A Much Younger Man (Tryst Series Book 1)

by Mia Fox

  Soon after I posted, the Twitter feed associated with my blog was rampant with activity. Some of the responses were from women who had also been hurt; others were from those that had healed. I scanned the bite-sized pieces of advice through my tears.

  Being hurt is not the worst thing that can happen. Not to love is far worse. #BrokenHeart

  I hoped that one day I could believe this.

  Can't seem to let you go. Can't seem to hold you close #brokenheart #sadsong

  Trusting someone #blindly results in either #person for #life or #lesson for #life.

  #Brokenheart

  I could relate.

  Don't judge a book by the cover #brokenheart

  So true. I never expected Cole to hurt me.

  When you actually care for someone but they totally take you for-granted.

  #BrokenHeart

  I thought he was different.

  And then there was the food based solution.

  #Recipes to Mend a Broken Heart: Gluten Free Banana Bread Blues

  At least it was gluten free. Certainly healthier than my nightly cocktail of sleeping pills, which was my way of getting over Cole as fast as I could.

  A week went by and then another. I couldn’t understand why Cole would like my Instagram posts and view my Snapchat feed if he wasn’t interested. I also stalked his social media. We weren’t together, but we kept tabs on each other.

  One day I texted to see how he was. Initially, the conversation was polite and light, then it moved into our old ways. He complimented my appearance from a recent photo. I responded by saying he could see more details in person. He pulled away, realizing that he had made a mistake by engaging with me again.

  Why do you say these things if you’re not interested? If you don’t miss me? I texted.

  When I’m with you I enjoy it, but I can’t go back to the way we were. I feel badly.

  Then, be with me. I’m sad too. Why are we both sad and apart? But I had misunderstood him…It was a common problem when texting.

  I didn’t mean it that way. I feel badly that you’re hurt, not that I want to be together.

  And then, I wanted him to know just how much I hurt. When we talk, I’m fine and then I do things that I shouldn’t.

  You need to find a way to move on. Something that doesn’t involve me or hurting yourself.

  I was growing tired, both mentally and physically, from my nightly tears. One night, Jack stayed over and heard me crying in my room.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I sobbed.

  “You can. You tell me everything.”

  I shook my head. “Not this.”

  He cocked his head and shrugged his shoulders at me. “Tell me what’s wrong. You can’t cry yourself to sleep and insist everything is okay.”

  “Cole,” I said simply.

  “You two talk a lot. It’s kinda weird.”

  “I knew I couldn’t tell you.”

  Jack sat down on the edge of my bed. “Sorry. Tell me.”

  “We had a fight.”

  Jack had the sense to not ask for more details. And I had the decency to not burden him with my problem…a problem that could affect his friendship.

  He gave me a hug and I felt better.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah?” I said in a soft voice, still breaking from my tears.

  “You’re better off moving on, from whatever it is. You can’t be friends with him, not really.”

  I wiped my nose and nodded. He was right. It hurt like hell, but I needed to do as Jack advised.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  In the months that followed our break up, my readers continued to offer sage advice and support. I started to write on other matters of the heart and as a result of both of these occurrences, Rachel stopped threatening to fire me.

  I also found a way to supplement my income so as not to ever be reliant on Rachel’s salary or demands in the future. I was offered a job to teach creative writing at the local community college. I was elated about the opportunity and even a little nervous when I showed up to meet my class on the first day. However, the excitement dimmed and the nerves heightened when I walked in and saw Cole.

  It was immediately awkward and familiar all at the same time. After the first class, he waited behind. My heart pounded like it had months earlier. Nothing had changed for me, although I had to pretend that I had moved on.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know…” he said.

  “How could you? It’s not like we talk.”

  Damn. I didn’t want to immediately sound accusatory or still wounded.

  “Would you like me to take a different class?”

  “I can handle it,” I assured him. “But I need to go now.”

  I didn’t, of course, but I knew if I stayed the conversation would continue and I’d surely make a mistake of believing we could still be friends or some other lie people tell themselves after they break up.

  In the coming weeks, I did my job and Cole did his best to fly under the radar. He was quiet in class. I avoided calling on him. He laughed politely when I’d make a joke to the rest of the students. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Except none of that was true.

  I saw his passing glances when the students were doing a writing assignment and I was at my desk. I noticed him catching my eye while I lectured and staring intently. When another male student made a suggestive comment, I saw the pissed off look on his face. All of this stirred up old feelings and one day when he brushed past my desk and our hands accidentally touched, we looked in each other’s eyes and it felt like it used to.

  Tears that I had managed to contain for the last month now threatened to escape. Before any of the other students could see my reaction, I dismissed the class and took off. I ran down the hall as fast as I could in my boots and then proceeded down the stairs. I could hear Cole calling my name…my first name, not Miss Morrison like the other students did, and it made the tears flow. To hear him call my name in his beautiful voice, one that sounded with concern, was more than I could handle. I tripped on the last two stairs and plummeted onto the pavement.

