Because of Dylan: A forbidden student teacher slow burn romance (Riggins U Book 3)

by Erica Alexander

  He removes the wrapping and opens the box. Goes still and looks at what I got him for a few seconds, then runs his hand over it before looking at me.

  “This is beautiful.” He opens it to the middle.

  “What is it?” Tommy asks.

  “It’s a journal.” Dylan holds it up for Tommy to see.

  Dylan runs his hand over the leather-bound book, a rich whiskey color that reminded me of his eyes when I first saw it. I had his name engraved in gold on the cover and the spine.

  He opens it to the first page, his gaze fleets to mine before going back to the journal. I debated long and hard if I should write something on it or not. Maybe add a card or a sticky note. Something less permanent. But defiance arose in me. I’ve lived my entire life as a passerby. Temporary. Transient.

  No more.

  I want to be a part of something. To be permanent. To have roots. The inscription in the journal, as short and as frail as it might be—the page can be ripped after all—is a first step at saying I want more.

  Dylan,

  Because once you told me, you had stories to tell.

  Start now. Start here.

  Bring to life the stories from the past.

  Create new ones for the future.

  Perhaps even some with me in them.

  Love,

  Becca

  He stares at the page, reading and re-reading. Seconds stretch into centuries. With each moment the weight in my chest grows heavier, the pressure unbearable. Did I misread him? Is my veiled confession of wanting more too much? Even Tommy is quiet. The silence hurts my ears.

  His gaze lifts to mine in slow motion, a hand reaches to me and cups the back of my head, his lips are on mine a moment later. The kiss is sweet, brief, and intense. He pulls me into a hug, his face into my hair. His mouth brushes my ear. “Let’s write those stories together.”

  Shivers dance on my skin.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  It’s Dylan’s birthday, and we’re hanging out at his house, dressed in green since it’s also Saint Patrick’s Day. The last four months have been the happiest of my life. It’s just the three of us, but Tommy is leaving soon to meet his girlfriend. I’m looking forward to alone time with Dylan.

  But for now, I take turns dancing with my two favorite boys to the soundtrack of P!nk.

  Dylan steals me away from Tommy again. I giggle and laugh like the little girl I never had a chance to be. Tommy tries to cut in, but Dylan turns and spins me out of reach.

  “Dylan Jameson Beckett!” Tommy’s voice paralyzes me.

  “J-Jameson?” I stutter.

  Dylan tries to twirl me, but I’m frozen in place—my feet have grown roots.

  “Yes.” Dylan runs a hand through his hair. “Jameson is my middle name. It’s a family name. After my father and grandfather—”

  “And his father and grandfather and so on.” Tommy finishes the sentence in a way that tells me this is something that was repeated often. “All the firstborn males get the middle name Jameson. We can trace it back to the eighteen hundreds.” He tries to step around Dylan again, but gets blocked.

  Everything comes rushing at me. Every word we exchanged. The tapping. Their voices so similar. Their voices! It all clicks into place like the pieces of a puzzle. How is this possible?

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. How could I have been so stupid?

  “Becca? You look white as a ghost, are you okay?” Dylan’s gentle hands on my waist are more than I can bear. I break his hold, step away. His hands drop to the side. Dylan and Tommy look at each other and back at me.

  It’s him!

  Dylan is Therapist11. Therapist11 is Dylan.

  My heart rages inside my chest like a trapped wild animal. “It’s you … It’s you!”

  “It’s me what?” He takes a step closer, and I take two back.

  “You’re Therapist11. It was you all along.”

  The realization hits me like a tidal wave. I let my guard down. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have a chance to prepare, to protect myself.

  I’m caught in a riptide of emotions. I’m tumbling, going under, drowning. My lungs are robbed of air. Coldness closes in on me, climbing up my legs, numbing my fingers, creeping into my chest, constricting, squeezing my heart into a painful and erratic cadence.

