Student Seduction

by Caisey Quinn

  He frowned. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

  At some point, he called them and told them I was sick. I prayed he hadn’t talked to Jecca.

  He brought me soup, mostly chicken broth, medicine, and kept rewetting the wash rag on my head so it would stay cool.

  I never threw up, thank goodness, but I spent the better part of twenty-four hours feeling like I was rocking on a boat in the middle of a turbulent sea.

  Aiden was the sexiest nurse I’d ever seen.

  He never complained. He never bailed on me.

  I might have hallucinated during my feverish spell, but I could’ve sworn I heard him talking on the phone to someone about me at some point. I only heard bits and pieces but they sounded like not fair to her, deserves better, and it’s time you took responsibility.

  But I wasn’t anyone’s responsibility. Was I?

  I dozed on and off, only waking once we were riding in his Jeep.

  “Where are we going?”

  Aiden glanced over at me. “Just rest, sweetheart. You’re going to be okay.”

  I believed him. Trusted him with all my heart. So I went back to sleep.

  19

  Emersyn

  “She was practically unconscious for two days,” I heard Aiden yell at someone.

  Muffled voices I couldn’t make out responded. It was dusk outside my window and my clock read 6:00 but I had no clue if it was A.M. or P.M.

  “She takes care of everyone. So where was everyone when she needed someone to take care of her? Because I damn sure couldn’t reach any of you.”

  He’s angry. So angry.

  He continued on about insurance information and the emergency room. I tried to stand but the room was spinning.

  I had to get up.

  Had to check on Ethan. And my mom.

  And find out why Aiden was shouting at someone in my house.

  Oh God.

  Aiden was in my house. He couldn’t be in my house.

  I forced myself to stand, holding the wall and stumbling to the living room where the voices were.

  “Sweetheart,” my dad said, rushing to me before I hit the floor.

  “Dad?”

  Damn, I was definitely hallucinating.

  “Hey, pumpkin. Daddy’s here.”

  Aiden made a sound of annoyance.

  “You can’t be here. They’ll know,” I started, but he shook his head.

  “I told them. We met at Southeastern and we’ve been dating. It’s okay.”

  I tried to send him a wink that I understood. It was the teacher part that didn’t know.

  “I called Kat,” my dad said to my mom who sat wrapped in a blanket on the couch looking forlorn. “She’ll be here in the morning. She’s a home-health nurse and agreed to come stay as long as she’s needed.”

  His words didn’t make any sense. “We’re getting a cat?”

  My mom scowled at me then at my dad. “Why would you do that?”

  “Cats are a lot of work,” I said, already feeling tired from the thought of adding a litter box to my long list of chores.

  “I’m putting her back to bed,” Aiden broke in stepping between me and my dad. “She needs rest.”

  Reluctantly my dad let him take me.

  Once I was in bed, I looked at my handsome history teacher. I had to be dreaming. He couldn’t be here.

  “How did my dad get here? Why is here here?”

  Aiden sighed. “I called him, Emersyn. It’s time for him to be a man and take care of his family. You’ve done enough for long enough.”

  No.

  He was lying. Surely he wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t go behind my back like that.

  Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “How could you, Aiden? You don’t understand. He left. He chose to leave. We don’t need him.”

  He stood and moved to touch my forehead. I slapped his hand away with what little effort I could muster.

  “Get out.”

  “I’ll go,” he began, “because you need to rest. But I’ll be back to check on—”

  “No. I mean get out of my life.” A sob escaped my throat. “You had no right to call him. No right.”

  It was the last thing I said before I fell into the darkness once more.

  I was pouring sweat when I stepped into my house Monday morning. I’ve been up all night in the garage attempting to sculpt some semblance of my feelings on what happened yesterday and failing miserably.

  After I grabbed a bottle of water and downed it, I headed to mom’s room to check on her.

  I heard voices, so I paused before entering and leaned my ear against the door.

  “For Christ sakes,” a woman said evenly, “it’s not a death sentence, Lori. Unless you make it one. Which clearly, you’ve decided to do by wallowing in self-pity the rest of your life.”

  Lori? I’d never heard anyone call my mother anything other than Mom or Lorraine.

  Dad had mentioned hiring an in-home health nurse. A friend of theirs from high school. Katherine? Katrina? I couldn’t remember for sure.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” My mother sounded as if she were sobbing. “You’ve always done exactly as you pleased, Kat. Some of us don’t have that luxury.”

  “Bullshit,” I heard the woman practically hiss at my mom. My instinct was to run in and tell whoever this person was to back the hell off. But something stopped me. I remained frozen in place. “You made your choices. You chose pleasing your parents over what you really wanted. And what that resulted in was two children and the white picket fence with Mike. Now you’re sick, Mike’s gone, and your kids are skirting around you, terrified of upsetting you. It’s fucking ridiculous honestly, and I personally have no desire to sit around and watch you ruin your relationships with the few remaining people who give a damn about you.”

  “You’re being paid to be here,” my mother said quietly.

  “By Mike, who I might add, does care about you, Lor. But is what you had with him really anything in comparison to what you and I had?”

