Hoax

by Lila Felix

  I came to this realization in the cafeteria, in the middle of the lunch house, as I sat across from Sean. I stood up, knocking the table in front of me, causing Sean to hold his lunch so it didn’t spill all over him.

  “What the hell Abel?”

  “She’s never going to crack.” I said with a smile.

  “Oh, it’s official, you’ve lost it.”

  “Yeah, I lost it but I know how to get it back.”

  “What are you waiting for? I’m tired of seeing your mopey ass. Go!”

  I drove out of the school parking lot and to the Stephenson’s. She hadn’t been at school all week and I knew that’s where she was. I could almost guarantee that she was sitting in that chair, the chair I held her in, luscious mouth turned downward, wallowing in it. She built her walls up, built them not against me, but to protect her. I was so stupid to wait around. She was trapped.

  I pulled into that driveway again. I got out and knocked on the door. No one answered. I reached out to turn the knob and hesitated and heard her words in my mind, “Stop second guessing Abel.” I turned the knob and keyed in the code for the alarm system.

  As I moved through the house there were telltale signs of her everywhere. The house smelled like the pasta she always made me. Her jacket hung by the backdoor. Her keys to her truck were in the bowl by the stairs. I took the stairs two by two and stopped when I got outside of her door. This was the last time I did this, for her and for me. If she rejected me this time—I didn’t know what I could do.

  I knocked on her bedroom door. I heard some shuffling behind it and wondered if she had any inkling it was me. She opened the door and grabbed the wall next to her for support.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to help you. You need me. But you’re too damned stubborn to admit it.”

  “Abel, I’m fine. I don’t want you to worry about me. I just need to…” I stopped her before she could dig her hole even deeper.

  “Let me finish that for you. I just need to have some time alone to sulk. I need to take care of myself because even though I promised you that I’d let you know if I needed you, I won’t do it. I’m scared to look vulnerable to you even though I know you wold never hurt me. I love you and I always will. Plus, you’re the hottest guy around so…”

  I bounced my eyebrows at her.

  “Well, most of that is true. How did you know?”

  “Come on Corinne. Everyone knows I’m the hottest guy for miles and miles. Really?”

  “Not that.”

  “I know.”

  “Come in,” she said and opened the door wider. She wore those pants she had on at my house and a long sleeve white shirt. I wanted to grab her by her shoulders and shake some sense into her.

  We sat me in her chair and she on the bed for hours in silence. She twitched and it was then I knew her walls had crumbled just a bit. So I waited some more and she came to sit on the arm of the chair I was on. It reminded me of feeding a wolf, you had to let them come to you. But I was an impatient man, starved for too long.

  I grabbed both sides of her waist and pulled her to me, sitting across my lap. She let out a whoosh of breath and then her eyes smiled before her mouth.

  “You have to say it Corinne, so I don’t get the wrong idea.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. It’s so easy for you to tell me to go away. So, just this once, tell me to stay.”

  She moved to face me, her knees on either sides of my hips and leaned her forehead against mine. Tears bubbled up on her bottom lids and then spilled over them.

  “Don’t second guess it, honey.”

  She smiled and reached out to cup my face and I closed my eyes at her gentle touch.

  “I need you. I want you here. I love you and I’m too damned stubborn to admit it. I’m sorry I pushed you away. I can’t say I won’t do it again but I’m going to try.”

  “That’s all I’ll ever ask. And next time I won’t take so long.”

  Epilogue

  Three Years Later

  Abel

  I got home and changed as fast as I could. I would stab myself if she made it there before me and got to see her surprise alone. I opened the black photo box in the corner of the closet and my hand went right for the prize. I stuffed it in my pocket and made one more confirmation call to the man I’d put in charge of one of the biggest moments of my life. He acted like I was an idiot.

  I arrived at the tree line which marked the entrance to the open field and breathed an enormous sigh of relief, she wasn’t there yet. I got out of the truck and paced back and forth, walked around the truck and checked my phone about a million times before she finally got there.

  It was once a dream of mine that in the future we would still be together and even after three and a half years, it still seemed surreal. She got out of her car, exasperated with me for making her drive all this way on a school night. She worked so hard in culinary school and only had a few weeks left. She was an amazing chef and had kept some of her grandfather’s money to open her own restaurant. Her mom got out of jail early, last year, but had refused to see Corinne, or even speak to her. Her dad was still in prison and after some new charge arose; his sentence was now fifteen years. It still hurt her to talk about it. My parents were in heaven the moment I moved out. I always remembered watching those commercials about people who turned their kids’ bedrooms into shoe closets or saunas after they left and laughed. But that’s exactly what mine did. They never really called and I could care less. I had a new family with Corinne.

  She shut her car door and looked around, giving me a ‘what the hell’ look. I shrugged and tipped my head towards the field. She took pace with me as we walked towards the field and my stomach turned and tumbled all the way. I don’t think I’d ever recover if this didn’t go exactly like I wanted it to.

  I stopped her and pulled a bandana from my back pocket. I waggled my eyebrows at her while waving the bandana in the air, her fists instantly found her hips and those almond shaped eyes squinted.

