Текст книги "Falling to Pieces"

Автор книги: Leddy Harper

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

“What’s with our two-week curse?” I asked into his shoulder with a sniffled laugh, needing the seriousness to wane. “I’m almost scared to see what will happen in another two weeks.”

“What do you mean?” Axel pulled back slightly to see my face.

I kept my head down, not ready for him to see the pain in my eyes, but I answered anyway. “We were good, then I ended up here, then we were bad, and then I ended up here again… If the pattern continues, you’ll be holding me in your yard while I cry sometime around March first.” The breaths of his airy laugh fanned my face, and it caused me to finally look at him, knowing we were going to be good again.

“Come on, you’re shivering. Let’s go inside.”

I cocked my head to the side in disbelief of his words.

He grabbed my hand with a steady smile on his lips. “To talk, Bree. It’s cold out here, and you’re not wearing a jacket. This conversation isn’t over, so I’m not letting you go home. Not to mention, your breath smells like you’ve been drinking. You need to sober up some so we can finish this talk.”

I let him pull me up by my hand, and then I covered my mouth with the other as if he’d told me I had morning breath. I followed him, keeping my head down in shame, until we were inside. The heat immediately hit me and calmed the shivers, yet my insides continued to quake with nerves. He led me to his couch, not releasing my hand until I sat, and then he went into the kitchen.

“All I have is water. I’m sorry. I’m not much of a coffee drinker, and the only kind I do like is the fancy shit from Starbucks,” he said, coming back into the room with a bottle of cold water. “But water works just the same.”

“I’m not drunk, Axel. I had some wine before I came over, and I think it gave me a buzz, but after all that”—I waved my hand in the direction of the sliding door—“I think it wore off.”

“Okay, so if you don’t need to sober up, let’s talk.”

I rolled my eyes and leaned back into the couch, avoiding his stare. “What do you want to talk about? I think we pretty much got it all out in your back yard. I’m not really sure what else there is to say.”

“Well, sum it up for me, then.”

I rolled my head against the back of the couch to face him, catching his sparkling eyes. “Sure thing, Mr. Taylor,” I said sarcastically, only releasing my laugh when he did. “Once upon a time, in a classroom not far from here, a young teacher met a student. She came to school one day with a bruise on her face and he wanted to kiss her boo-boos all better. He found out about her wicked mother and vowed to save her, but then he fell in love and was forced to walk away. On the night of her seventeenth birthday, she drank a glass of poisoned grape juice and ran through the enchanted forest to find him. Yada yada yada…they made up and all was right in the kingdom again.”

He blinked dramatically at me, but the corners of his lips turned up. “It’s funny how fairy tales always seem to get it wrong. But that was an interesting twist on it. For argument’s sake, what if the teacher wasn’t in love with her?”

My eyebrows shot up, but his expression remained soft, calming my nerves. “Okay. So then why did he tell her that?”

“He didn’t tell her that. He told her that he’d fallen for her.”

“Isn’t that just some cheesy, shortened version of ‘I’ve fallen in love with you’? What else would that mean, then?”

“Just that he has strong feelings for her that could maybe, one day, turn into something more. Something stronger. Possibly love.”

“Then I’d tell this teacher that he needs to learn how to correctly use romantic terms. Because ‘fallen’ implies it’s already happened. He’s a teacher for heaven’s sake. He should know the difference between past and present tenses.”

He smirked and his eyes lit up. “He’s already been through this with her. He’s a history teacher. Not an English professor.”

I laughed, feeling settled as we both comfortably slid right back into our old banter. “Well, he should at least know the difference between fallen and falling. I’m sure he’ll confuse a lot of students if he teaches them about how Rome is falling.”

“Touché.” He tried to appear offended, but his eyes gave him away. “Now, about the ending of this story. You said they made up. What does that mean? They can’t go back to being friends now that they’ve both admitted they have feelings for each other. They can’t be more than friends, because she’s his student. So what did they do?”

It was stupid to refer to ourselves as characters in a fairy tale, but for some reason, it made it easier to talk about the real issues at hand. It seemed to simplify things enough to rationalize them with level heads. “Well, I guess I imagined that they’d kind of have the best of both worlds. I mean, even when they were only pretending to be friends, they never really were. Their feelings for each other didn’t pop up overnight. So at some point in their relationship, they were more than just friends. Why couldn’t they just go back to that?”

“Back to what? Friends with emotions?”

