by Leddy Harper
“You were joking when you said something about me being at your house without adult supervision…but it hit me like a ton of bricks. It made me question myself. What the hell was I doing there? I needed to leave. I should’ve been the responsible one and left. But you got sad…or something. You blamed yourself for my change in attitude, when it had nothing to do with you. I was mad at myself. But you didn’t know that, and you took it personal. I hate how your mother has managed to demolish your self-esteem. It kills me when I see that. Because you’re the smartest, most beautiful¸ fun, spirited person I’ve ever met. When you light up, you fucking shine. Your smile could bring a grown man to his knees. With as smart as you are, I have no doubt that you’ll be unstoppable once you’re unleashed. If only you’d get out of your own damn way. If only you’d stop listening to the poison your mother feeds you. I wasn’t lying when I told you that you have the spirit of a wild animal with your wolf eyes. And that’s when I ignored all logic, I blocked out the voices of reason, and I stayed. I gave you the phone, made you take it, and didn’t regret it.
“Truth be told, Bree, had you not sent me a text that night, I probably would’ve called you. Luckily, I didn’t have to make that choice. But in hindsight, I should’ve ended it then, when you told me how confused you were. When you expressed concern over our relationship. I should’ve been the bigger person and ended it before it began. But I had gone to seminars and listened to lectures about keeping an upstanding reputation when dealing with students not much younger than me. I’d heard stories from other young male teachers about good-looking students hitting on them and how they had to handle it. I honestly thought I was in control. I thought that if I kept myself in check, if we followed the rules and didn’t complicate things, I’d be able to have you in my life without breaking the rules. I thought I could have my cake and eat it, too.” His eyes were so full of pain and regret, his face so wrought with despair, that if I’d seen him shed any tears, it wouldn’t have surprised me. But there were none. I had enough for the both of us. Yet that didn’t take away from his gritty emotion. Even though he hadn’t cried, I could feel his agony in his words, hear it in his voice, and see it in his eyes.
“I don’t understand,” I said through my sobs, my throat thick with the added mucus that comes from ugly crying. “What did I do wrong?”
He waited a moment before answering, letting the weight of it all settle before opening his mouth. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Bree. Not one goddamn thing. I underestimated you. That was my fault. I knew you were special from the very beginning. I knew you weren’t like the other students. Hell, you aren’t even like most people my age. And that’s where I went wrong. I never anticipated that I’d enjoy your company so much. I never thought I’d need you as much as I do. It’s so fucked up because it’s only been a couple of weeks, yet here I am, torn apart by the thought of not having you in my life. The thought of going to sleep without talking to you guts me. It makes me dread the night. I never want the sun to set, because I don’t want to deal with not getting your phone call.”
“Why do you have to? Why can’t I be in your life and you in mine? You’re talking like you never want to speak to me again. I don’t understand. Why can’t I call you anymore? Why do we have to stop? We haven’t done anything wrong!”
He finally stood and walked to where I sat in the grass, falling to his knees in front of me. “It was only a matter of time, Bree. You snuck up on me. I didn’t realize how I felt until it was too late. I’ve tried convincing myself that I don’t care that much. That you don’t mean that much to me. But nothing works. Because you’ve already taken root in my heart. We can’t go back now. We have two choices: keep going the way we are, knowing eventually, the lines will get erased—not just blurred, but decimated. Because, let’s face it, Bree, in less than a month, I’ve already fallen for you. What’s going to happen next month? Or the month after that? How long can we go before we give into our desires and risk everything? Lose everything? We could do that, or we admit defeat and walk away now while we’re still ahead. Those are our choices.”
“I don’t want to admit defeat. We haven’t been defeated.”
He cupped my cheeks, wiping away the tears that covered my face with the pads of his thumbs. “But we have. This was supposed to be a friendship. An easy, uncomplicated friendship. However, that’s not what we have.”
“But we can,” I begged, pleaded with him as I wrapped my fingers around his wrists, holding him to me, unwilling to let him go. “We can pretend this conversation never happened and go back to the way it was.”
His eyes never left mine as he shook his head, except this time, it wasn’t out of humor like it’d been every other time before. “I can’t pretend anymore. I tried. It won’t work. You asked me a question because I had confused you. How long do you think it would take before you’re confused again?”
“But I won’t be confused again, because I know the truth now.”
