I take a turn I haven't taken in two years, then another, and the muscle memory of bad decisions guides my hands better than any GPS.
What the hell are you doing, Larsen?
The windshield wipers fight a losing battle against the rain as I pull behind the old Humanities building, all broken windows and ivy reclaiming what academia abandoned.
The same place I brought Katherine three years ago. The same place I swore I'd never return to.
"Where are we?" Elisa asks, even though the answer doesn't matter because we both know geography isn't why we're here.
"Old Humanities building. They condemned it three years ago after the fire."
I park between overgrown hedges that have long since given up on civilization.
"No cameras. No foot traffic. No one comes here anymore."
"How very premeditated of you, Professor."
Premeditated. Like I planned this. Like I didn't spend the entire drive telling myself to turn around.
"I was going to take you home," I say, but my hands are still on the wheel because they're the only things keeping me from reaching for her.
"Sure you were."
She shifts in her seat, the wet fabric of her blouse making sounds that short-circuit whatever's left of my moral compass.
"That's why you drove to an abandoned building where no one can hear us discussing Hobbes."
"We should talk," I manage, knowing how pathetic that sounds.
"About my paper? Because I'm pretty sure you made your feedback clear. Something about lacking intellectual rigor?"
"Elisa—"
"Or maybe you want to discuss Rousseau's theories on the state of nature?"
She turns to face me fully, and I watch a droplet of rain trace down her collarbone like it's mapping territory I have no right to claim.
"Because right now, Professor, we're looking pretty fucking primal."
The rain hammers the roof like judgment, turning the windows into walls that separate us from consequences.
Two years of celibacy.
Two years of being the man Liv needed me to be.
Two years of proving I could control myself.
And here I am, parked in the same spot, with a girl half my age who makes my hands shake.
"Tell me about him," I say, because redirecting to her trauma feels marginally less pathetic than admitting I'm losing a battle I've been fighting since she spread her legs in my lecture hall. "The ex who sends photos to strangers."
"Which part do you want to hear?" She watches me grip the steering wheel like it's a lifeline. "The part where his family owns half of Montenegro? Or the part where his uncle makes people disappear for suggesting unions at their factories?"
My knuckles go white.
"Jesus Christ, Elisa."
"Oh, it gets better," she continues, her voice carrying that particular brand of gallows humor that makes me want to simultaneously protect her and devour her. "Kilian collects things. Vintage watches, rare wines, teenage girls who remind him of better times. He proposed to me with a Cartier bracelet that cost more than your annual salary."
"You were what? Eighteen."
"Seventeen when we met. But he waited until my birthday to fuck me, so technically legal."
She watches me react, and I can feel the muscle in my jaw jump.
"He's very careful about technicalities. His lawyer taught him that after the first girl tried to press charges."
"The first girl?"
"There's always a first girl, Professor. Usually ends up studying abroad very suddenly with a generous scholarship to nowhere."
She pulls her knees up to her chest, making herself smaller in my passenger seat.
"That's what happens when you say no to men like Kilian. You disappear. Sometimes metaphorically. Sometimes not."
She's a child. She's been through hell. You're supposed to be better than this.
I turn to look at her properly for the first time since we parked.
Her hazel eyes hold something that isn't fear, isn't seduction—something rawer that makes my chest ache.
"He threatened you?"
"He doesn't threaten. He implies. Like how he implied he's ready to send my photos to you again just to get me back locked in his penthouse waiting for him in bed. Like how my scholarship might suddenly have irregularities. Like how my mother's new job might discover she has a record that doesn't actually exist."
"Your mother?"
"Kilian's thorough. He researches his investments." Her laugh comes out like broken glass. "That's what he called me. Like I was a startup he was hoping would go public."
She's telling me she's being hunted by a man who treats people like property, and all I can think about is how her wet blouse clings to her skin.
What kind of man does that make me?
My hand moves from the steering wheel before I can stop it, and I think I'm reaching for the door handle, about to finally make a good decision.
Instead, my fingers find her throat.
My thumb presses against her pulse point, measuring exactly how real this is by the speed of her blood.
"Your heart's racing," I observe, hating how clinical I sound when I feel anything but.
"Yeah, well, I'm sitting in a car with a professor who's seen me naked, telling him about my psycho ex."
Her voice comes out breathier, and I feel her pulse jump under my thumb.
"Racing hearts are kind of standard."
My thumb moves slightly, and her breath catches.
The sound travels straight down my spine.
"You came to me for protection?" I ask.
"Is that what you think this is?"
"Tell me what it is then."
"You want the truth?"
"I'm asking, aren't I?"
She looks at me, and whatever she sees makes her expression shift into something terrifyingly honest.
"I came to you because you're the only man who ever treated me like a person instead of just a warm body. You looked at my grades, yelled about my terrible arguments, called my work pathetic."
She swallows against my palm.
"Every other man just wanted to get under my skirt. You wanted me to understand Hobbes."
Something cracks inside my chest.
"You don't think I'm dangerous?" I ask, and my voice sounds wrecked even to my own ears.
"Are you?"
"I've been fighting myself since you walked into my lecture hall."
The admission costs me something I can't name.
"I'm just a man, Elisa. My body responds when you're close, no matter how many dead philosophers I quote to make it stop."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?"
"I don't know anymore."
My other hand finds her waist, and I feel the last two years of self-control crumble like wet paper.
"I don't know anything anymore."
I pull her across the center console.
The gear shift digs into her knee, the steering wheel catches her hip, but then she's in my lap and the logistics stop mattering.
"This is insane," I breathe against her mouth, one final protest before the fall.
"Sanity's overrated," she tells me, her hands finding my shirt buttons. "You should know that. Didn't Foucault write a whole thing about it?"
"You're deflecting with philosophy references now?"
"Learning from the best."
Then her mouth is on mine, and I stop pretending this was ever about protection or philosophy or being the man my daughter believes I am.
Forgive me, Liv.
I tried.