  Dylan tilts his head, blinks, opens and closes his mouth. “How do you know …” He blinks again. His face rearranges from confused to knowing. He makes the connection.

  And I helped him.

  My hands reach into the space between us and cover my mouth, one hand over the other as if I could capture the words and shove them back inside. If I had kept my mouth shut … maybe he wouldn’t know.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  “Cougar22,” he mouths.

  Tommy gets between me and Dylan. “What’s going on?”

  I take another step back. My entire body shakes as if I’m standing in my own personal earthquake. Everything is crumbling. All my layers of lies and protection that were so carefully built turn to dust. Rage and fear erupt, and I scream. “Did you know? Did you know it was me? Has this been a game all along? Did you get a good laugh at my expense?”

  Dylan’s arms come up, trying to reach me. “Becca, no! Never. I had no idea. How could I?”

  My face burns. The heat spreads to my chest. My entire being is ice and fire and shame. Devastating shame, that he of all people should know all the horrible and sordid things that happened to me. And I was the one to tell him.

  “Becca?” He tries to reach out to me again.

  I stumble back. My eyes dart everywhere, searching for a point to fix on so I can ride this down. But panic has a hold on me, and there’s no fight left. Fueled by adrenaline and fear, my legs gain purchase and turn. There’s not a rational thought left in me. It’s just the need to escape now.

  I run.

  I run like I could never run before.

  I run from him.

  From the ghosts of my past.

  I run from myself.

  I’m out of the house in seconds, bursting through the front door with no idea of where I’m going. My feet pound the ground, and I run—the street blurred by tears and the cover of the night.

  Dylan chases after me.

  My chest hurts, my lungs burn with each inhale of the cold spring air, and yet sweat breaks on my skin. My legs carry me away, putting distance between me and what just happened.

  I cross the street, and I’m blinded by lights followed by the sound of screeching tires and an angry car horn. My steps falter, and I lose speed.

  “Becca!” Dylan calls to me.

  He’s a figure coming from the shadows. Streetlights sharpen his features as he moves into the glow of the light. I stumble backward and out of the street. I turn and gain purchase again, but flight has abandoned me, and my steps slow with each wheeze for air.

  All my senses come back on full alert. The car that almost hit me drives on. Beyond my own loud breathing, lies the quiet of the night and the sound of someone else heaving.

  I stagger backward, only to turn and fall on my hands and knees. Cold grass softens the fall. I squeezed my eyes shut and cover my ears with dew-wet hands. But the images I try so hard to forget flash in my mind, and I open my eyes to shut them down.

  His shadow falls over me, and he kneels. He’s close, within arm’s reach, but he gives me space. The few inches between us—a wall of safety, a prison—the loneliest of spaces.

  “Becca …” His voice is just above a whisper, my name dropping out of his lips in an exhale.

  His hands come closer, but don’t touch me. Is he repelled by me? Repelled by all those who touched my skin before him?

  I crave his touch … and hate that I do.

  His arms come around me and embrace me, I turn to stone at first, then my entire being folds into him.

  I tremble. I’m cracking into a thousand pieces that can never be put back together.

  His chest presses to my side, his a
rms circle me, He pulls me close, and the heat of his body envelops me, melting away the coldness, layer by layer until my skin burns from the inside out. I want to push away, to fight him off me, but I have no fight left.

  His cheek presses to the top of my head, he tightens his arms around me—my entire universe goes askew. What is this? My mind races, trying to place the foreign feeling cuddling my heart. It takes me a couple of minutes to figure it out.

  Refuge. Sanctuary. Heaven.

  Dylan feels like home.

  The notion is so unreal, so bizarre, that a bubble of laughter erupts out of me.

  Then I’m laughing and laughing until the misplaced sounds of joy turn into sobs.

  And I cry. I cry and cry. A deluge spilling out of me.

  A waterfall of tears.

  A broken dam.

  My stomach clenches and heaves.

  My body, my heart, my soul choosing this moment to spill all the pain, all the hurt, all the ugly out of me. I cry until I’m empty of everything.