“Okay, fine…how long before you have feelings for me? And once that happens, how do we keep ourselves from acting on it? It doesn’t matter how long we pretend that we’re only friends, because it will eventually become harder and harder for us to stay in that role. It’s impossible. We can’t talk every day, you knowing how I feel and vice versa, and not bring it up.”
“You knew, didn’t you? You knew when you asked me to stay that this would be our last day together. That’s why you didn’t want me to leave. You just wanted a little bit longer with me.” I ripped his hands away from my face, ignoring the flash of anguish in his eyes. “You bastard. You’re the only friend I have. The only person in my life I have to talk to. You know that! And yet you’re taking it all away from me because you couldn’t follow your own damn rules. Why are you punishing me?”
In the midst of my fury, my hands flailed about. I pushed, hit, and slapped at Axel, wanting to hurt him in some way for the way he’d hurt me. But my punches didn’t do anything to him since my energy had been depleted by his unsolicited words. He allowed me to lash out for a moment before grabbing my arms, pulling me against his body, and restraining me. He pinned my hands between our chests with his arms wound tight around me. Even if I’d wanted to fight back, I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was lean into him and let it all go.
I sobbed against his chest, my tears soaking through the cotton material. My shoulders shook uncontrollably, but he held me to him, softly rocking side to side. He didn’t speak or try to make me stop crying. He only held me, his own body quivering with grief that mirrored mine. We’d shared so many things over the span of a few weeks, but nothing as devastating as this. And knowing this was our last moments together made it that much worse.
“I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want you to let me go.”
“I know,” he whispered into my ear, his lips pressed against my temple. “I don’t either. If I had my way, I’d never let you go. I’d never say goodbye to you. I’d spend every day with you, growing these feelings you’ve uncovered within me. I’d embrace them instead of denying them, until they turn into the kinds of feelings that never go away. The kind that’s so deeply rooted within you that you can’t remember what it ever felt like to not have it.”
“Maybe this is just infatuation and it will go away.”
He dropped his forehead to my shoulder and his body shuddered against mine. His arms tightened around me, and that’s when I felt the first sign of his breakdown—moisture against my neck. He may have held it together when confessing his feelings to me, but holding me, the end approaching us as fast as the sun set, that seemed to be too much for him to bear. That seemed to be his breaking point, the moment when his strength betrayed him until he cried into me.
I decided to try once more, hoping his weakness would allow him to give into my desperate pleas. “We don’t have to do this, Axel. I’m begging you, don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to us. We can figure it out. I’ll be seventeen in a couple weeks. Age of consent here is
seventeen. I can apply for a homeschooling program. We have so many options. We don’t need to do this.”
He slowly released his hold on me, his arms going slack. Then his hands ran up my back to my shoulders, and he pressed his cheek to mine, threading his fingers into my hair. With his lips against my ear, he whispered, “We don’t have any other options. I’d give up my job before letting you waste your intelligence. And just like I know you’d never allow me to do that, I won’t allow you to ruin your future. Have faith that this won’t be forever. If it’s merely infatuation, and it goes away, I’ll be the first one on my knees, begging you for forgiveness. If it’s not, and what I feel for you is real, then the day you graduate, I’m coming for you, swearing to never hurt you again.” He pressed his lips to my cheek, held them there for what seemed like an eternity, yet it didn’t feel like long enough. Then he released me, stood, and walked away, not allowing me to see his face.
He left me in his yard, crying to myself in front of his unfinished work. I’d never felt so empty before, so hollow and vacant inside. I’d endured a lot from my mom, her hateful words, dismissing glances, disappointed sneers, yet even through all that, she’d never managed to hurt me as much as Axel had in that moment.
I somehow found enough strength to pull myself from the grass in order to leave. I couldn’t stay there a moment longer, knowing with each passing second, another piece of my heart fell into oblivion, never to be found again. So I forced my feet to move one in front of the other until I managed to make it to the back yard. A few feet from the edge of his grass, I turned around, needing one more glance in his direction, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of him in a window, a shadow or even a silhouette. But I didn’t get any of that. Instead, Lassie, who hadn’t left her spot on the patio, lifted her head to watch me leave.
Lassie was the shift in my tectonic plate, the movement that set my natural disaster into motion. Had I never stumbled into Axel’s back yard, then the argument over his decision to keep where he lived a secret would’ve never happened. Without that, he wouldn’t have hinted at his feelings for me, which means I would’ve never questioned him. Then he’d have no reason to confess how he felt about me, forcing him to end our relationship, taking away my only friend in this world.
