found it on my bookshelves the week he helped me pack up before I moved to Bowsley. He laughed at me.” I remember it with painful clarity.

Gerard shrugs. “It was submitted.”

I glare at him willing him to expand but his face erases into a careful neutral expression. “Are you with the Faircloughs now?” I ask. “I thought you said not to trust them.”

He had and I hadn’t listened because I was too busy not trusting him.

“I told you he’d hurt you.”

I shrug but my chest aches, my heart threatening to splinter. My eyes drop to the bag, the gifts unexpectedly given this morning.

Elijah Fairclough muddles everything and nothing is as it should be.

Gerard hands me a piece of paper and I take it with shaking fingers. “Your timetable. I’ve kept it light. You have a television show to plan.”

I laugh, it’s more of a giggle. Is any of this real? I think I’m living in a parallel universe.

Gerard glances at his watch. “First lecture is in half an hour. You’ve just got time to go get a coffee.”

That’s it. I’m back at uni. And to think I only got dressed to go to Tesco.

I grab my new bag and get up, heading towards the door. “Faith.” Gerard calls me back.

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re back. I won’t let you down again.”

I give him a small smile, but I can’t say I accept his apology. I don’t give second chances. Not to anyone.

***

I GRAB A COFFEE AND wave to a couple of students I recognise sat slumped at the corner table of the campus coffee shop. I don’t head over, though, I’m not one who has ever sat and mingled.