Chapter Eleven

Surprise shone in Keanu's eyes as the words left her mouth and her eyes widened at what she had said. She stammered gibberish for a while before she calmed herself down.

"No," she said. "Uhh, I mean sometimes I wish Leonard was more like you. More empathetic."

"Yeah, I understood that," he said a little too quickly. "Thanks for the compliment."

Awkward silence hung in the air between them as Alice stared at everywhere but him. She shot a few glances at him every now and then, and saw him trying hard to look away as well. She felt heat touch her cheeks and though she wanted to stare at something else, her eyes kept returning to sneak glances at him. Their eyes met for one unfortunate moment, and they held the gaze as normally as they could. He smiled warmly at her, but she could see the awkwardness behind his eyes.

"How are you?" Keanu asked finally. "No, you just told me. Sorry, that was a stupid question."

She laughed. "It's okay."

He shrugged in response.

Lifting her shoulder, she put a smile on her face. "Alright! Let's cheer up and play those board games like we planned."

"Of course," he said.

"Mom! Dad!" Alice called out and both of them looked over their shoulders at them.

"Yeah?" Mike said.

"It's time for me to beat you guys at Monopoly!"

"Oh, you're on!" her mother said as she sprang off the seat. They walked over to the dining table as Keanu removed the box from a cabinet behind to place it on the table.

"Let's have fun tonight!" Alice said happily.

The night passed smoothly and Alice forgot all about Leonard, and even her other problems. Before long, she celebrated her 19th birthday and soon, it was months after she had turned 21. As life with Leonard went on, she learned from her mistakes and began to stop expecting much from their relationship. The days passed much more easily when she kept her expectations low, and he seemed to be happier as well. It didn't take long before she started to derive her main source of satisfaction from other things, like the field of study she wanted to pursue a career in.

So when Keanu contacted her and offered her a position at his school as a professor teaching that subject, she was overjoyed. She took him up on his offer excitedly and as she taught to the best of her ability, she felt as if her dreams had come true. She let Leonard know, but since he was still studying at the same school she was teaching at, he asked her not to let anyone know that he was dating her.

She agreed, though it upset her a bit. And when Leonard told others he was dating some of the students at school to cover up their lie, she couldn't help but be annoyed by that. It was fine for them to date because they came from different departments but she knew Leonard didn't want anyone to know because he felt inferior in comparison to her. But why should she hide her accomplishments?

Because of this, the indignance got to her head and whenever she was in the office or in the cafeteria with time to mingle, she purposely hit on other male professors. They were surprised by her sudden interest in them, and some tried to pursue things with her, but she never considered that because she was only trying to get even.

However, when Leonard found out that she was doing that, he got mad. He refused to talk to her for a long time and even ignored her texts. She tried to call him out on his hypocrisy but he insisted that he had a good reason to flirt with other girls - to keep up the charade - but she didn't have that and it blew her mind that he had such double standards.

Alice threw the door to Keanu's office open. "God, I'm so pissed off!"

He lifted his head up in mild surprise to stare at her. "What's wrong?"

She closed the door behind her and stalked over to his desk, slumping down at the chair in front of it. "It's Leonard again, I bet you already know."

"No, I don't hear anything from Leonard. What happened?"

"He's being annoying!"

He put his pen down. "In what way?"

"He thinks he's all that! I hit on some dudes and he found out and got mad at me. Why can't I hit on other men?"

"Aren't you dating Leonard exclusively?"

"I am! But I have the right to flirt with other men, don't I?" she said in protest. "God, he's always going on about how unfair that is! He's crazy. It's just harmless flirting."

"Did he tell you he didn't like it?"

"Yes, he did. But who cares? It's not like I'm having sex with them!"

"Are you going to stop, then?"

"He's been ignoring me, so I told him I stopped flirting with them."

"But have you stopped?"

"Of course not! But I'm not telling him that!" she said with a loud scoff. She spent a considerable amount of time complaining on and on about Leonard as Keanu remained silent. She asked him many questions about what he thought but he remained quiet, so she left his office in a huff.

When the next day came on a weekend, Leonard threw her front door open and yelled for her. "Alice!" he said. "Alice, come out!"

She ran out from her room to meet him. "What? What's wrong?"

"I know what you did!" Leonard said, glaring at her.