I Dated My Professor

My vision went a little dark around the edges and I had to sit down abruptly. I heard Zach and Ivy talking but couldn’t make out their words. The image of Stefano standing outside elongated and twisted, until he was the same man from my memory- the man who I feared walking home from the library at night- tall, faceless, fast.

“Joanna. Jo!” I shook my head frantically and looked back into Ivy’s worried face, close to mine. She crouched in front of my chair and put her hands on my knees. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed. “I’m ok. I’m just gonna go back to bed. Must have eaten something.” I got up and brushed past both her and Zach, who stood in the doorway watching me with an expression I couldn’t read.

In my room, I texted Stefano: I’ll meet you at your house in an hour. Go away. They’ll know.

The familiar way to the house felt more shadowy than usual. My heart beat an irregular rhythm as I listened to my muffled footfalls against the leaf-covered road. He was waiting for me just inside the entryway, like I knew he’d be. His eyes were red and he smelled like liquor instead of wine. I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it, grating out his words in a low, harsh voice.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me. I called so many times. And I see that guy walking in. What am I supposed to think, Joanna? How can I trust you? You know what I’ve been through! I don’t understand it.”

I stared at him, completely thrown off. “Are you talking about Zach? My roommate?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t try to gaslight me.” He sobbed a little, ran both hands through his hair to clench at the back of his neck. “You’re trying to make me think that it’s all in my head. I know what you’re doing. Just tell me. I just want the truth.”

I felt strange. He looked old to me for the first time since I’d met him. A surge of sympathy ran through me and I reached my hand out to touch him on the hip. “Stefano… I’m telling you the truth. Zach is my roommate. We’re friends. We don’t think of each other in that way. I love you.”

He moved fast; the next moment, he was gripping both of my wrists and pulling me against his body. I suddenly couldn’t draw in a breath. He was talking but my system was being overridden by a wave after wave of vivid panic and I felt like I was at the bottom of a neon sea, looking up into his anguished face from a far distance.

Somehow, we both landed on the floor. There were tears streaming down my cheeks- I couldn’t remember beginning to cry. He peered at me, aghast, and cupped my face in both his hands. “Baby, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“Let go of me,” I choked out, struggling to my feet. “I can’t do this anymore. You’re scaring me. Why the fuck would you show up at my dorm? You want to get fired? And Zach? Because I didn’t answer my fucking phone exactly when you wanted me to? I can’t do this,” I was shouting now, backing away from him toward the door.

“Listen to yourself. You’re upset with me because you don’t want to apologize. Well, fine- I’ll apologize! I love you, Joanna, and I will do whatever it takes to make this work, I-”

“Are you listening to me? I’m done! I can’t do this anymore! You came onto campus to spy on me because you think I’m sleeping with my roommate! I mean what is the point of being careful to not be seen if you’re going to do THAT? I have to go.”

“Don’t go! Joanna, we have to talk about this-”

“No, we don’t have to talk about anything. I don’t want to talk to you. I’m DONE!” I screamed, yanking the door open. I could still feel the phantom imprint of his fingers wrapped around my wrists. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible; I wanted to sit in the shower at home and cry until I would never cry again.

“Joanna,” he croaked, looking up at me from the floor, stricken. “If you walk out that door, I… I don’t know what I’ll do. Do you hear me? I’ll kill myself-”

“No you won’t,” I snarled. I was suddenly angry enough to kill him myself. How could I have possibly wasted so much time? How could I have let him touch me? “You won’t. Goodbye, Stefano.”

I ran home, my lungs burning. I took a shower in the dark bathroom, scrubbing my skin until it burned, too. He called a couple hours later, while I was sitting on the floor of my room with Ivy and Zach, telling them everything.

His voice sounded strained, weak; my heart stopped. He told me he’d drunk bleach and I knew immediately that he was telling me the truth.

After that was the blur of fear and numb dread. I remember kneeling, screaming into the phone while Zach called an ambulance and Ivy crouched next to me, holding me. I hadn’t prayed for years but I prayed then: that he would be all right, that this was all just a bad dream. I know that Ivy got ahold of a car and drove me to the hospital, but I have no memory of the trip. The entire night is about eight choppy hours of terror, waiting, more terror, more waiting. I wasn’t family so I wasn’t allowed in until he was conscious and could receive me. I know that I eventually told Ivy to go home so that she could get some sleep for class the next day. I waited, staring at the anti-heroin posters on the walls, feeling my guilt lodged in my throat like rocks. All I could feel was the thrum of your fault, this is your fault, if he dies you will have killed him, you stupid silly child.