  Holy fucking plot twist.

  The words “easy, expected, and safe,” were uttered but my head began to spin and I suddenly felt dizzy and a little sick. A thousand invisible needles pricked at my face and I wondered if I was going into shock.

  Had I heard right? I strained in an attempt to be sure.

  “We were playing around, Kat. Experimenting. We both knew we couldn’t just stroll down the street hand in hand. Hell, it’s twenty years later and look what happened to Emersyn’s friend.”

  “No,” I heard bitter anger seething in the woman’s tone. “You couldn’t. I could have taken the heat because I loved you. You couldn’t stand to think of your precious popularity being tarnished.”

  “That’s not all is was,” my mother’s voice said softly. “I was afraid.”

  “Look where that fear has gotten you,” Kat, whoever she was, huffed out. “Right here, in this bed, alone. Looking back on your life with regret about the chances you didn’t take.”

  “You don’t know what it was like. After Lucy died, I was all my parents had left. They put all of their hopes and dreams on me. I had to have a successful career. I had to have the perfect house, husband, and grandchildren. I was afraid they’d never forgive me. I owed them.”

  My aunt Lucy. My mother rarely ever spoke over her and it stung a little that she was talking to this random stranger about her.

  When my mom was learning to drive, her older sister Lucy took her out for a practice joyride. Unfortunately, when going up a hill, the car stalled and they were hit by an oncoming pick up truck.

  Lucy was killed on impact. My mother was lucky, or so I’d thought. She was barely injured, just a small scar across her right knee.

  But I realized now that some scars weren’t on the surface.

  Some damage though invisible, was irreparable.

  I’d zoned out for a moment, but when I tuned back in I heard my mother raise her voice.

  “I don’t
regret my children. I love my children.”

  The conviction in her tone only seemed to spur Kat on. “Then love them enough to do what’s best for them. Let them go stay with Mike while you deal with this. Let me help you so that you can. Dammit, woman, for five seconds swallow your fucking pride and accept that this, this situation right here, is currently out of your control. It doesn’t have to be like this, Lor. I am here, and I will help you if you’ll let me. But I won’t watch you wither and give up and I won’t watch you take out your own misery on your children. If you’re ready to face this for real, I will be with you every step of the way. But if you’re going to give up and drown in self-pity, I’ll quit right now. I won’t stand by and watch you drown. I can’t. Let me know when you decided what you want to do.”

  Before I could process that her last words were her exit line, the door opened and I was face to face with an auburn-haired, red-lipstick-wearing woman about three inches shorter than me. Desire her small stature, she was vibrant and animated, bright jewelry adorning what seemed like every moving part of her, and color flushing her olive-skinned cheeks.

  “You must be Emersyn. I’m Katrina Newsome, but everyone calls me Kat. Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand I shook it. Firmly, because her strong grip insisted.

  “Um, nice to meet you too.” Under extremely awkward circumstances.

  “Your dad hired me to look after your mom. I’ll be in and out twice a day over the next few weeks. She has my number. As does your father. I have a key and the security code. My number is on the fridge. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Okay,” I said dumbly, nearly blinded by her bright white smile. She wasn’t what I expected as I’d listened through the door. “Thanks, I guess.”

  “It was nice to meet you, Emersyn,” she called out as she left.

  “You too,” I said as an afterthought, probably too late for her to hear.

  I stepped inside my mom’s room, where she sat up staring blindly in bed.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded absently. “Yeah. Just thinking. How long have you been here?” Recognition dawned in her eyes and for a moment she looked panicked.

  “Long enough.”

  Recognition turned to resignation. “I’ve known Kat a long time, or rather, I knew her a long time ago. A lifetime ago. When I was about your age. We didn’t exactly keep in touch.”

  I nodded. “So I heard.”

  “We were young. I was confused. About pretty much everything.”

  Sounded a lot like my life now, but I didn’t tell her so.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about Aunt Lucy. Sorry for what happened. And sorry that I never met her.”

  The odd sensation that if Aunt Lucy hadn’t died, I never would’ve been born creeped over me and completely freaked me out.

  My mom sighed. “You’re a lot like her in some ways. Passionate. Artistic. Sarcastic.”

  “I’m going to take those as compliments.” I forced a smile.

  My mom returned the smile, but like mine, it didn’t reach her eyes. “You should. She would’ve. She was amazing. Everyone loved her. Loved being around her.” A faraway look my dad used to call her ‘thousand-yard stare’ entered her eyes. “Lucy was special, so special I couldn’t even be jealous of her. I was only jealous when her attention was on someone other than me.”

  “Did you really just marry dad because of Grandma and Grandpa? Because of what happened to Aunt Lucy?”

  My mom waved her hand aimlessly. “Lord no, Emersyn.” She glanced at the ceiling. “Kat gives me a hard time because I did try very hard to make it up to my parents after the accident. But the truth was, as much as Kat made me feel wild and alive and, I don’t know, a little rebellious, I wanted the stability of a family more than anything else. I’d lost that after Lucy died. Your dad helped me to get it back. That part of me, the part that fell in love with Kat, it was always a little scary to me.”

