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| Details |
| Author: | Mishell |
| Summary: | Mayellen checks in on her instructor Mr. Bennett after hearing he's had a death in the family. It doesn't go great. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
In the fading heat of an early Stormwind summer evening, Mayellen Mullby approached the address that was written on the notice of cancelled classes she held in her trembling hands. She found herself at an unassuming door in Old Town. She knocked, and to her surprise, Mr. Bennett himself answered almost immediately.
“Mayellen,” he said, his expression as unreadable as ever. His eyes lowered to the paper in her hands. “Is everything all right? I assure you that both of the names in that letter are people I fully trust to instruct you during my hiatus.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Mayellen. “May I come in for a moment?”
Mr. Bennett hesitated long enough to make Mayellen uneasy before finally inclining his head and stepping aside to allow her entry.
The townhouse was small but neat; the entranceway boasted an elegant mirror on one wall, hanging perfectly flush over a table with a small tidy stack of mail on one end. Further inside could be seen the wooden staircase to the upper floor, a modest sitting area with bookshelves and seating for three, as well as the half of the clean-scrubbed kitchen and dining area visible around the corner of the entranceway. The air held a slight scent of vinegar.
Mayellen turned her gaze tentatively to Mr. Bennett’s face. “You’ve had a death in the family, the letter said, and so I just… I wanted to check in on you. If you’re cancelling classes, it must have been someone very close. They gave this address for flowers and whatnot, but – I imagined the place was already cluttered beyond what you’d enjoy.” Even as she said so, she looked around and saw not a single flower arrangement, a single casserole dish. The lower floor of the townhouse seemed as sterile and uncluttered as his classroom.
“Your thoughtfulness is appreciated,” he said. “I thank you.” His voice was as quiet and even-toned as ever.
Mayellen lingered, shifting her weight awkwardly.
“Is there something in particular I can do for you?” Mr. Bennett asked.
“For me?” Mayellen blinked. “Mr. Bennett, I know that we’re not exactly friends, but I just wanted you to know that I’m here for you. That if there is anything I can do to make you feel even the smallest bit–”
“There is not.”
“Nothing? I could run errands for you, pick you up something to eat? Do you need someone to go through your mail? Honestly, anything that would help.”
Mr. Bennett’s gaze hardened slightly. “Mayellen, I am sorry, but I am not currently in the mood to attend to your feelings.”
“My feelings? Is that what you think–” Mayellen’s voice choked off.
Mr. Bennett turned away from her and rested his fingertips on the low table in the hallway, taking a slow, deep breath. In the mirror, Mayellen could see that his eyes were closed. For a moment he stood in silence, simply breathing. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.
“I apologize,” he said, turning back to her. “That was unkind. But I do ask you to please consider why you are insistent upon providing help that I have not asked for.”
“Of course you wouldn’t ask for help! You refuse to admit that you even have feelings.”
“I have feelings, I simply do not let them direct me. I have never lied to you or anyone else about that, no matter how often people try to misinterpret me. I am human; I have emotions. I make careful choices about when and how to express those emotions. Are you able to explain to me why you believe that the time and place should be now, and with you in particular, if not to satisfy your own desires?”
Mayellen felt as though he’d struck her in the face. “My desires?” she echoed numbly. “I am not here because I… want something from you, Mr. Bennett. You’ve made your lack of interest clear. I’m just… I know you’re hurting, and I care about you, and naturally, knowing that you’re in pain hurts me.”
“And providing me with comfort would ease that hurt?”
“Of course!”
Finally Mr. Bennett turned back toward her, his pale gaze holding hers. “Then it is as I said. You are here to assuage your own pain. I have told you that there is nothing you can do to assuage mine, and yet you remain. If you genuinely cared about me, you would do as I asked and allow me to grieve in private.”
“Just… leave you? I don’t think you should be alone right now.”
“I am not alone. This is my mother’s home, and she will return to it when the work day is over.”
“Your… mother?” Mayellen blinked. “I… didn’t realize your mother lived in Stormwind.”
“That is the first of many things you do not know about me, which is why you are not the best person to provide comfort. I will contact you when I am ready to begin scheduled lessons again, if you still wish to learn demonology. You are a good student, and I am pleased with your progress. But I say to you, for what I hope is the last time, that I do not wish to have a personal relationship with you. Please find some other way to manage your feelings toward me.”
Mayellen took a step back, pressing her cold hands to her hot face. “I wasn’t here trying to manage my feelings…”
Mr. Bennett studied her for a moment. “The last thing I wanted to do was cause you distress,” he said quietly. “But it seems unavoidable. Please understand that I have great respect for you, and that I genuinely enjoy teaching you. I have always looked forward to our lessons. My lack of interest in a romantic relationship is in no way a summation of your value. But I see that you equate the two, and this both frustrates and pains me.”
“It… pains you?” Mayellen felt giddy from trying to understand.
Mr. Bennett stepped forward, reached out a hand, and for a heart-stopping moment it came to rest lightly at the side of Mayellen’s face. His palm was cool and dry.
“Please, Mayellen,” he said, “I beg you to be at peace.” He dropped his hand. “I do not know how to explain the way in which I care about you without giving you unfounded hope. I am never going to be your friend or your lover. That goes against my deeply held professional principles.”
She could still feel where his hand had rested against her cheek, as though every nerve in her skin had awakened. “And if I stopped being your student…?”
“I might allow a friendship,” he conceded, “if it did not seem to confuse or damage you, but I would still be uninterested in a romance.”
Mayellen’s eyes filled with tears.
“That does not mean,” Mr. Bennett continued insistently, “that I cannot observe and admire your good qualities, cannot sincerely wish for you to thrive and prosper in this world. That does not mean that I do not regret every wound I have inadvertently inflicted. I hope, against all hope, that your feelings for me evolve into something more productive and less damaging to you. I–”
Suddenly Mr. Bennett cut himself off again, and for the first time ever, Mayellen saw something uncontrolled flicker through his gaze, like summer lightning across an overcast sky, before he turned away from her.
“Mr. Bennett… what is it?”
He turned back at once, his gaze bearing her down. Anger. What she’d seen in his eyes was anger.
“My twin sister’s body is scarcely cold,” he said between clenched teeth, “and here I am, once again reassuring you. This is why I need for you to leave.”
Everything inside Mayellen turned to ice all at once. It was difficult even to reply without stammering; her tongue felt heavy, her jaw frozen shut.
“Yes, Mr. Bennett,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
She turned stiffly away and pushed blindly through the front door back out into the street. Only when she’d rounded the corner of the block did the heat of shame melt her emotional permafrost.
As always, she’d made things worse. Everything in her wanted to run back to him, to apologize, even though he had just explicitly told her that what he wanted was for her to leave him alone.
But how was she supposed to care about someone and simply stand back and watch him suffer, to do nothing? How could she trust that he knew what was best for himself, when he was the one who had suddenly stopped doing everything he loved, had locked himself away with a mother he’d never so much as mentioned as his only source of comfort?
It didn’t matter, ultimately. He’d clearly drawn the line, and so she had no choice. She would suffer alone, and he would suffer alone. That way, at least one of them would have what they wanted.