  “Trust me,” I whispered and fallen fists, eyes and a nod of the head confirmed the truth, she did trust me.

  Now blindfolded, she let me lead her into the green grass laden property. She jumped at the sounds in front of her and then a great big smile broke out over her face. She stomped her foot and let out a whine.

  “Come on Abel, let me see!”

  Instead of answering, I untied the bandana and let her see. It took me four months to find the man who owned the frog balloon with the crown. It was the exact same balloon she wanted to ride on the first time I ever saw her, the first time I ever heard the childlike version of her now beautiful voice. I smiled at her reaction. It was just like I wanted it to be.

  I had one more year of college and then I started medical school. There was a rough road ahead of us and I wanted to marry her before all of that started.

  “Shut up!” She squealed and then tackle-hugged me.

  We got into the balloon, Stan still rolling his eyes at me and mumbled something about stupid kids. Somewhere, a few hours later, I asked her to marry me and she cried as she said ‘yes.’

  Now, neither of us had to be alone, ever again.

  Thank you for reading!

  Find Lila Felix at the following venues:

  authorlilafelix@gmail.com

  www.authorlilafelix.blogspot.com

  Facebook: Lila Felix (Author)

  Twitter: @authorlilafelix

  Playlist:

  I love how you love me - Jeff Mangum

  To Be Alone With You – Sufjan Stevens

  I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses

  Connect the Dots – The Spill Canvas

  Gravity – Embrace

  Kiss You Inside Out – Hedley

  Gotta Have You - The Weepies

  Be My Thrill – The Weepies

  Better Than Love – Griffin House

  Your Kiss Is My Command – The Color Guard

  Rats – P
earl Jam (Brett’s song)

  Love Takes A Wrecking Ball – Silent Film

  Harbor Lights – Silent Film

  Jump On My Shoulders – AWOLNATION

  To Trunks and Travels – Hey Marseilles

  Baby, Darlin’, Dollface, Honey – Band of Skulls

  And now an excerpt from Rachel Higginson’s upcoming novel, The Rush

  “Ah, Ms. Pierce, I wish I could say I was happy to see you,” Mrs. Tanner, the evil witch of a secretary, acknowledged me with a smug smirk that seemed to confirm the fact that yes, in case you were wondering, high school is the ninth ring of hell.

  “Oh, Mrs. Tanner, I wish I could say the same thing,” I replied as sweetly as I could. I met her halfway with a long counter in between us.

  She was not amused with me.

  “You can’t miss any more school Ivy,” Mrs. Tanner warned and I realized it was practically painful for her to give me advice to heed. This must be coming from the principal, the male principal Mr. Costas. “At least not this semester, unless you have a written note from your doctor. Mr. Costas would like to remind you that you are going to have to work hard enough to catch up this late in the quarter, and that skipping, ditching or taking unnecessary sick days will not benefit you toward your goal of graduation.”

  “Tell Mr. Costas, I appreciate that he’s looking out for me,” I answered in that same sickly sweet voice I used to annoy the hell out of her.

  She ignored me. “Here is your class schedule.”

  “Thank you.” I snatched it from her hand and turned on my heel before she offered anymore unsolicited advice.

  “The faculty of this school would also like to ask that you not send any more of its students to the hospital,” she called out snidely to my back.

  I tensed immediately, my back ramrod straight and my nerves shot to sudden hell. “I’ll do my best,” I ground out and picked up pace.

  I just needed to get to the glass door, push it open and get to class.

  Fifteen more seconds.

  “If you have any extra cash on you, that canister by the door is for Sam’s recovery fund,” she finished on a high note.

  I couldn’t help myself. I should have just bolted; and not just from the office, from school, from Omaha, from America…. I should have just gone.

  But instead of listening to the sound voice of reason my inner conscience was screaming at me, I let the rotting guilt spread its ugly, vicious wings inside of me and I glanced down at the canister. There he was. Sam. Smiling and happy in his senior picture that was not at all indicative of what he looked like now…..

  The canister was covered with construction paper asking for donations to help with his physical therapy and explaining that he used to be a senior at this school. The same school he never got the chance to graduate from before a car accident changed his life forever. The plastic cover had a slit cut out of the top so you could drop money into it, long enough for coins and wide enough for folded up dollar bills.

  I couldn’t do this.

  I didn’t want to do this.

  I felt my breakfast lurch in my very upset stomach. I lunged for the office door knowing even a second more spent trapped in the same room as that canister was going to send me into another breakdown.

  Only this time there would be serious consequences to pay.

  I threw the door open without seeing. I mean literally, I couldn’t see anything. My mind slipped into the horrific memories of the past and I was pretty sure I could make a solid plea for temporary insanity at this point.

  So when I shoved the door with as much force as I was capable of and met shouting resistance and then found myself tripping, toppling over something on the floor, I was completely taken off guard. The situation worsened when in the middle of my fall I was drenched with severely hot liquid and landed painfully on my back, soaking wet.

  I lay there for several moments sprawled out awkwardly on the hard tile before the clearest, deepest gray eyes I had ever seen hovered over me. They were male, definitely male. Our gazes locked together and I felt uncomfortably immobilized as the liquid I could now identify as coffee started to cool on my shirt and against my skin.