  “Shit!”

  Luckily there wasn’t anyone around to see my clumsiness, but then again, had there been perhaps Cole would not have helped me up and taken me in his arms.

  “I’m sorry. It’s not like I haven’t thought of you.”

  I couldn’t listen to his words. They would drag me back and I finally had gotten him out of my head. I was excited about this job. I was moving on with my life.

  “You probably only thought of me when you wanted to get off,” I replied bitterly.’’

  “It’s not like that and it never was…It was just wrong.”

  He still had a hand on my arm to steady me. I looked up at him and didn’t try to hide my pain. “But you said you loved me.”

  He paused and looked as if he wanted to say that he still loved me. There was a tenderness on his face, a sadness that matched my own. But then, he took a deep breath and just shook his head slightly. Speaking not much above a whisper, he cut me to the core. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I couldn’t stop the tears or my tirade. “Then why did you follow me out here? What did you think would happen?”

  “Shhh, come here,” he led me to the janitor’s closet and we stepped inside. “You don’t want to do this in public.” As usual, he was thinking. He was composed and mature. Although, maturity implies reason and there were so many times that rational thought had escaped both of us.

  There was hardly any space between us. I wanted time to revert backwards. If it did, he would have held me, kissed me. Instead, I got nothing.

  “Cole, just now…why didn’t you let me go?”

  “I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Jack told me that you barely eat. He said you don’t sleep either…except when you take sleeping pills. He’s worried about you…and so am I. But, I can’t be with you.”

  “I get it. You thought what we did
was wrong. You ended it. Let’s leave it at that. I’ll teach my class; you do the assignments. Don’t talk to me outside of class because when push comes to shove, you don’t want to be a part of my life any more. You don’t want me anymore.”

  The tears continued to flow as I heard my own spoken words…words that tore me apart. I had thought them so many times before and each time it would make me sob and take away my appetite. It would make any traces of happiness in my life vanish and leave in its wake just a deep, empty well of sadness that filled my entire being. I couldn’t go back to feeling that way every minute of every day.

  Somehow, I would get through this semester. I would lecture in front of my class, looking only at the students in the front row, ignoring the second seat from the left of the second row, the place where I could see him concentrating on me. No, I wouldn’t look at him. I wouldn’t call on him. And when there were papers to turn in, I would insist that the students use their I.D. numbers instead of their names. I couldn’t be reminded of Cole and how he no longer cared.

  “Kat, I never want anything bad to happen to you. I want you to know that, so take care of yourself. Please.”

  My heart’s healing process was slow at best. I learned to avert my eyes from Cole’s when I lectured. I tried not to think about the fact that he would get up from his desk when class was finished and simply walk out without even a backwards glance at me. I saw him talking with Jack before their games and I reminded myself that it was better that he have a friendship with Jack rather than a relationship with me.

  I was moving on, and then one week later, all hell broke out on campus. Screams were heard in the hallway during period two, the class that I taught in which Cole attended. At first, everyone assumed the screams were just those associated with overly dramatic college girls. It could mean anything from a rat dashing across their pathway to a guy pretending to douse them with a water gun.

  Except the threat came from a real gun.

  Seconds after the screams were heard they were followed by gunshots and then the armed gunman — another student — busted into our classroom and locked the door behind him. He waved the gun at me and told me to sit at my desk. A number of students were lined up to the side of my desk, waiting for me to check their latest assignment. Cole was among them.

  The gunman told them to sit on the floor. They weren’t to bother returning to their desks. To the others who had remained in their seats, he told them to lie on the floor face down. And to everyone, he ordered that they throw their cell phones at his feet.

  We all complied and he immediately started to stamp on the phones, seemingly getting angrier with each one that he busted.

  “These are just your devices to post your happy photos. You take videos of your happy lives and show off how much better you are than everyone else. Did you ever think of the affect your videos have on someone who isn’t having such a good day?”

  As he spoke, he waved his gun sporadically, accenting his angry words with his gesticulations. He paced back and forth and would stop with no rhyme or reason in front of certain people causing the girls to whimper and the guys to stiffen with nerves.

  Then he fixed his eyes on me. If he wasn’t angry and crazy before, seeing me behind my desk sparked a new rage within him.

  “Teachers…” he said with distaste. “Someone didn’t do their job in the early days with these kids,” he pointed the gun at the bodies on the floor and then waved it at those students, including Cole, who sat next to my desk. I noticed that Cole had somehow maneuvered himself closer to me in the last five minutes without being detected. He glanced up at me with those wise eyes of his, the ones that moved me and always seemed to know what I was thinking. Even now, I could feel him telling me to relax, telling me it would be okay.

  The gunman continued his rant. “Would any of you cared if I took her out?” he pressed the gun to the side of my head. Nobody spoke. They looked at me — fearing to speak, fearing not to.