The paramedics got his stomach pumped and he'd been stable since arriving at the hospital, I learned from a nurse who finally came to walk me down to his room. He was sitting up in bed.

“Joanna. You’re here,” he said, quietly.

I’d never felt so tired in my life. I sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at him. “I just wanted to make sure you were ok. I wanted to see you.” I paused, not sure how much I should speak, how long I should stay.

His face changed. “So it’s still the end of us, no?”

I startled a little. I'd been pretty sure that he wasn't going to ask. “Yes. I’m sorry, Stefano.” I fought back my tears and stood up again. “I should go. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I just… I wanted to tell you that I love you, and that I’m sorry.”

He regarded me sadly. “You shouldn’t have come, then.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

I turned to look at him one more time as the door swung shut behind me. His eyes were closed, his feather-eyelashes swept against his cheeks. He didn’t look old, or handsome, or brilliant anymore. He just looked small, there by himself in the hospital bed, the fluorescent light flickering over his starched blanket.

A week later, I was sitting in the school counseling center. My therapist, Esther, had called me in to relay a message from the dean. The school had found out about me and Dr. Alessi after his suicide attempt, she explained to me gently. How? She wouldn’t say. But she had a letter from Stefano that he’d written to the college, defending his conduct and protesting his dismissal. And a demand: he’d written an itemized list of everything he’d ever bought me, along with its approximate value, and a short, terse paragraph requesting that “Ms. Byrne immediately return the gifts”.

I looked at Esther, shocked and humiliated to my core. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Well, you don’t have to tell me that, honey. I didn’t think it was. And I’m sure the dean doesn’t think that, either.” She adjusted her glasses and studied me. “Not that what me or the dean think particularly matters. What’s at hand here is how you feel.”

“I don’t know how to feel.” I looked down at the letter, seeing it but not able to read it through my blur of tears. “I feel so ashamed and angry. I can’t believe I let this happen. And to let it end this way. I got him fired. And now he’ll lose his work visa, and he’ll have to go home to Italy.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “He must hate me.”

She sighed and leaned forward, lacing her long, bony fingers together. “Joanna, please hear me. This was not your fault.”

“Don’t, please, Esther. I’m twenty years old and I knew better. I kissed him first, you know. I did this to him.”

“That is precisely what he wants for you,” she said, sharply. I glanced up, surprised. “I’m asking you to not give him the satisfaction, for your own peace of mind and your own growth, which you must know are the only elements here I care about. The man has placed himself in this situation. You haven’t gotten anybody fired or deported, or made them suicidal. Dr. Alessi was your professor, and as such, he had a professional and ethical responsibility toward you which he has catastrophically failed. You trusted him and he sexualized you the minute he realized he might get away with it.” She looked intently into my face and raised her eyebrows at me. “I want you to look at this in perhaps a different light, Joanna. You would never be as cruel and unfair to another woman, if she’d come to you in the same situation. Afford yourself the grace, the understanding, the love you would afford any other woman. Your life depends upon it.”

It’s been many years since that conversation with Esther in her office, and I still think about those words. I am also, in perfect honesty, still haunted by Stefano; he’s joined now by several other predators whose lives have intersected with mine. It helped to find out, eventually, that he’d had another relationship with a student at his previous university (that dean found out and let him go, with the understanding that it would be a sealed event). Knowing this seemed to bolster Esther’s argument- that the architect of the whole affair had been Stefano all along, that he’d known very well what he was doing and chose to do it anyway. He very consciously didn’t want to date women his own age. He liked students. He liked it when young women looked at him the way I’d looked at him. I began to regard this as disturbing, instead of owning all the harm myself.

In the end, what happened between Stefano and me was between two consenting adults. What is also true is that there was an inherent power dynamic at play- one of status, age, gender, and finance- that he worked hard to make me forget, but was in fact the very musculature of the entire relationship.

The cognitive dissonance of Stefano is a common one for anyone who’s come out the other side of a manipulative relationship. I have a difficult time accepting compliments without suspicion or deflection. I frequently doubt my own abilities and intelligence. My really beautiful memories of him are marred by the aftermath of him, but I find that this realization is necessary; people are complex, and we can still hold them accountable.

So I hope that this finds its way to you, young Joanna. I hope that it reaches back in time and takes your hand, and tells you that you’ve always known more than you thought you did; that your instincts are as good as your open heart, and to be trusted in tandem. The flowering thing deep inside you is worth protecting, at any cost. You are worthy of good love. You are worthy of a love between equals. And that love is coming- I promise.