Was this what I think it was?
TW: student/teacher... relationship?
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I am playing the "What Even Was It" game with myself, again.
Wad this normal, acceptable teacher/former student interaction?
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I was a music kid. Super into choir and shit, and my director was my nerdy hero. He was everyone's weird, nerdy hero. He'd make inappropriate jokes and level with us about his life, and it made us all feel cool. I graduated and never suspect anything. Two years later, allegations arise. We never get the details, just that it was sexual misconduct.
Another few years pass, and the required time spent keeping his mouth shut is over. He posts something vague on his Twitter, and a handful of us meet him at one of his band's shows. From there, we connect over my recent traumas and my high school traumas and secret family trauma. He finally understands. We meet again. And again. And again. He is 40, but I am 21. I feel grown up. We spend time together, but keep it quieter. It is never sexual. He's like a parental figure. He accepts that role readily, and I call him whenever I need advice or feel overwhelmed. He evens the playing field. Treats me like his equal. Tells me about how his marriage fell apart, how the allegations ruined him, how they were lies, tells me about his kids only 5 or 6 years younger than me. He tells me about the other teachers' sex lives, too. All the teachers that hooked up with now legal ex-students. We go to bars. Try to set each other up with dates. He tells me that I should buy a vibrator because "everyone deserves orgasms." He says even he has one.
We start spending time at his (technically his mother's) house. He has his own room, but we spend time in the basement watching tv and drinking. Sometimes, he gets a little too close, a little too friendly. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face. He pulls our foreheads together sometimes or brushes against my thighs. He never really touches me. Weeks later, I am too drunk to drive home, and he offers me his childhood attic room, the one where his sons stay now on nights he has custody. Together, we sit on the bed and drink some more, then I tell him my rape stories, and I sob into his chest while he holds me. At some point, he takes my cheeks and pulls my forehead up to his, and we stay that way for a long time. He feels so close to kissing me. He often does. I wonder what he will do next. I am excited and scared all at once. The night fades. We wake up and play Scrabble Math. I feel cared for. Childish, but cared for.
Weeks go by. We drink some more. We are in his basement, and the topic of porn comes up. Somehow, it ends up pulled up on his laptop. The basement door is locked, and we are watching porn together. I feel mature and excited and afraid and trapped all at once. It is confusing. Weeks later, I send him a text saying we need to take a step back from sexual topics. He doesn't bring it up again.
COVID hits, and things change. I see him less. I end up in eating disorder treatment. I call him a few times while I am there. He checks in on me as well. I get out eventually and am doing well until I hit a trauma anniversary. I get wasted and end up arrested with a DUI. He is the only person I have. He picks up on the third ring, and he comes to bail me out. He gets to the police station at 3am. I look at him and sob. He just holds me like a parent. We haven't spoken in person since.
Last year, I finally gathered up the courage to read the full revocation of his teaching license. "Inappropriate touching. A hand on the thigh, foreheads pulled close." It is my story. The difference is that I was an adult.
I have been on and off with this for years now, and I still can't pin it down. Parts of me are horrified, other parts still miss him.