  “Do you still have feelings for her? After all this time?”

  This was hands down, the weirdest and yet best conversation I’d ever had with my mother.

  She frowned, the lines in her forehead deepening as she studied her bed comforter intently. “I don’t know. In some ways, it’s like I never stopped. And in others, she feels like a complete stranger.”

  “Maybe it will be good for you two to catch up.”

  The left side of her mouth turned upward. “Maybe.”

  I stood to leave, but she touched my shoulder softly. “Em, is everything okay? You’ve seemed a little…distracted lately.”

  A montage of my sexcapades with my history teacher all over the school played behind my eyes.

  With everything so open and raw between us, I wanted to blurt out “I’m sleeping with my history teacher. Oh, and I’m in love with him, too, but I don’t think he’s in love with me.”

  But I didn’t. My mom had enough on her plate as it was.

  “Internship is a little hectic but I can manage. Just normal senior year stuff. You know how it is.”

  My mother side-eyed me with obvious disbelief but didn’t press the issue any further. “I’m sorry this has been so tough on you. I know I haven’t made it any easier. I’m going to do better.” She put her hand up before I could interrupt. “I know I’ve said that before. But Kat is right about one thing. I can handle this better that I have been.”

  “Tomorrow will be better,” I said, forcing a smile, wishing I believed my own words.

  20

  Emersyn

  I passed Collin and Alexis on my way into the museum and they both avoided eye contact with me.

  Strange.

  At first, I thought maybe I was paranoid. But I knew something was off the minute I stepped into Jecca’s office. For one, there was no three foot stack of files for to put away.

  She stood when I entered, her jaw flexing as she told me to have a seat. And she called my by my actual name, which she’d never done before.

  I did as I was told, spinning my sun and moon rings around and around on my fingers.

  “I have consulted the board of directors, and the decision was unanimous,” she began in her typical dramatic fashion. “This internship is a highly coveted position and while you had the grades necessary and exhibited some unique artistic talent, you are severely lacking when it comes to the ethical standards required.”

  Her words stabbed me in my weakest places.

  This is about Aiden. She hadn’t said that, but I knew as well as I knew my own name.

  I did my best to breathe evenly, keeping my nerves at bay.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Have I done something here that was unethical?”

  I had, several things, but none here at the museum.

  She stared pointedly at me. “I think you know what you’ve done.”

  My body heated from the inside out. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  She couldn’t do this. It wasn’t fair. My personal relationship shouldn’t be a factor. What in the world had she said to the Board of Directors?

  She sat across from me. I refused to back down.

  “Aiden is a good guy. I’ve known him for a long time and I’ve seen him do some questionable things, but I have never seen him do anything as stupid as what he’s doing now. With you.”

  I didn’t say a word, deciding to plead the fifth and let her continue instead of saying anything that might incriminate myself or Aiden.

  “I know you’re eighteen, Emersyn,” she carried on. “But you’re a student. At the school where he teaches. Do you have any idea the severity of the consequences for what you’re doing? Engaging in a relationship with a teacher is beyond unethical, it’s illegal. But I’m betting, as intelligent as you are, you already know that. What’s more, I’m pretty certain you know which one of you will pay the price when this all comes crashing down.”

  That touched a nerve. I had no intention of anyone finding out. But Drew knew, and so did Axel, Derek, and Devon. Camille
probably had a pretty good idea.

  My dad definitely suspected.

  Aiden said his hockey coach from Southeastern was suspicious also.

  Now Jecca was calling me unethical.

  Our secrets had turned to wildfire, spreading uncontrollably.

  She leaned forward, and her tone turned almost pleading.

  “He won’t just get fired, Emersyn, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’ll be publicly outed, lose his teaching license, the university can revoke both of his degrees, and he could possibly have to register as a sex offender. It would be a major scandal and I doubt he’d be able to go anywhere in the nearest three counties where someone wouldn’t recognize him.”

  I’d pushed a lot of this out of my mind, living for the moments when we were together and it felt too right to be wrong.

  Drew’s words echoed in my mind.

  You’d have to testify against him. This is sexual misconduct on school property we’re talking about. It will make the news.

  My gaze dropped and she moved in for the kill.

  “Obviously we have to let you go,” she said, disgust heavy in her tone. “We can’t be affiliated with this if it does become public. It would degrade the internship program and the museum itself.” Adding salt to my gaping wound, she gave me a smug smile. “I’ve reached out to a few people in admissions and student aid at NCAAD. I don’t think you’ll be receiving any scholarships from them either.”

  The North Carolina Academy of Art and Design was my last hope for any kind of tuition assistance if I didn’t get this scholarship.

  “Do you really think you’re worth him losing everything he’s worked for?”

  No. I knew I wasn’t.

  For some reason, he thought I was worth it.

  I shook my head, still staring at the pointy tips of her designer shoes.

  I stood, recognizing that as my cue to leave. When I reached the door, she called my name.

  I stopped, wiped the rogue tears escaping my eyes without turning around.

  “If you care about him at all, end it. End it before it’s too late and you destroy his life.”