  And then those eyes narrowed on me. My eyes flickered to a face that was completely unreadable, in that I couldn’t identify his expression except that it wasn’t good. Like…. he was mad at me. Like, he was pissed at me.

  “Let me up,” I growled, confused by his less than stellar reaction.

  “Excuse me?” he asked politely, schooling his expression and realistically sounding polite, like he hadn’t heard me correctly.

  “Let me up,” I slowed my speech down, thinking he just hadn’t heard me, probably because he was so disconcerted from staring into my eyes.

  I’m not being stuck up here. That’s just usually what happened. I was speaking from experience.

  “No problem.” He scooted back from me and I scrambled to my feet. He joined me seconds later with two empty coffee cups in his hand.

  We both side stepped the spilled coffee puddled in the hallway and I thought for a second that I heard him huff an impatient sigh, but I knew that had to be wrong. The halls were empty now, and we were left to stare each other down in front of the office. I prayed Mrs. Tanner had gone back to hiding in her hole of a break room; otherwise I needed to be concerned with her swooping down at any moment to hall my ass to the principal’s office. If I was lucky, she would demand a detention, but more than likely she would be petitioning for a suspension. She would use this or any other thing she could find against me.

  Like I assaulted gray eyes with his hot coffee in an attempt to end any promising future he might have. Like this would be related in some way to Sam.

  Realizing that could be the case, I looked down at my shirt hoping to have evidence that I was actually the one assaulted. And then hope turned to irritation when I noticed that it was completely ruined, and uncomfortably sticky and cold. Not that it was a designer shirt…. but the tight fitting, scoop neck black long-sleeved tee looked great with my gray bubble skirt and knee high charcoal boots. And the only extra piece of clothing I even had with me was my favorite hoodie that I wasn’t supposed to wear.

  “What am I going to do now?” I bit out, while mystery man watched me from a few feet away.

  “Excuse me?” he asked politely again, only this time I heard the faint tones of aggression and confusion.

  Not possible.

  “You spilled coffee all over me; I don’t have a change of clothes, what am I supposed to do for the rest of the day?” I asked not at all politely.

  “I spilled coffee on you?” he asked slowly, his patience growing thin.

  I stopped then, in that moment and lifted my eyes to meet his again. He wasn’t looking at me though, his arms were crossed and he was looking around the hallway as if he couldn’t actually believe what was happening and he needed someone else to clue him in. I took his distracted second to look him over.

  He was all bad boy with thick layered dark brown hair that was clearly not styled and left messy and sexy from sleep. He had the thick kind of eye lashes that made most girls go crazy, with tanned skin completely in contrast to his silver gray eyes. His gray t-shirt that was just a little too tight and stretched over his biceps deliciously. His low slung jeans completed what might as well have been the uniform for all things wicked.

  “Are you seriously going to blame me?” he asked in disbelief, drawing my attention away from the hollow of his throat.

  “You spilled coffee on me,” I pointed out, pulling my shirt away from my skin mostly because it was so uncomfortable but also and a bit calculatingly because I knew it would expose my stomach and I was dying to see his reaction to a little skin.

  “You came flying out of the office like a bat out of hell and ran into me,” he laughed unbelievably. And not once did his eyes fall to my exposed skin.

  “Listen, I don’t have time for this, I’m already late for class,” I ignored his potentially valid
point and waited for the part where he would shake off his disbelief and ask for my number.

  “You’re seriously unbelievable,” he continued to sound irritated with me and honestly it was a little disconcerting.

  “Me?” I gasped. “You’re unbelievable!”

  Only I really meant that. Something was wrong. Like maybe I was broken.

  Maybe I was broken….?

  I had to test this theory, which meant swallowing all of my pride. My entire life thus far had conditioned me to think that nothing was ever my fault and there was always someone else to blame. Usually a man. An apology would take some effort on my part.

  “You are one snide little-“

  “Wait a second, before you start calling names,” I interrupted him, holding my hand up before he could get any naughty words out of that beautiful mouth of his. “You caught me way off guard. I may have been a little defensive,” I relented, not feeling a single word I was saying, but knowing if I wanted to get to the bottom of this I would have to play his game.

  “You are apologizing for being defensive?” he clarified, not looking at all pacified.

  What the hell?

  “Yes, um, that and for running into you,” I mumbled in a rush.

  “What was that?” he stepped forward, tightening the arms that were folded across his chest. I knew he heard me…. cocky bastard.

  “I apologize for running into you, I was in a hurry,” I offered magnanimously.

  “Obviously,” he narrowed his eyes on me again and rocked back on his heels. “It’s fine, I mean, you took most of the hit anyway.” He nodded to my stained shirt and that’s when I realized he was completely dry except for the hem of his t-shirt.

  I hesitated for a long moment, feeling irrationally vulnerable under his scrutiny. Which wasn’t fair, because I was usually the one getting to do the scrutinizing. He looked me over for all of three more seconds before seeming to come to an indifferent conclusion.

  Which, let’s be honest, confused the hell out of me.