  And Dylan holds on to me.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The scent of coffee needles me awake. Light shines through my closed eyelids. The faint chirps of a bird follow. My body aches, and my mouth tastes sour. I stay in place, comfortable and warm despite the aches. I’m slow to fully awaken as I figure out what my senses are trying to tell me. I have a headache, but I’m not hungover—that’s good.

  I nuzzle deeper into the covers.

  Wait!

  This is not my bed.

  My eyes pop open. I sit up, brush the mess of hair out of my face.

  I’m not in my dorm. The room is big, airy, clean.

  Dylan.

  I’m at Dylan’s house. But this is not his bedroom.

  Then the memories hit me.

  Dancing with Dylan and Tommy.

  Laughing.

  Therapist11.

  Dylan is Therapist11.

  Me running. And him picking me up and carrying me back.

  I scramble out of the bed. I need to get out. I can’t face him again.

  I find my purse and jacket on a chair. My shoes next to it. I’m moving now, putting my jacket and shoes on, my hands shake so much it takes me three tries to lace my sneakers. I check my bag for my cell and find my keys.

  My heart is thundering. I take a deep breath trying to calm myself, but I know I won’t be okay until I’m far away from here. I can’t see him again. I can’t look at him and know that he knows everything. Almost everything about me.

  My hand pauses on the doorknob, and I wait—listen for movement outside the door. It’s quiet. I open the door and make my way to the stairs, go down the steps like a ghost, cross the living room to the front door.

  “Becca? Wait.”

  Dylan calls to me, but I don’t stop. I don’t look at him. I can’t. I’m out the door and running to my car. He follows me. Stops me on the lawn a few feet away from my car. His hand is gentle on my wrist, he turns me to him.

  “Please, stop. Don’t run away from me again. Let’s talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I said too much already. You know everything.” Almost everything.

  “I had no idea it was you, please believe me. I would never do anything like that. I would have referred you to someone else if I ever thought this was possible.”

  I pull my hand from his grasp. “It’s a fucking small world, isn’t it?”

  He runs both hands through his hair. “Becca, please! I swear, I had no idea. The program received over three thousand calls since it started. This changes nothing.”

  “It changes everything. Don’t you understand? I can’t be this person.” I slap my chest with both hands. “There can’t be an us when you know what happened to me. I can’t leave her behind, she’s here now, and she makes everything ugly.”

  “No, she doesn’t. There’s no her. There’s only you, and nothing about you is ugly. Not a single thing. It makes no difference to me.”

  “It makes a difference to me.” I hit my chest with a fist now. “You think I’m good. You think I won’t drag you down with me. You don’t know everything.”

  He takes a step closer. “I know everything you told me.”

  “Not everything. I—” I drop my voice. “I killed him. I watched him die, and I did nothing. I walked away and stayed away for hours. By the time I came back, my mother was screaming in hysterics, and the cops where wheeling Theodore out in a body bag.”

  Dylan watches me.

  I punctuate each word with a thump to my chest. “I. Let. That. Happen.”

  “How?” Dylan asks.

  “What?”

  “How did he die?”

  “An overdose. What difference does it make? He’s dead.” My head pounds in rhythm with my heart.

  “You couldn’t have killed him, then. Not unless you somehow shot him full of drugs. What did the police report say?”

  “What does it matter?”

  He leans closer. “What did the police report say?”

  “It said he OD’d because of a combination of alcohol and drugs. They found Oxycontin, Vicodin and hydrocodone in his blood.”

  “And how is that your fault?”

  “Did you miss the part in which I said I watched him dying and walked away?”

  “Did you give him the alcohol and drugs?” He hisses the words.

  “What? No! Of course not.”

  “Then, again, how is it your fault? You didn’t hurt him or cause him to die. You walked away, which is a lot less than I would have done. His death is not on you. And good riddance.”

  I stand there and look at him. Now he knows everything. Why isn’t he running as fast as he can? Why is he still standing here?

