Control Freaks

14

The printer rattled like a dying machine, each sheet of your debate slides coughing out with a click. You leaned against the wall beside it, scrolling your phone, then pausing to stare at the ceiling like it might drop an answer.

You had the chance to beat him.
You didn't take it.

Not because you were scared.
Because somewhere in the middle of paragraph three, it hit you:

All those sharp words, all that deliberate architecture, all those verbal grenades?

They didn't matter anymore.

Not because he wouldn't notice.
But because you didn't care if he did.

You'd dismantled the wrong thing.
Not the paper. Not the thesis.

The motive.

He'd said it so damn calmly—
"You've never figured out what you really want."

At the time, you wanted to punch him in his flawless, infuriating face.
But once the rage drained out, all that was left was something worse.

Doubt.

What if he was right?

What if every one of your provocations, every manipulative flourish, every elegantly wrapped rhetorical trap... was just one long tantrum aimed at a ghost wearing a man's suit?

What if your entire academic vendetta was just an elaborate performance to make Daddy Authority look up and say, "I see you"?

And who did that make you?

The girl who, at nineteen, still prided herself on not being the teacher's pet. The girl who swore she'd never play nice in intellectual sandbox politics.

Was that who you'd become?

The printer made a final wheeze and spat out the last page.

You gathered the warm stack, aligned the edges with mechanical precision, and stared down at the pile like it had just told you a secret.

It felt like crawling out of a maze only to realize the exit led to rubble.

You couldn't keep deconstructing things—not because you didn't have the tools. But because, suddenly, you understood:

He wasn't the structure you wanted to break.

You sank into one of those hard, plastic chairs near the corner, clutching the printed slides like they were some kind of life vest.

Your fingers dug into the top page. Like you were holding on to coherence by a thread.

You always thought being clear-headed was your greatest strength.
Clear-headed when you flirted.
Clear-headed when you fought.
Clear-headed when you wrote those flawless, A+ papers.

But now?
Clarity felt like punishment.

Because you could no longer lie to yourself.

You didn't just want to win.
This wasn't about power anymore. Or pride. Or even approval.

It was messier than that.

You wanted to be seen.
To be the exception.
To be the one student he remembered after the semester ended, whose name didn't blur with the others, whose paper he couldn't forget even after grading a hundred more just like it.

But he'd said it—cold, clean, cruel:
"You've never figured out what you want."

And for the first time, you felt like the one pinned to the table.

Not because you lost.
But because he might've understood you better than you understood yourself.

You lowered your head, pressing your forehead against the still-warm printouts.

Exhaled slowly.
Like maybe if you breathed deep enough, you could expel all of it: the performance, the calculation, the exposure.

Then—

Buzz.

Your phone vibrated.

You picked it up.

Him.

Not an email. Not a system reminder. A text.

Just one line:

Are you free tomorrow night.

No greeting. No punctuation. No small talk. So very Erwin.

But you saw it.
He broke the distance. Just slightly.
...In your language.

You stared at the message. A muscle near your eye twitched—barely. But enough to remind you that your body noticed what your brain was still pretending to analyze.

You typed back:

Do you want to talk about what I want, or are you finally ready to admit you don't know what you want?

Seconds passed.
Then the typing bubble appeared. Flickered. Paused, and returned in full.

A countdown.

Finally:

8pm tomorrow. Palmer Hall. Upstairs conference room. You know which one.

Of course you did.

That room—the one he usually used with research assistants. No windows. Gray carpet. Black curtains. Air so still it forced people to lean in just to hear each other breathe.

You didn't reply.

You just put your phone down, leaned back, and shut your eyes.

The printer's heat still lingered in the air—warm, dry, static-charged.
Like the room had just witnessed something it shouldn't have.

And suddenly, you felt cold.
Not skin-cold.

The kind of cold that hits when you've just stripped off your emotional armor and haven't yet stitched the next layer on.

Tomorrow night.

What would he say?