I nodded, giving my chest a moment to loosen up. I felt as though I teetered on the precipice of rejection, and I needed to steel myself for it. I took a deep breath, released it, and continued. “Yeah. I don’t understand why it has to be one way or the other. You’re the one that wants to put labels on it. Can’t we just have a relationship without defining it?”

“It’s not that simple, Bree. I know you may not understand this because you’ve never had a romantic relationship before.”

“That may be true, but why do I need to have had experience to understand human nature? What we had worked perfectly fine before you decided to overthink everything. That’s your problem, Axel. You think too much,” I said, punctuating my words with a smile.

His head fell against the back of the couch and he let out an exaggerated sigh. “Bree…you’re not understanding.” He lifted his head again, making sure he had my attention before finishing his point. “Things go bad when people don’t think. When they don’t anticipate what could happen before they do something that they shouldn’t.”

After knowing about what had happened with my dad, Axel’s words hit me hard. They made me really listen to him, and think about the entire situation. He was right. Whatever decision we made, it had to be thoroughly thought out.

“Here are the concrete boundaries we have. They aren’t lines in the sand or chalk on a driveway. They won’t disappear or wash away. They aren’t bendable, there aren’t loopholes, and they aren’t to be questioned. I am your teacher—I’m in a position of trust. Teachers are expected to take the responsibilities of the parents when the students are in their care. Having a relationship with you is morally irresponsible. You are still a minor—I don’t care what the law says. You may be legally able to consent to sex, but you aren’t legal to vote, gamble, or drink.” He looked at me knowingly. “And you’re not considered a legal adult until you’re eighteen. So, you’re a minor.

“Those are our brick walls. The things we cannot change. You want to go back to the way things were, except we can’t. And here’s why: We were both under the impression that our friendship was innocent, meaning we saw each other as regular people, no impure thoughts, no indecent expectations, just another person to pass the time with. Our conversations remained clean because neither one of us wanted to be rejected or lectured for saying something inappropriate. But now you know how I feel, and I know how you feel. There’s nothing to stop us from fantasizing about each other, or discussing those thoughts. And it’s a very small step between words and actions.” His voice had grown strained toward the end, sounding as though it was hard for him to finish.

“We’d just have to make up some rules. Such as no talking about that kind of stuff. We’ll keep it clean. If we don’t talk about it, then the distance between words and actions is irrelevant.”

He shook his head in quick jerks, running his hands over the back of his neck. “Like I said, it was easy before because neither of us knew where the other stood. Had I randomly told you one night on the phone how badly I wanted to kiss you, what would you have done? Probably freaked out, gone silent, or made some excuse to hang up. I never said anything because I didn’t want to take that chance. But that’s all changed, because now, I know how you feel. So I have nothing to keep me from saying that to you.”

“You know I have feelings for you, not that I want to kiss you. Don’t assume that because I care about you as more than a friend, it means I want to jump into bed with you. Don’t assume I want to kiss you, or be affectionate with you. That should be what holds you back from saying anything inappropriate.”

He held my gaze, strong and steady, as if calling my bluff. “Okay, fine. Maybe that’ll hold me off from saying it to you. But now that you know how badly I want to kiss you, what will happen when you want the same thing? What will stop you from saying it to me?”

“I don’t know how badly you want to kiss me. You’ve never told me that. You asked a hypothetical question about a theoretical confession. So that would be what would stop me from saying anything.” My heartbeat raced, nearly making me lightheaded, and I prayed he couldn’t hear it in my voice.

He leaned forward until he sat at the edge of the cushion, as close to me as he possibly could without getting off the couch. His dark lashes lowered slightly, giving his intense stare a sultry kind of feel, and freezing me in place. I couldn’t back up or move away if I’d wanted to. His tongue peeked out and slowly, seductively, moistened his lips. “Ever since that evening at the library, I’ve wondered what your lips would feel like on mine. I’ve imagined in vivid detail how your tongue would taste in my mouth. And I’ve gone to sleep nearly every night, dreaming about what sound you’d make when your lips part, that intake of air right before opening your mouth for me.”

All the oxygen in the room vanished and I felt flushed. My cheeks were feverish, my lungs ached from too much panting, and my limbs tingled. A tight, fiery knot burned low in my belly, and I squeezed my thighs together in the hopes of relieving the throbbing sensation in my groin that matched the beats of my racing heart.

“Now answer my question again,” he said in the same hypnotic tone he’d used when detailing his thoughts about kissing me.

