How Not To Fall Read Free

for anything.
    â€œI . . .” he says.
    â€œYou . . . er,” he continues.
    â€œThat is . . .” he concludes.
    Oh, this is way worse than I expected. So. Much. Worse. But what did I expect? Was there any point at which I really imagined him saying no? Saying yes? Saying anything? Or did I only think as far as the asking?
    I shake my head and wave the subject away. “Don’t worry about it. Forget it.”
    â€œOkay,” he says with immediate and mortifying relief, and he looks back down at the screen, where new analyses are running.
    And I think to myself, But . . . just ask and let him say no. You’ll never regret asking, and you’ll always regret not knowing for sure what could have happened .
    So I say, “It’s just . . .”
    He looks up again with the expression of a man facing a firing squad.
    â€œYou don’t want to hear this, so I’ll just say it fast and get it over with and then we can forget it. The thing is, I think you and I have A Thing, and I know if I don’t at least put it on the table, I’ll always wonder ‘what if,’ and so I’m just . . . putting it on the table, you know, and leaving it there. Like bread. For sharing.”
    â€œBread?” he asks, looking no happier.
    I give him some side eye and say tentatively, “I’m talking about sex?”
    He’s nearly fuchsia now. “Jesus,” he says weakly.
    â€œFeel free to say no! Honestly! I won’t take it personally—I mean, even if you mean it personally, I’ll just chalk it up to a boss-student thing.”
    â€œExactly,” he agrees. “A boss-student thing. So. No. Er. Thanks.”
    And that was my window.
    It has closed.
    It is officially time to let go.
    But instead I say, “If it’s a boss-student thing, once I’m not a student, that’s not a thing anymore, and I’ll be in Bloomington until early June....” But his eyes are on his screen.
    â€œYou did miss something,” he says abruptly.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIn your data. I can’t tell for sure what it means yet, but I think it might actually be quite important. Do you want me to show you, or do you want to find it yourself?”
    â€œ What? ” And by What? I mean: Fuck you, Charles Douglas! I am done with the analysis! I am writing up my results and discussion! I am presenting these data at a conference in three months! You just turned down sex with me, and now you’re finding errors in my analysis? I repeat: Fuck you, Dr. Charles fucking Douglas!
    â€œI’ll save the SPSS file to our Dropbox so you can see how I found it,” he says. “But it’s there to find in your spreadsheet. Look at it by stimulus.”
    I take my computer back, and I look. It takes me a few minutes, and Charles sits, patiently drinking coffee while I search ... but then I see it—the pattern I missed.
    Oh fuck.
    â€œOh fuck!” I say, looking up at him in horror and despair.
    â€œSorry,” he answers, and he really does seem sorry.
    But then. Then he fights a grin and loses. I watch a smile spread across his face, and it’s like watching a glass of red wine fall, in slow motion, and spill all over a tablecloth.
    â€œI am sorry, truly!” he says. “It’s just that this may be the most awkward conversation I’ve ever had—and I’m British, so that’s saying something.”
    I smile too, but as his eases to a warm little smile directed right at my humiliation, my chin wobbles dangerously, and my eyes fill with tears.
    â€œShit,” I whisper.
    He looks at me sympathetically, but he doesn’t tell me not to cry or not to worry about it. He says, “I cried almost every day for the last month of my undergraduate work. I’d lock myself in the lab overnight and alternate between data analysis and weeping.”
    â€œDid you fuck up this badly?”
    â€œNo,” he says, but kindly.