COLLINS

Years back, I fell in love with a student. And years before that, I learned what type of person I was when I was in love.

I didn't need much.

My feelings were enough for me. I didn't need them to be reciprocated. That, or I was afraid of sharing them, and I was better off ignorant about how the people I longed for thought about me. Regardless of whichever it was, I was content.

I didn't need much.

I was content with being in love and content with having the people I cared for in my line of sight.

When I had met Kadiane, his eye bags had been deep, his cheeks had been hollow, and his skin was a sickly off-white—yellow—if you squinted hard enough. It was normal to have a few struggling students in my class. University was hard on people, and I was only a lecturer, and all I could do was observe. I hadn't been in love with him then—No, just worried. I had worried about him. He was my best student. He did well in classes, and he somehow managed to stay on top of things despite looking like he rarely slept.

I remember the first time I called out his name. It was during roll call. A student before with the first name Andrew had already been called, and when I got to Kadiane's name I had simply called him his middle name instead of Andrew to make things easier. He had raised his hand and had smiled at me in such a heartbreaking, tired way that I was certainly sure that I had frowned a little at him back then.

I usually said nothing to students about their habits, but I couldn't help myself one evening at the end of class when Kadiane had come up to my desk to ask me about an assignment's due date. He had leaned on to my desk, holding on to the edges as he frowned and said his words slowly. He looked like he was thinking hard---not like he didn't know what to say, but in a way that hinted to the fact that he was tried and trying not to fall over.

I had licked my lips, barely paying attention to anything he'd had to say to me. Too worried about how he would sway a little and then grip on tightly to the edge of my desk again.

"Kadiane." His name left my lips before I could help myself. His mouth stopped moving, and his brows relaxed, as if he were happy to have a break from trying to find the words in his head. "You look tired."

"I do?"

"Yes," I said, reaching out my hand across my desk before pulling it back to myself. I wasn't sure what I was trying to do then, but it had been reflex. Maybe I wanted to hold his hand—steady him—so that he stopped shaking at the end of my table.

"Did you sleep yesterday?" I asked, and he licked his lips, staring right past me. He hadn't wanted to look me in the eyes, and that was okay. Students didn't have to tell me everything. I was just a teacher that gave them a grade. Their personal life wasn't my business.

"I did," he said, squinting before turning to me. "I always sleep."

I wasn't sure why he told me that. Maybe he had read my mind back then.

"Okay," I said, deciding to leave it at that. The room was silent now. All the students had left, and I had a lecture in twenty minutes, and I was sure Kadiane had somewhere to be too.

"I'm sorry for prying," I said, realizing that he was probably waiting for my answer to his question from before. "What was it about the assignment you were asking me again?"

"I haven't eaten," he said, ignoring my question. "I think I'm a bit shaky because I haven't eaten."

I blinked at him, muttering a small 'oh' under my breath. I stared at him, and he stared back. I hadn't been sure what he had wanted me to do.

"You can go to the cafeteria—"

"No," he had cut me off. "I can't," he said, licking his lips. "I really can't."

The tip of my tongue had been preparing to ask him about the assignment again and pretend that this odd tangent about food hadn't been brought up, but my conscience pricked me, and after I took one more look at him I started to put two and two together. He was very skinny despite the baggy sweaters he wore. That had been the first time I had a good look at his wrists. He was slim, but a lot of students who didn't eat too well were lean as well. I had sucked in my cheeks before letting out a sigh. I wasn't sure if my guess had been right, so I sidestepped around it, and instead gave him an option without prying further.

"Well, can you have glucose?"

"Glucose?" he had stared at me with a confused frown,

"You know that powder stuff they give to athletes to lick after a run," I said, watching as he squinted as he thought about it.

"Oh," he said suddenly as his eyes went open.

"You need just a spoonful every once in a while, to keep you..." I had trialed, trying to find the right words. "To keep you steady," I settled on, and Andrew had just nodded.

"Okay, I think I'll get that later," Andrew said, wobbling.

You can't do anything later if you faint now. I thought, letting out a sigh. "I have some in my car." I had a lecture in a few, but if I had left Kadiane like that he might have fainted. I canceled my class, and I made Kadiane follow me to my car. We sat in silence as he licked a spoon of glucose.

"Thank you," he had said when he was done, and then he smiled. I remember my heart skipping for him then for the first time. His smile was everything. Wide, sincere, and painfully heartbreaking. It made my heart pound, and I didn't even manage to utter 'you're welcome' before he got out of my car and left.