“I have no idea what the question was.” I sounded out of breath, and I wanted to kick myself for being unable to gather my thoughts and come up with a good retort.

His face lit up with a bright smile as he did his soft laugh and headshake thing again. It’d been so long since I’d seen him do it, that it sent a warming comfort through my body. Then he settled back into the couch again, seemingly relaxed, despite our fiery conversation. “I asked, what’s going to stop you from engaging me in a conversation that could test the boundaries we have set in place?”

Frustrated, I balled my hands into fists at my sides and groaned. “You’re making this harder than it has to be, Axel. Think about who you’re talking to for a moment. Take a step back, and look at us for who we are. We aren’t the typical guy and girl with feelings for each other. Take a look at me. You already know I’ve never been in a relationship. What do you think that means? It means I’ve never kissed anyone, and if I haven’t done that, it should come as no surprise that I’m a virgin.” I’d been so wrapped up in my irritation and explanation that my words didn’t register until after they’d left my lips. Embarrassment flooded me until it left me unable to do anything other than open and close my mouth like a fish on land.

“You’re right, that doesn’t come as a shock to me. But it also doesn’t mean anything, either. You think virgins can’t lose themselves in the heat of the moment? Or that just because you’ve never been touched means you have no desire to be?”

“That’s not what I meant. Of course I don’t believe that. I have hormones just like any other girl, virgin or not. But what you’re not understanding, is that I’m not like any other girl.”

“I do understand that, Bree. That’s what hooked me first.”

My shoulders relaxed and my fists loosened at his caring words, his husky tone. “What I’m trying to say is…it doesn’t matter if I want to kiss you or not. I’m not the kind of girl that will talk about it. I’m too shy and uncomfortable to say things like that to you—or anyone.”

“And what I’m saying is…what happens when you are comfortable enough to admit it? I get your argument. I see your points, but you’re not hearing me. You’re the one that said to take a step back and look at this for what it is. Now I’m telling you to take a step back and look a little bit further down the road. You won’t always be uncomfortable telling me how you feel or what you want. You won’t always be shy around me. What happens then?”

“School is over in three months. I’m quite certain I won’t overcome those fears that fast.” I knew I sounded defiant, and maybe I was. But I didn’t know how else to be. I could tell how desperate he was for me to concede to his point, however, I couldn’t. Agreeing with him meant we wouldn’t be together, and I wasn’t ready to wave the white flag just yet.

“Do you know something I don’t? Are you graduating as a junior and didn’t tell me? Or am I losing my job? Because yes, summer starts in three months, but three months after that, school will resume. And we’ll be right back to being teacher and student again.”

“But you won’t be my teacher.”

A sarcastic laugh echoed throughout the room. “Stop being so naïve, Bree. It doesn’t matter if you’re in my class or not. I’m forbidden to date any student in the school. If you were a senior right now, this wouldn’t even be an issue. But we’re talking about over a year of keeping our hands to ourselves.”

“Am I not worth the wait?”

He punched the armrest and stood, running his fingers through his hair as he paced the length of the room. “Want me to spell it out? Fine.” He dropped his hands, squared his body with mine, and narrowed his gaze as he loomed over me from a few feet away. “Are you worth waiting for? Hell yes. You’re worth everything. I’ve told you this half a dozen times, yet you never believe me. But this isn’t about what you’re worth. It’s about being realistic.”

His aggressive tone caused my muscles to tense as I sat in front of him, watching his exasperation pour out of him in waves that threatened to take me under.

“You want to go back to the way things were. Well, that’s unrealistic. It can’t happen. We might be able to pull it off for a few weeks, but eventually, one of us will crack—more than likely me. I’m a passionate guy, Bree. When I like someone, I want to tell them. It may start out with me telling you how beautiful you are, which sounds innocent because it is. But then what happens when you come to school in the spring wearing a skirt, or a dress, showing off legs I’ve never seen? I’ll probably spend the entire time in class thinking about how sexy they are, and before I know it, I’ll be daydreaming about them wrapped around my waist. And then I’d have to hide behind the podium for the rest of the day to conceal what you do to me. Somewhere along the way, I’m going to want to tell you that. I’m going to find the need to tell you how sexy you are, how much you turn me on, and all the things I’d do to your body that I’d give my left nut for if I had the chance.”

