A Dead Heart Needs No Farewell

The night I failed my tenure review, I bought a roasted sweet potato at the campus back gate.

I took a big bite, scalding my tongue numb, and the tears came right behind it.

I texted my boyfriend, Russell Stephens.

I'm having a really bad day, but this sweet potato is good.

Nothing came back.

The failure and the loss had nowhere to go, and I wanted Russell to comfort me, even just one line.

Are you done with work?

The screen finally lit up.

Are you texting me because you want me to pull some strings for you?

Russell was the dean of a private university, and the halo over his head shone too brightly. Everyone in academic circles knew him.

To avoid any appearance of impropriety, we had never gone public about our relationship.

He'd reminded me more than once.

"I don't want people thinking you got where you are through me. At work, I'll treat you the same as everyone else."

Yet Elaine Fox could post photos of the two of them together on social media without a care in the world.

So grateful to Dean Stephens for the guidance that got me shortlisted for the tenure review. Hope everyone will look out for me from here on.

An ordinary-sounding line, and underneath it nothing but a way to flaunt how close they were, to smooth her own path.

The tears splashed onto the screen, and the sticky sweet potato lodged in my throat until I couldn't breathe.

It hit me all at once: in Russell's eyes, maybe I wasn't even worth as much as a roasted sweet potato.

1.

I tossed the sweet potato skin into the trash.

Still, I couldn't stop myself from going back, wanting to know exactly where I'd fallen short.

Five years of teaching. Countless papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Six years running, top three in the department in student evaluations.

Even if I didn't make tenure, there was no reason I should have been cut in the first round.

I had just reached the foot of the administration building.

And there was Russell, crouched down, tying Elaine Fox's shoelace without the slightest hesitation.

"You don't need to be too nervous about the tenure defense. Nobody on the second-round list can threaten you."

His voice was flat, but the favoritism ran through it, forceful and plain.

"But I still don't have any ideas for the defense topic..."

Elaine's voice went soft to the bone.

It stirred Russell's protective instinct on the spot.

"It's fine. I'll work out the direction for your topic tonight. Follow that line, and even if you fall apart up there, the review panel won't give you a hard time, for my sake."

I stood frozen a little way off, taking in every word Russell said.

He was willing to stand behind Elaine, to become her backing without counting the cost.

And me?

For five years, Russell had ordered me again and again never to mention my relationship with him to anyone.

At this school I walked on thin ice, so wary I didn't even dare go near the dean's office.

Coming and going from work, I got out of the car two blocks early.

I lived like an invisible person, terrified that any achievement of mine would get stamped with the label "connected hire."

So why did Elaine get to be his exception?

The November wind poured in at my collar.

Watching this, I clenched my fists without thinking, and my heart had long since frosted over.

I meant to turn and go, to leave myself a little dignity.

But Elaine's eyes had locked onto me from the start, and the moment I took a step, she called out loudly in my direction.

"Vanessa Hughes, you're still here too?"

Russell turned then and saw me. There was none of the guilty flinching I'd expected.

Instead his brows drew together on instinct, that look on his face as if to say I'd ruined the private moment they'd just been having.

"Why are you dressed so thin? Russell's driving me home in a bit. Here, put this coat on for now."

Elaine walked over to me, slipping the coat off her shoulders and holding it out.

That coat was the one I'd given Russell a few days ago, for our anniversary.

I hesitated, my hand still at my side, but before I could move, Russell reached out first, took the coat back, and draped it over Elaine instead.

He pulled her collar snug, the back of his hand brushing lightly along her chin.

Then he turned to look at me, calm as anything.

"Elaine's delicate. She can't handle cold like this."

Elaine's smugness was almost spilling off her face.

"Vanessa, why don't you come with us? I'll have Russell drop you home first."

Something jammed in my throat. Russell didn't spare a glance for the loss written across my face.

"The back seat's stacked with school flyers. There's no room."

"Just hail a ride home yourself."