  “Look at that,” he directed the comment toward me. “They don’t give a shit about your life, just like you really don’t care about them. You teachers pretend that you’re trying to help us find a path, prepare for a career. But do you really care about anything other than your own paycheck?” He looked at me, seemingly wanting an answer.

  “Let’s talk about this more,” I said in what I hoped was a calm voice. “Why don’t you let them go so it’s just you and me? You’re problem is with the teaching, not the students.”

  “You’re saying I have a problem?” he smacked the gun on my temple and I immediately saw stars. He paced a few feet, turning his back to me momentarily. He didn’t hit me hard enough to make me pass out, but he drew blood. A girl who sat next to Cole gasped and her eyes widened when she looked at me. Cole stood up and took my hand.

  “Don’t,” I begged, not wanting him to draw attention to himself, but it was too late for that.

  “You seem to care,” the gunman addressed Cole. “Did she give you an A?” he said motioning back to me. “The teacher who failed me caused me to lose my scholarship. You got an A and I got nothin’. Too bad that bitch isn’t here today, but I’m still gonna be heard.”

  “Please, let them go,” I said again.

  “Stop telling me what to do. You tell them what to do every day in class, but I’m not one of your students and you can’t tell me anything.”

  “You’re right. I just thought we could talk easier if we were alone.”

  “Stop,” Cole whispered. His eyes met mine, telling me to tread carefully. When I looked at him all the sadness of us not being together came flooding back to me. I suppose it never left. I had only learned to cover up the pain and ignore my feelings over the last month.

  The gunman noticed our attention on each other. “Get up!” he yelled at Cole who was already crouched above the ground, his body as near to mine as it could be without causing suspicion, only now it had.

  He stood and looked the gunman straight in the eyes. “Come on, Bro, let everyone leave. Let’s talk this out, man to man. I’ve been there. I know it’s hard.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  The gunman’s response worried me even further. “Cole, please don’t. You don’t want to do this.”

  “You’re wrong,” Cole took my hand in his.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Everyone out!” the gunman fired one shot at the ceiling and the students screamed. “Go!”

  There was a mad dash for the door. For the briefest of moments, I could see the swat team members when the door opened. But it slammed shut again; the nightmare remained. All of the students had left…everyone that is, except Cole.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” the gunman shouted at Cole and before he could answer, he butted the end of his gun against his temple, much like he had done to me, but worse. Cole slumped against my chair, falling into me. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around him and when he opened his eyes a moment later, I felt all of the pain rush back. I still loved him. I never stopped.

  “Leave,” I whispered.

  “It’s too late for that,” the gunman chided me.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Cole looked at me while speaking, maneuvering himself off my lap and into a standing position.

  “Sit down!” the gunman slid a chair next to mine and indicated that Cole should use it or face consequences.

  “I’ll sit. You let her go.” Cole moved slowly, holding his hands up to show he wasn’t going to make any sudden moves. His actions were methodical, in part because he was still rattled from the attack as a steady stream of blood fell from the wound on his forehead and also because he didn’t want to alarm the gunman. But Cole’s attempts to keep the gunman calm were averted by shouting at the door. The SWAT team had moved in closer now that the majority of students were safely outside the classroom.

  “You!” he pointed at me, “tell them to move away from the door! Go!”

  I stood and began walking. With every step I was
aware that he had his gun pointed at me. When I got to the door, I wanted so much to be able to walk through it, but I knew that given the chance, I wouldn’t leave Cole. I couldn’t say goodbye to him again.

  “Tell them!”

  “We’re okay,” I spoke through the door, my voice shaking. “There’s only two of us. We’ll be fine, if you move back.” I turned over my shoulder and the gunman nodded, the first sign that he was starting to relax in his position as captor.

  “You did good. Now sit down again.”

  I sat, my eyes immediately going to Cole’s. He nodded once as if to tell me that everything would be okay and then once again addressed the gunman. “She’s a good teacher. She cares.”

  “None of them care. They see us as a job and they’ll do anything to make money at the expense of students who pay through the nose for over-priced college courses. My parents re-mortgaged their home to send me here and what good comes of it? Nothing! None of them care.”

  His gun was pointed at me as he punctuated his last thought, his eyes wild and angry. “And anyway, why should you care what happens to some random teacher? It’s not like you’ll ever see her again after this class anyway. You come, you go. If she’s gone, it’s a statement and it doesn’t affect you.”

  I looked over to Cole to see his reaction. I knew it was insane to want to hear what he was thinking of me at a time like this, but I did. But his face remained stoic and a tear dripped down the edge of my cheek. It was as if he knew that I wasn’t thinking about the current situation we were in, but rather our past. He gave me the smallest shake of his head.

  I couldn’t bare to not tell him how I felt. “I still love…”

  But Cole cut me off fast, as if to imply that I needed to keep it together and focus on our survival.