The throbbing in my core returned, but I had to block it out and be rational. “All I keep hearing from you is what will happen when. We could go all night discussing hypothetical situations, but it won’t do us any good. Since you seem to know it all, tell me, Axel, what do you suggest we do?”

He shuffled his feet for a second, sucking on his teeth in thought before shrugging. “I don’t know, Bree. I ended things two weeks ago for this very reason. I thought that would be best. No contact, so that way we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.”

“So that’s what you want? Go back to ignoring each other?”

His throat worked as he swallowed hard and then gave me two short, jerky head shakes. “No. I said I thought that it would be best. I’ve never said that’s what I wanted. You asked me what I thought we should do.”

“Let me rephrase. What do you want to do?”

His eyes lit up before they scanned my body. “Rip your clothes off, lick you from head to toe, and make you scream until you’re sweaty and your throat is sore.”

I laughed nervously and rolled my eyes, not wanting him to know how much of an effect his words had on my body. “I’m being serious, Axel.”

“So am I, Bree. Which is why this is a bad idea. We’re miserable without each other. But we can’t be together without endangering my career and your reputation—or worse, without me seeing the inside of a jail cell. So the way I see it, we either spend a year in misery, wait it out, and then try again after you graduate, or take a chance and gamble it all.”

He had a point, but I wasn’t about to let it go that easily. I still had more fight left in me. “You know, there is such a thing as smart gambling. Know your cards, know the risk, and only play with what you’re willing to lose.”

“I don’t know if I’m willing to lose my job, Bree.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, and then waited until he sat back down on the couch. “You can come up with all the what-ifs you want. But I don’t live my life by that. If I left everything up to chance, I would’ve given up years ago. You can’t live and make decisions based on fear of the unknown. People will do things in their own lives, make mistakes and poor choices, and sometimes, those things will affect you. I should know. I’m living proof of it. But if you allow every possible scenario to dictate what you do, then you’ll miss out on so much. Because when you factor in other people, the consequences are endless.”

“So what do you suggest we do?”

“Write our own guide. We already know where the brick walls have been placed. We know where we can and can’t go, what we can and can’t do. So, we set our own limits, our own rules. Who better to do that than us, right? If my bare legs will hang you out to dry, I will always wear jeans. If your detailed description of what you want to lick and how you want to do it makes me uncomfortable, then keep it to yourself.” I gained a laugh from him for that.

“You really think it’s going to be that easy?”

“Yes, I do.”

Axel leaned back into the couch and stretched his feet out in front of him. “Okay, so what are these rules? And are any of them negotiable?” he asked, and wagged his eyebrows at me.

I waved off his teasing but answered anyway. “For starters, I think we should keep our actions at school the way they are now. No more sitting at your desk during first period, and you can’t look at me or smile in my direction.”

“Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how hard that’s been?”

“No, I’m not kidding. For the first week of your silent treatment, Jill and Rebecca made comments about it. They accused us of having a lover’s spat. Girls notice things, especially ones that have a thing for you. Which, I can tell you, is almost every female student in the school, and probably a few guys.”

“They said what?” His eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

“It’s a non-issue. I’ve taken care of it, and they’ve stopped commenting about it. No one is saying anything anymore, but it doesn’t change the fact that they noticed. They paid attention to our morning talks, and probably the way you smile at me, and it gave them reason to question our relationship.”

“How do I smile at you?”

My face flamed, but I couldn’t make it stop. “Like you’re really happy. Like we have some kind of secret inside joke that no one else gets. You don’t smile like that at anyone else—at least I’ve never seen it.”

“Maybe that’s because you make me really happy. And we do share something that no one else understands. But I never realized it was anything noticeable.”

“Well, it is. So it can’t happen anymore. Stay up front at your podium. And don’t look at me, either.”

“I can’t even look at you?”

I couldn’t stop my laughter. He made it sound as if I’d told him he couldn’t breathe. “No. Because you don’t just glance at me, your eyes stop when they meet mine. And then they get this sparkle in them like a kid in a candy store.”

“Is it really that obvious?”

“It really is, Axel.”

“So how come you had no idea how I felt about you?”

I held his stare, and for some reason, I wanted to cry. I didn’t, though. I only felt like I could, like I was so full of emotion that it needed to come out one way or another. “I never believed you would’ve ever been interested in someone like me.”