His voice held no warmth at all. He turned and walked off the moment the words left him.

As the two of them drove past, I was still rooted where I stood.

Elaine even rolled down her window on purpose to wave at me, the corners of her mouth curved up in that way that only comes from being thoroughly adored.

"Vanessa, we're heading off, then."

Russell, in the driver's seat, wouldn't even give me a single look.

I watched until the taillights vanished completely from my sight.

Every ounce of strength drained out of me in an instant. I stumbled twice and nearly lost my footing.

2.

The winter snow drifted down and settled over me layer by layer, and still it wasn't a fraction as cold as my heart.

When I reached the campus gate, the old gate guard called out to me.

"Snow this heavy, don't go catching a cold."

He handed me a battered umbrella, one rib snapped short, so that half of it sagged when it opened, exactly like whatever was left between Russell and me.

By the time I got home, the snow had melted through and soaked my right shoulder.

Russell glanced at me without much interest, a note of mockery in his voice.

"I told you to hail a ride. Grew up in the sticks, no wonder you don't know how to enjoy a little comfort."

My background was the thing he looked down on most, and years of his disdain had ground me into someone who couldn't hold her head up.

I'd kept stretching onto my toes, trying to reach him up there on his pedestal.

But looking at it now, all of it had been for nothing. No matter what I did, in his mind I was still the same country-smelling Vanessa Hughes from five years ago.

"You know full well that with my record I should never have been cut in the preliminary round."

Russell's fingers, tapping at his laptop, paused for a beat. He said nothing.

"You cut me to clear the way for Elaine, didn't you?"

He closed the laptop, set it down on the coffee table without hurry, and only then turned his head to meet my eyes.

"I've told you many times. We have to avoid any appearance of favoritism."

"There's a professor from the state university on the preliminary review committee with a famous loose mouth. She ran into the two of us in the underground parking garage once. I did this to shut her up, so no gossip gets out."

The self-deceiving tone of it made me want to laugh.

"Just because of a flimsy excuse like that?"

He looked at me, cold and indifferent.

"It's true your file was fine, and your teaching was fine. But I want your promotion to come through clean, not because someone was doing me a favor."

I let out a scornful laugh.

"I didn't even pass the preliminary round, and you want to talk to me about clean?"

"Those excuses of yours, maybe I'd have believed them once. But why is it that with Elaine, every principle you have, every rule, just disappears?"

Russell's brow knotted tighter.

"What's your rush?"

His voice was thick with impatience.

"Just apply again next year. Your record speaks for itself. Tenure isn't going anywhere if you wait one more year!"

The cold spread from my chest out into my limbs.

I knew arguing was useless, and still I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"Then why can't Elaine be the one who applies again next year?"

"You won't let anyone see we're together, but why do you hold her to one standard and me to another? You two can meet in private, act close in front of everyone without a second thought for what our colleagues think"

Everything I'd swallowed came pouring out at once.

Russell's patience ran dry, and he cut me off, his voice cold.

"He and I have a working relationship. What's the point of comparing yourself to that?"

"Keeping it quiet was something you agreed to a long time ago!"

He always did this, dodging sideways, talking around everything.

I stared into his eyes and couldn't find a trace of regret or guilt in them.

"I agreed because I thought you'd at least be fair."

The ache kept rising in my throat, and I paused.

"But your favoritism toward Elaine is there for everyone to see."

Russell didn't answer. His phone rang, and the moment he picked up, the voice that had been so irritated a second ago went soft.

"Elaine, I already sent that defense framework to your email."

"Anything you don't understand, just ask me anytime."

3.

Elaine's sweet, cooing voice came through the receiver.

"Russell, it's all because I'm so slow, making you worry like this"

My chest heaved hard, and even my breathing turned rough.

That small sound was all it took to displease him.

"Can you move somewhere else? You can't control your own emotions, and now you have to disturb other people?"

Russell switched masks like a stage performer, and when he spoke again, it was nothing but tenderness and care.

