The Last Time

The man sits in front of a Blank page. The mans name, Jude. Jude has been in this specific moment many times before. The clock marked midnight. That's usually around the time he could begin to work. Anytime before midnight proved to be useless. Most of the time he was able to get a couple of pages in but not a full page. It's why his closest's friends nicknamed him a night owl. Jude begins typing away and just like that an idea began to take form. The next time he would check the clock the time would mark five and he would have written an entire first draft of a short story. He also would remember that he has a lunch with a friend in about eight hours and if he went to bed now he could try to get enough sleep.

* * *

He goes on and on. On and on. His friend Dickie sits across him on the subway. Dickie has heard this rant many times before. The self pity rant. The regret rant. He has done this for years now. Ten to be exact. So dickie just does what he's always done, he listens to his friend. He doesn't care who hears him. Being as late as it is, the subway car isn't full of people. Some are going home late from work, a few others are homeless folk. Jude the sensitive writer. The man who always wears his heart on his sleeve is done for good now.

No more feeling sorry for myself . No more of that shit. He says as he throws his body back on the seat. I'm done. I've lost time and energy fantasizing about someone whom i never had the guts to say i love you to. Someone who probably would've said yes to me if only i had tried. If only i had opened my mouth. Why was i too afraid to tell him how i felt? Why did i hold myself back? I overthought the whole thing. I thought because he was my professor that it was wrong. But how many students have had indecent relationships with a teacher before? It's nothing new. And there was the matter of the age difference. Twenty-five years in between us. I tried to discourage the idea by telling myself that it would never work because of the huge age gap. It didn't work. Day after day i fell in love with him even more. Love, love, was i really in love or just infatuated. I thought it could be the latter but this feeling, this love grew more and more that i knew it couldn't just be an infatuation. it had to be real, right? Then there was also the issue of his boyfriend. An accomplished intellectual like himself. And me i was just some kid who had a foolish crush on his professor. That's how i thought he would see me. Because it was true. I could never compete with the boyfriend. God, but how he inspired me everyday. He's the reason i became a writer. I thought about quitting every other day but didn't because of him. I would show up to class each morning looking terribly tired because i had stayed up writing all night. I wanted to be the best in his eyes. I'd visit his office hours for extra help to soak up some one on one time with him. He knew i didn't need the help but he still indulged me. He referred to me as the night owl and it stuck, eventually everyone started calling me that. Yes, i believe he was the first to call me that. Then graduation came and i swore to myself i would tell him. The only thing i could muster up was how much he had inspired me and how everything he had taught me had made me a better man. He thanked me, and wished me all the success in the world, which in no doubt he believed i would achieve. I walked out with tears running down my cheeks. It wasn't the last time i would see him but the moment to tell him i love him had passed. I don't want to live with this any longer. It's funny, my past short lived relationships never stood a chance because i kept my heart and my mind somewhere else. I've let myself down. This is it, Like i said Dickie, this is the last time.

* * *

Jude makes it just in time for lunch with Dickie. He had managed to get about four hours of sleep. He couldn't help himself and started making revisions for a second draft on the short story he had been working on the night before. They talk all afternoon. They talk about the things they usually talk about. Work, life and other people. Jude suddenly feels someone hovering over him. It's his beloved professor standing tall beside him. They make small talk. The professor had always had an incline on Jude's feelings towards him but had never acted on it because Jude never had. Even thought he cared very much about his career it wouldn't have stopped him from having an affair with a student of his, specially one as bright as Jude. He thought of Jude as a younger version of himself. Now several years later and several published books between the two, Jude was sitting in front of his beloved professor once again now with the look of regret and sadness as the professor goes on about the vacation him and his younger new beau are about to go on. Even though he was done lusting after the professor the "what if" would always linger in his mind.