He got it. The whole picture of us tangled in the vines of the forbidden fruit. We can’t go to dinner together in public. We won’t kiss goodnight at the door. Holding hands was totally out of the question. We will have to maintain the student-teacher facade for another six months. Just until after graduation, then we could be ourselves. I pushed my lips to his. “I’d better text Joanie to come get me.” My butterflies became frantic. “I’ll have her meet us back at Peet’s.” Their wings hit and tore, fighting to break the bubble of regret surging up into my throat.
I broke away and pulled my phone from my pocket.
“Wait, Wilson. I need twenty more minutes with you.” He grabbed my phone and closed it. My heart climbed up into the back of my throat. Maybe it was the butterflies succeeding at escaping the churn of emotional turmoil deep in my body.
Max stared at me, his inviting green eyes filled with the apprehension of actually calling out the amount of time we had left together before my chariot turned into a pumpkin pulled by little white mice. Twenty minutes wasn’t much time. He slid his hand around my waist and pulled me in. His long fingers brushed my hair back as he pressed his palm to the side of my face. My hands clutched at his waist. My eyes watered. He slid his thumbs right under them to catch my tears.
“You are so beautiful. I’m so lucky,” he whispered.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to ruin the moment with stupid words that would bumble awkwardly from my mouth. So I breathed deeply and leaned against his chest, tightening my arms around his waist. Tomorrow was going to be okay.
epilogue: monday
Everything was silent when I woke up Monday morning. I half expected Cindy to still be pissed at me. I wouldn’t blame her. Instead, she was already gone. Probably better that way. I don’t think I could handle another fight with her.
Last night, when Joanie picked me up from Peet’s Coffee, it was excruciating to drive away and leave Max in the parking lot. My heart was torn from my chest and it left a huge gaping hole. My butterflies poured out, desperate to stay with him. It was Max who had tamed them, and they were loyal.
I had a dream last night—more like a nightmare. The warning bell for fourth period had rung and I was heading into my government class. Max’s class. The door was heavier than usual but I didn’t care. I was going to see him and I could feel my butterflies jump to life. Except when I walked into class, an old, gray-haired woman stood behind his desk. She was frail and little, dressed from head to toe in black. She noticed me right away and shuffled over. She asked me if I was Ms. Wilson Mooney before she handed me a folded note. My knees went weak. I felt the blood drain quickly from my cheeks. My butterflies froze. I recognized the lined paper—it was the same type Max had used to give me his number, the same one I flushed down the toilet.
The paper was soft and the folds were flat but worn, like he’d opened and closed it too many times. My hands trembled as I walked back to my desk, waiting until I was sitting to open it. The room was filled. There was someone I knew at every desk: Cindy, Joanie, Bonnie, and Jacky. My heart pounded fast and loud when Max’s mom came over and told me to take a deep breath and open the note. Tears were streaming down her face as she reached to touch my cheek. Her hand was so cold it cooled through my skin and muscle, all the way down to my bones.
My eyes dropped to the folded paper in my fingers. I fumbled to open it, taking care not to rip the fragile, worn edges. I brought it to my face. Pressing it to my nose, I smelled him. Lavender flooded my senses. As I pulled open the last fold, I saw it was in his handwriting. The words bounced and jumped off the page, breaking apart as the tears landed on his thoughts written on the lined, creased paper. Mistake, age, student, and too young were the words that clawed their way into my head before they poisoned and ripped their way down to my heart. They destroyed every butterfly that struggled to survive. Every last one—dead.
I looked up to an empty room; I was alone. I stumbled to leave, clutching the handle on the door, when I saw my mother in the doorway. Her arms were outstretched; was it me she wanted? It couldn’t be me. I turned to look behind me and that’s when I saw Cindy. She ran past me into my mother’s arms. They clung to each other, an embrace I had waited my whole life to get from her. It wasn’t for me.
My eyes sprang open. I was back in my dorm room with Joanie, still asleep. My heart leapt from my chest, clogging my throat, making it hard to take a deep breath. I knew it was a dream; it was just hard to swallow the messages it sent to me. I could justify Cindy in my dream—she and I were on the outs. I could even see the fear of losing Max. What with him being my teacher and me not being eighteen. But my mother…I never saw her coming.
The only thing that made the first part of the day half bearable was the thought of seeing Max during fourth period and after school. I wondered if my butterflies would be there, waiting to come back. I had to admit, a small part of me wondered if he was going to have a substitute today. And if it was a little gray-haired lady in black, I wasn’t stepping foot in his room.
Cindy didn’t sit with us at first break. She made it pretty clear she was still mad. I even tried to make eye contact with her during Humanities: nothing. She was good at making me feel terrible and guilty. It was lunchtime when I figured she knew about Max and me and was just waiting for the right moment to destroy us. Joanie and I skipped lunch and went back to our room. I needed to talk to her before I faced Max. She was my rock and I needed to be grounded; it was the only place we could talk in private.
We sat on my bed and she knew exactly what to say to make me feel okay. I told her about my dream and she reasoned every scary image away with a positive twist. I loved her for that. I called her my best friend but she was more than that. She was my mother, my sister, my best friend, and the only family I truly had. When I get married, she will be the one to give me away and stand next to me as my maid of honor. She was everything to me.
We were on our way to Max’s class when I shoved my hand into my pocket. My cell phone wasn’t there and I always carry my phone with me. It was like leaving my room without shoes—it just doesn’t happen. I told Joanie that I’d probably left it on the bed where we were talking and that I’d catch up with her. I ran back as fast as I could. I didn’t want to be the last one walking into government after the bell rang. I wanted to mingle with the crowd of girls going into his class, making it easier to get to my desk without anyone noticing me.
I pushed our dorm room door open as Cindy pulled. We ran into each other. She didn’t say anything, even when I tried to apologize for dropping the “F” bomb. She just stared through me, smirked, and kept walking. I spotted my phone on my bed. It was open. My body flushed a cold sweat from every pore. Why hadn’t I cleared all my messages? I spun around the room looking for evidence of where she’d been. Maybe she hadn’t seen my phone. I snatched it up, scrolling through our texts, seeing if our words were as descriptive as I remembered. I couldn’t believe I had just given her the biggest weapon of all; one that could annihilate everything Max and I had.
As I ran to his class, adrenaline pumped fast throughout my entire body. I struggled to convince my mind that she hadn’t seen it. She had government with me and I wanted to catch her before she went in. When I turned the corner to his classroom, I saw the door slam shut. I cased the room as I peered through the diamond-wired window, looking to see if she was slinking her way to her desk like a shark hunting for kill. She was laughing and talking to Jacky when they both looked across the room. I followed their gestures. There he was. Max. His back was to the class; he was erasing and rewriting something on his whiteboard. My knees went weak and I shuffled away from the window. I had to go in, had to be there to show Cindy that nothing was going on between Max and me. I grabbed the handle as the second bell rang. I was late and everyone was going to see me walk in. I wanted to vomit; get the anxiety to leave my body. I needed to remember what every day before the weekend was like when I came into his room. I took a deep breath, swallowed
the last bit of regret, and pulled the door open.
Can’t wait for more?
Watch for…
Wilson Mooney
Eighteen at Last
Available 2012
www.wilsonmooney.blogspot.com
www.gretchendelao.com
www.facebook.com/wilsonmooneytheseries
Or find me on Twitter! @delaogk
Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen Page 27