He pulled himself over until he sat on the cushion next to mine, his body turned so that he faced me with his arm resting on the top of the couch behind my head. He lifted his free hand until his fingers grazed my cheek, and I had to fight against closing my eyes at his touch. “One of these days, Bree, I’ll have you believing in yourself. You’ll know just how much you’re worth, and you won’t doubt yourself for a minute.”

I had no words for that, because I did believe him. Just being around him made me more self-assured, stronger, and willing to take on the world.

“So…what other rules do we have?” He gave me an easy grin and leaned back, offering enough space to allow me to breathe properly again. “Phone calls? Can we still make those?”

“Yes, of course. And text messages. But you can’t be naughty, even if you’re joking. I don’t need to know the thoughts or images in your head. If you wouldn’t say it to your grandma, don’t say it to me.”

“Fine. I’ll keep my opinions to myself. And in turn, you aren’t allowed to wear shirts that show your cleavage. Or ones that are thin enough to show your bra. Speaking of bras, you have to wear the ones that have enough lining so when you’re cold, your nipples don’t show. You know what? Just line your closet with baggy jeans and turtlenecks and you’ll be fine.”

“No saying the word ‘nipple.’”

“Nipple? That’s not a bad word. Everyone has them.”

“If they’re no big deal, everyone has them, then it shouldn’t be a problem when mine are obvious.”

“Fine, I won’t say that word,” he said with a pout, which only made me laugh.

“No touching. Of any kind.”

“Hand holding?”

I gave it some thought, twisting my lips as I imagined what it would be like to feel my hand in his as something more than him helping me off the ground or leading me somewhere. “Yeah. I guess that will be fine. But if it leads to wanting more, we have to stop.”

“Anything else?”

“One more thing. I can’t come over here anymore. It tends to either begin or end with me in tears on your lawn.”

“If I can’t look at you in school, and you can’t come here, how will I hold your hand?” His eyes lit up again in humor as he teased me with his valid question.

“Maybe coming here isn’t completely out of the question. But not anytime soon. And if I do stop by, I don’t think it’s a good idea if I come inside.”

I watched as he licked his lips before nodding slowly. “Okay. I can agree to all that. But I think the biggest rule should be that we always communicate. If you get freaked out or confused, let me know. If I say or do something that makes you uncomfortable, tell me. And if we need to add more rules or amend any existing ones, we need to talk about it. If we’re going to do this, Bree, we have to be as open and as honest as we possibly can be. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said with a smile so big, it made my cheeks ache. “I feel like we should shake on this or something.”

“We could kiss on it.”

I couldn’t tell if it was meant as a joke or not, but either way, it put the thought in my head. Before I could say anything, my mind had already conjured images of his lips on mine. “I’ve never kissed anyone before, Axel. I don’t even know how to.”

His arm fell from the back of the couch, his hand landing on top of mine. “It was a joke, Bree. But eventually, I will kiss you, and it won’t matter one bit that you don’t know how. I’m a teacher, remember? I’ll teach you how.”

I allowed myself to relax enough to let a grin spread across my lips. “A history teacher that sucks at grammar. That doesn’t bode well for your case, Mr. Taylor.”

“Guess you’ll just have to find out, won’t you?”

I lowered my head in an attempt to hide my embarrassment and caught the time on my watch. “Well, I have about five minutes left of my birthday. I’m sure my mom will be home soon. I should probably head back before she locks me out.”

We both stood awkwardly in front of each other before I turned to head for the door. I could see our reflection in the glass and I stopped just shy of reaching for the handle. Axel reached around me and slid the door open, leaning into my back with his chest. “Happy birthday, Aubrey,” he whispered in my ear, which ignited a fire inside my body. I no longer registered the cool weather seeping in through the open door.

I spun around, our faces only inches apart. My hands fisted into his shirt, and I held myself steady on my wobbly knees. “Our deal can start tomorrow. I now have four minutes left of my birthday. In the fairy tale, the prince must kiss the princess before midnight.”

He cupped my cheeks in his warm hands, bringing our faces even closer until our noses touched. “This is what you want?” he asked, and I nodded. “Then, by all means, princess, happy birthday.” And then he pulled my mouth to his soft, warm lips.

The kiss didn’t last long, and he kept it gentle. It was full of passion without turning passionate. I didn’t have to worry about what to do with my tongue, because he pulled away before getting there.

It was perfect.

It was sweet.

But it was dangerous. Because I spent the entire walk home thinking about it. I spent the entire time in the shower wondering when it would happen again. And then I laid in bed for what seemed like hours, imaging what it would be like to do more.