I still can’t believe he’s gone.  Ten weeks was nowhere near enough time to glean from his fountain of endless knowledge.  Damn, the accursed establishment! Even after the protests and letters of admiration, they still ripped him from us. From me.

Our goodbye is romanticized in my memory, but I actually like it better that way.  (It is not that the events were less than what I make them out to be, they are just more special than I think they really are.)

After turning in my paper and writing my email address and phone number on my farewell gift to him, I handed back the pen I borrowed from him and he grasped my hand in the process.

“You look very pretty today,” my professor said, looking at me seriously with those beautiful blue-green eyes. “You always look beautiful, but especially today.”  I was wearing my black and purple flowered corset, a long, black lace skirt, army boots, my fingerless gloves with crisscrossed laces and a metal buckle at the end, and a pillbox hat with a net veil hanging solemnly in front of my face and black and purple feathers on top.  I didn’t think he ever truly noticed me.  He commented before on a few outfits, but I didn’t think he kept count of what looked best.

I mumbled a soft, “Thank you”.  It was all that I could choke out.  I had almost lost all composure in the middle of my final exam, but I managed to keep the tears from spilling out and ruining my makeup.  I even scribbled out the word “Final” on my paper. I couldn’t look at it.

He said, “You know, that letter you wrote, it almost made me cry.”

I had given him a copy of the letter I had written to the school, begging that they overturn the decision to let him go, but I didn’t think he’d read it until class was over. I was slightly shocked.

“You…You read it already?” I asked timidly.

“Yes,” he said, still holding my hand, “If I hadn’t been standing up here in front of the class, I would’ve cried. It really means a lot to me.  I’m going to show it to my mom and dad when I go back home.”  He smiled and released my hand. “Thank you, Kayla,” he said, giving me a big hug.  I rested my head on his chest and sniffled.  To my surprise, he held me there for a little while.

When I got back to my seat, the tears began to roll down my cheeks.  Never again would I see his smiling face, feel the warmth of his arms, and most importantly, sit at his feet and learn about literature, philosophy, and psychology.  It was all over.  My thrill-ride of a lifetime, my journey into the depths of knowledge was over.  I thought we’d be together forever. Pupil and professor. My dear friend and, strangely, subconscious lover.

At the end of class, he walked outside with me and the rest of the people who had fought for him.  He shook Jaysin’s hand.  He gave Nebraska a light embrace.  But I was the only one he squeezed.

“Maybe we can have a class reunion day sometime, huh?” he said optimistically as he looked down at me with that bright and infectious smile of his.

“That would be lovely,” I said, smiling back.

Now, all I can do is wait for his return, for the day my professor returns to me.