"Elaine, you have real potential."

"With me here, you don't need to worry about the second round."

In that moment, the hold Russell had on my heart began to loosen.

The next day in the cafeteria, I had just set down my breakfast and found a seat.

Then I heard a few teachers I barely knew clear their throats behind me, deliberately raising their voices to embarrass me.

"Tsk, tsk. Always going all out, always shoving her way to the front. Wasn't it all just to make the rest of us look bad? Never thought a university campus would turn into a rat race too."

Another voice couldn't hold back its mockery.

"Cut in the first round. How humiliating."

"She acts all proud and above it all, but I saw right through it. Every time our young dean walks past, her eyes lock onto him and won't move an inch."

"Thinks a pretty face buys her special treatment? Watching her get cut felt so good."

The gossip crawled into my ears, and instead of anger, I saw things clearly.

The favored one always has ground to stand on, while someone like me, hidden away in the dark corner, is left for others to pick apart.

Russell had never once been protecting me.

I bit into my breakfast sandwich. The filling was rich, and yet my tongue couldn't taste a thing.

Elaine set a mug of hot milk in front of me, all smiles.

"Vanessa, the dean says my promotion is pretty much a lock this time."

"Russell says I still have so much to learn from you. You're the senior one here, after all, so I'll be counting on your guidance from now on."

Every other word was Russell, every sentence some little brag about what she'd won.

Elaine knew exactly how low she'd stooped to land that title, and yet she still leaned in close on purpose, twisting the knife in the wound.

My face went cold.

She didn't care. She nudged the milk a little closer to me and, in a voice only the two of us could hear, sneered.

"If you had any sense, you'd walk away from Russell."

"He plays favorites with me right out in the open, and there's not a scrap of the old warmth left for you. Can't you see it? He wants you to take the hint and go. I just didn't think you could stand it this long."

The corner of Elaine's mouth kept curling up.

I clenched my fists. There were still plenty of students around, and I didn't want to make an ugly scene here.

But the next second, Elaine's eyes flicked past me, and then she gave the mug on the table another deliberate shove.

The scalding milk splashed over my wrist, soaking a wide patch across the front of my chest.

The pain seared like fire. I sucked in a sharp breath and shot to my feet.

The skin on my wrist was already red and swelling.

"Elaine!"

I couldn't hold it in anymore. The name tore out of me.

She only looked down at her own fingertips. I was the one who'd been burned, but she choked up as if the wrong had been done to her.

"Vanessa... I know you're angry that I took your spot."

"But you don't have to do this. You'll only end up hurting yourself as much as me..."

My pupils shook. I felt a sharp gaze land on my back.

4.

"Vanessa, haven't you caused enough of a scene!"

Russell's voice. And there he was, tenderly helping Elaine to her feet.

She'd judged the force just right. She'd soaked me, and left only a few faint spots on herself.

The people around us, the ones who'd never liked me, knew exactly how much Elaine weighed in Russell's eyes.

They rushed to speak up for her, hoping to cozy up to Elaine and make themselves seen.

"Someone this jealous, with a heart this dark, how is she fit to be a teacher?"

"Exactly. Elaine kindly brings her a mug of milk, and she can't even tell a kind gesture when she sees one."

"Didn't make the second round herself, so she takes it out on someone else. Disgusting."

"You're colleagues, and she actually raised a hand? Is it really worth it?"

Russell's chest heaved harder and harder.

He glanced at Elaine, fighting back her tears, and his eyes turned cold as a blade.

Russell didn't ask a single word about what had happened. He forced one word out through gritted teeth, roaring.

"Out!"

In front of countless faculty and students, without stopping to sort right from wrong, he left me not the smallest shred of face.

In that instant, all the resentment and the hurt and the anger seemed to be jolted out of my chest at once.

I stared blankly at Russell, without a trace of feeling.

Two seconds later, I calmly turned around.

Only then did I understand that falling out of love with someone takes only a moment.

I went to HR and filed my resignation.