AN IMAGE OF YOU

A/N: After writing two stories in which a female student falls in love with her female teacher, I decided to write a more realistic short story dealing with the topic.

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You walked inside the room and managed to capture my attention with a smile – I don’t know how you did it.

I remember that very first time I saw you: the event which catapulted me into an abyss where despair and joy wander around with interlaced hands.

Your gait was full of confidence, but you did not swagger; your countenance, though grave, failed to burden you with a mien of despondency; you seemed pensive without imparting to me the impression of being lost in a daydream. Your attention was focused upon us as you surveyed the class keenly, summing us up slowly, as if you were attempting to discern whether we would acquit ourselves well or poorly during your course.

When you spoke, I listened intently to your low but clear voice. It suited your appearance very well indeed.

I still see you from time to time, and it always occurs to me that you look and sound like a girl-woman, paradoxically fragile and strong-willed. I just have to think of the exigent exam you set us towards the end of the semester and I smile ruefully.

Mild and somehow confined in your manner; aloof and distant in your interaction with your students when you are not teaching; and in class, infinitely patient, approachable and cheerful, I regarded you as the incorporation of mysteriousness. A subtle humorous twinkle would appear in your eyes from time to time. I admired you. I still do. You were, and still are, all what I want to be but can’t be.

I watch you from afar; - I worship you silently and feel a surge of anger when some people say that you are artificial, false and shallow. To me, you are the opposite of what those accusations claim. At the same time, I can’t help resenting you for the chaos you have unintentionally wrought in my life. Moreover, I am a woman in love with you – you, a woman; and although I myself don’t care about my gender preference, I know how condemned my inclinations are by others.

One year has passed, and I am still rather in love with you. Of course I know that you can’t possibly requite my feelings – impossible! Such things only happen in fiction, and if they do come true, then they mostly head towards disaster.

You are no longer my teacher; yet it happens that our paths cross, and I feel pangs of anguish when you don’t greet me by name anymore – maybe you have forgotten it. You just don’t have the time to recall it.

It is such a hopeless, doomed case. I try to get over you, but my heart insists that it will stall if it is torn away from you while my mind vituperates me, admonishing me for my foolish emotions and irrational sparks of hope.

You took my heart; and if I asked you to return it to me, you would be shocked, even disgusted, I suppose, and outraged.

I have nothing more to treasure than those chance meetings with you and my memories of your courses.

I cling to them and at the same time I wish they would fade into oblivion, effacing the image I have of you.

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