  “I can’t do this, Dylan. I can’t.”

  “We can figure it out together.”

  I need to make him stop. I need to make him understand we can never be. I need to push him away. Now. Before I cave in. I heave in a breath and square my shoulders. Dig deep for the coil of anger inside me. Grab a hold of it. Let it spring.

  “I’m not your pet project. I don’t need your pity. I’m not your dead girlfriend. You can’t redeem yourself through me.” The words taste like venom on my tongue, and they bite me.

  He flinches, his eyes dull, and he takes a step back, hands dropping to his side.

  He looks smaller somehow. “No, you’re not. You’re not a pet or a project. And you’re not Annelise. You’re nothing like her.” He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, they’re brimming with pain. “Annelise was weak, timid, afraid of life. Even before what happened to her. The world was always too much for her to take. But you? You are none of those things.” He comes forward, cutting the space between us in half. “You’re strong. Alive. A fire burns inside you. What happened—what that scumbag did to you may have molded your life, yes. It may have even broken you, but you didn’t fall apart, and you didn’t give up. You rose above, and made yourself better than them and your circumstances.”

  My head shakes in denial with each word he speaks. My body rejecting what my heart has been trying to tell me for months now. Muscle memory attempts to take over and fight him and everything he says. I cannot accept his kindness. The chaos inside my chest barely contained.

  Fear is fighting hope.

  Anger fighting trust.

  And hate fighting … love?

  Yes. Underneath it all, there’s love. Fragile and tentative, like a candle flame in the breeze, it flickers and sways, not sure if it wants to grow or extinguish itself.

  I don’t know when it came to happen. I don’t know when I started to care for this man standing in front of me. But I do. I care about Dylan, and I crave him as much as I despise myself for wanting him. I don’t want to want him. I don’t want to love him. I don’t want my skin to anticipate his touch, and my stomach to clench when he’s near me.

  My heart thunders in my chest to the point of pain. Everything in me rebels against the feelings pouring out of me.
I squeeze my eyes shut so I can keep him from seeing the storm raging inside. I want to feel numb again. I want dull and boring and nothingness. I grew comfortable in the absence of love. I don’t know how to tame what I feel.

  I understand anger. I understand bitterness and sadness. I understand revulsion and fear.

  I don’t understand this.

  I don’t understand what he wants to give me. And yet, I desperately want it. Need it. Hunger for it.

  I hate feeling this way. Feeling like I’m at his mercy. Like I’m a little kid again, hoping for salvation.

  Dylan steps closer. His fingers weave through my hair, and he nudges my chin up with a feathery touch. Our eyes meet, we’re inches apart, so close his breath fans across my face, warm and coffee scented. “Becca?”

  I bite my tongue to keep from saying what’s churning in my chest. To keep from asking him to stop me from running, to keep from showing how vulnerable I feel, and how much I want him to want me, to love me, to need me.

  He cradles my face, leans into me, his lips touch my forehead with a kiss so gentle it’s barely there, and yet it touches me to the very depths of my soul.

  “Let me in,” he speaks against my skin. His lips brushing my temple send shivers down my spine. My entire body trembles with the need to give in and the need to run. I’m split in half. Adrenaline pools in my veins.

  Fight or flight? I do neither. I freeze. I hide my emotions behind closed eyes. I dare not breathe for fear of what I might do. Of what I might say. He pulls me into his chest, his arms a welcome and warm cage around me. I’m so small inside his embrace I dread I might disappear, evaporate into thin air like I was never here, or that this hug I didn’t even know I needed is nothing but a dream or a taunting nightmare. I don’t want to want this. I don’t want to find comfort in his arms or his touch. Hope is a weakness. A chink in my armor. I cannot allow myself to give in. I can’t give him power over me.

  His head drops to my shoulder, he molds himself around me, his much bigger body enclosing mine into his, like a shell around me, he envelops me. “Can you feel this?”