Karen Higgins kept her office hours strictly scheduled—Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3 to 5 p.m., no exceptions. She did this not just for the students, but for herself. She believed in control. In predictability. In boundaries.
She especially believed in those things now.
It was Thursday afternoon, and she'd been half-watching the clock for the last twenty minutes, not sure if she hoped Jonny Westlake would walk through her door or hoped he wouldn't. His email had been brief but courteous. She hadn't replied. She hadn't needed to.
At exactly 3:28, there was a knock.
She waited a full five seconds before answering, just long enough to look unbothered.
"Come in."
Jonny entered slowly, holding a copy of Wuthering Heights in one hand and a black notebook in the other. He was wearing a navy blue sweater that clung a little too nicely to his shoulders, and his hair was damp from the rain outside. He looked young and confident and entirely out of place in her tidy academic world.
"Hi," he said, his voice calm but measured. "Thanks for letting me stop by."
Karen gestured to the chair across from her desk. "That's what office hours are for."
He sat, placing the book on the corner of her desk. "I caught up on the reading. Heathcliff's still a jerk, but I get it now. The obsession part."
She glanced at him. "You think obsession is admirable?"
"I think it's dangerous," he replied. "But it's real. I don't trust characters who love too cleanly. Life isn't clean."
She leaned back in her chair. "You have a habit of turning literary analysis into therapy."
Jonny smiled faintly. "Only with people I think are worth listening to."
Karen stiffened. There it was again—just beneath the surface. The line that blurred between respect and something else. She should shut it down. She should have shut it down weeks ago.
"Why are you really here, Jonny?"
He didn't flinch. "Because I like talking to you. And because I think you like talking to me, even if you don't want to admit it."
She exhaled slowly. "You're my student."
"I know."
"You're twenty-four."
"I know that too."
"I'm forty-eight."
Jonny held her gaze. "That's not a crime."
Karen stood up suddenly, pushing her chair back. "This isn't a game, Jonny."
"I'm not playing."
She walked over to the window, needing distance, needing space to think. Outside, the rain had begun to fall harder, streaking the glass with silver lines. She crossed her arms tightly and stared out at the quad.
"You're a bright student," she said, more to the window than to him. "You're talented. But you don't know anything about what I've lived through. You think this—whatever this tension is between us—is romantic. But it's just a fantasy. One that can ruin both our lives if we're not careful."
There was a pause. Then Jonny spoke, his voice softer now.
"I'm not asking for anything to happen, Professor. Not here. Not now. I just… I see you. And I think maybe you've gone a long time without being seen."
Karen closed her eyes. He wasn't wrong. That's what made it so unbearable.
"I'm not who you think I am," she said quietly.
"Then tell me who you are."
She turned back toward him, arms still crossed, but her voice was steadier now. "I've been divorced twice. I have no children. I spend most nights reading poetry with a cat on my lap. My last romantic interaction was a drunken kiss at a faculty holiday party I regretted immediately. And I'm tired. I'm so tired of pretending I'm content."
The words came out before she could censor them. They stunned even her.
Jonny stood but didn't come closer.
"I'm not trying to fix you," he said. "And I'm not some deluded student chasing a fantasy. I'm just saying… you don't have to do this alone. Whatever this is."
Karen studied him. Really studied him. There was no arrogance in his eyes, no performance. Just honesty. It terrified her.
She walked back to her desk and sat down, placing a hand over the top of her notebook. Her fingers were trembling.
"I think you should leave now," she said.
Jonny nodded. "Okay."
He reached for his book, slung his bag over his shoulder, and turned to go. But at the door, he paused.
"I'll see you in class, Professor."
And then he was gone.
---
She didn't move for a long time after the door closed. Her office, always a place of order and control, suddenly felt smaller. The air heavier. The quiet more intimate.
Her hands still shook.
It wasn't love. She wasn't foolish enough to call it that. But it was something. And it scared her more than anything had in years.
Later that night, as she fed Milton and turned off the living room lamp, she caught her reflection in the window.
There were lines around her eyes. Her hair had begun to grey near her temples. But there was also something else there now. A flicker. A glow. A woman remembering what it was like to feel.
She touched her lips gently and whispered to herself,
"Seen."