I never approached him.

Not even once.

I tended to do that. Tended to stay far away from men I understood myself to be attracted to.

But Kadiane came to me. He asked me for help when he needed it, and sometimes he would cry, or blubber something personal about himself. He told me about his ex-boyfriend. He told me about how he didn't want to be at the university but had been forced to be. He eventually explained his weight problems to me, and I had mostly sat there in silence, listening to him as he consumed something small. Some glucose, an energy drink, a granola bar. Something to make sure he could stand for the rest of the day, and when that semester was over he still sort me out, even though he wasn't in my class anymore, he still used the excuse of being in my department. I was one of the few literature professors after all, and it didn't look strange for him to wander to my office as often as he did.

I feel that Kadiane had a brief—very brief­—crush on me sometime in his last year. He looked at me a bit longer and smiled at me more, and sometimes he would reach out to hold my hand briefly, then brush it off with complimenting my watch or something silly.

He had been getting better, and there were less of the fainting episodes that I had to help him through. I don't know if it was him being generally more stable, and hence happier, or if he had started to look at me that way... the way I looked at him. With love. With uncertainty. Kadiane was sweet, beautiful, intelligent, and weirdly had a good sense of humor. My admiration for him blossomed over time, and him insisting on taking up space around me didn't help.

There were times I was almost sure something would happen. Like when he would just sit and smile at me in the car, and I was sitting in the driver's seat. Stoic, and plain face regardless of how hard my heart was beating in my chest. There were many hugs, many awkward hand-holding, and many almost-kisses, but nothing happened about the situation. I was mostly paranoid out of my mind because I had never been with anyone, just loved them and left them alone, while Kadiane seemed to be more calculating about the whole thing. Like he was waiting.

"I'm thinking of doing a masters here," he had said randomly in my office one afternoon as he pushed down some supplement pills, he'd gotten from me. A rare occurrence. He was okay, just a bit shaky.

"Oh," I had said, eyeing him. He looked at me. Then flushed a little. It was either Kadiane was a serial blusher or his skin was just that thin and pale from his habits, but regardless, his ears and his whole face was pink as he let out the next string of words. "I'll be graduating this spring."

"Yes," I had said. "Exciting."

"Yes," he had said, flushing again. "Things won't be an issue then."

"What?" I had asked in a stoic voice, even though a part of me was freaking out. Maybe he meant being with me. He would be earning his own money then, and he would be doing his own research. He wouldn't be just a student anymore, and maybe that's what he had been waiting for. Maybe, that was him giving me a hint to take my chance.

"Nothing." Kadiane had shaken his head. "If I apply to you to be my research supervisor, you'd take me in, right?"

"I'd be honored," I said, watching him smile at me again before licking his lips. Of course, I'd take him. He was the smartest student I'd ever had the pleasure of teaching.

I waited for his master's application throughout the summer.

It never came.

It was weeks after the start of the next fall semester that I got an email from Kadiane.

I got a book deal, Mr. Collins, so I don't think I can apply for the master's degree. Thank you so much for all your help in undergrad.

I had smiled down at it, feeling my heart shatter into a thousand tiny pieces as I fumbled with my phone, and typed away.

That's alright.

I'm very proud of you, Kadiane.

All the best.

I pressed send, smiling down at my screen as a tear dropped on the screen. I blinked in surprise, wiping it off with the heam of my sweater before tucking away my phone.

I had never gotten to tell Kadiane I loved him, and in a way, I was fine with it even though my heart ached. He must have gotten over his crush. I shouldn't have waited so long. Though, I don't think I would have had the balls to even if he had picked up the master's degree. I was relatively close to him. I didn't say much about myself, and I was too awkward to express love... at least, not in the way, most people would expect. Especially young people like Kadiane who seemed to be hopeless romantics.

He might have never actually had a crush on me. Who knows, I might have just been a temporary metal substitute for his boyfriend that had been so horrible to him. I went back and forth with that conclusion. Sometimes, I felt like I had gone about it the right way, and other times I would think I was an idiot who should have just taken a chance.

I didn't meet him again, until a few years later, and then it was too late. He was already in love, and content with Ethan. A young man who was direct, straight forward, and confrontational with Andrew when he needed to be.

The kind of person he needed.

The kind of person I was not.

I loved him from afar, and it was okay.