Because of a dog, the life I’d grown to love would never be the same.
My foundation cracked, swallowing me whole without a chance for survival.
Rejection burned within my chest, decimating my insides until there was nothing left behind but ashes, leaving a black hole where my heart once was.
Grief swarmed me, drowning me in a tidal wave of despair.
My life had been turned into a state of emergency.
It was unpredictable, unexplainable, and in order to rebuild, I’d need to rely on the help of others. Considering the only person I could count on was responsible for the destruction in the first place, all hope of coming out of this on the other side died out.
Slowly dragging myself foward, shuffling my way through the darkened canopy trees, I managed to make it home. When I’d first stepped into the wooded area from Axel’s house, grief and tears consumed me. Confusion whirled within my mind, and hopelessness drowned me. But by the time I made my way out, stumbling into my own back yard, something had changed. Maybe it was the anger that returned, or the defiance that stoned me. Whatever it was, I became determined to not let Axel Taylor bring me down. He would not be the end of me. I’d give him his space, let him see what a mistake he’d made, and when he came crawling back, begging for my friendship again, I’d be the one to turn him down.
That mentality lasted until I made it to my bed. Curled beneath the warmth of my covers, reality smothered me. As much as I wanted to convince myself that I’d turn him away, I knew undoubtedly that it would never happen.
I’d spent Sunday moping around the house, allowing one day of mourning before pulling myself together in time for school. I didn’t want Axel to see my devastation. He’d seen it in his back yard, but I refused to allow him the chance to see just how much he’d destroyed me.
He hated my mom for what she’d done.
Yet he was no better.
Mom had been quiet all day, so the time dragged on at a snail’s pace. I couldn’t wait any longer for bedtime, and headed up to my room at eight. Sleep didn’t come easy, and I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours before finally giving in to the darkness.
I was torn Monday morning. I didn’t want to see him, but at the same time, I wanted to at least pretend I’d been unaffected by him. So after hesitating in the hallway for a few minutes, I made my way into the classroom. I made it all of two steps before my knees nearly buckled. He wasn’t at his desk like he’d been every day before that. Instead, he stood at his podium, his head down as he intently studied something in front of him. I shook it off and headed to my seat.
The first wave of tears threatened to spill once I made it to my desk. On top sat my book, the one I hadn’t even realized I’d left over at his house. With all the chaos and commotion of that day, and the grief that had attacked me the day after, I never once thought about that damn book. But there it was, right in front of me, a stark reminder of where it’d been, why it was left behind, and how real this whole thing was. I couldn’t pretend it’d been a dream, any of it. Because I had the evidence in front of me, reminding me that no matter how hard I try to shove things down…burn and then bury them…they’ll never truly go away.
Pretending my mom didn’t hate me wouldn’t make her love me.
Forgetting my relationship with Axel wouldn’t automatically mend my heart.
And lying about my feelings for the only friend I ever had wouldn’t bring him back.
I glanced up at him and caught his eyes as he watched me. But the contact only lasted for a split second before he lowered his head again. I quickly stuffed the book in my backpack and got ready for class, ignoring everything going on around me. Ignoring everything going on within me.
“That’s surprising,” I heard Jill say as she sat down. “Mr. Taylor is usually at his desk, chatting away with you before class. Now he’s in the front of the room. What happened, did you two have a lover’s spat?”
I jerked my head up once I realized she’d been talking to me and not Rebecca. I found them both eyeing me with interest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. He’s our teacher. Maybe he’s preparing for class.” I hoped to God that I sounded as nonchalant as I should.
They exchanged glances before turning back to me with devious grins on their faces. “Stop pretending. It’s so obvious you two have a thing. Don’t worry, we won’t judge you. To be honest, we didn’t think you had it in you to fuck a teacher.”
My hands shook from the adrenaline Jill’s words sent through me. “We don’t have a thing. He’s our teacher. He’s older than me, and I’m still a minor. And you’re right, I don’t have it in me to fuck a teacher, because it’s wrong. It’s unethical and immoral. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop talking like that. I’m sure Mr. Taylor wouldn’t like it if he knew you two were starting rumors that could end his career.”
Both girls giggled and turned around, whispering amongst themselves. I didn’t have to hear their words to know what they said. They didn’t believe me, and I couldn’t blame them. They were right. Every morning before class, Axel sat at his desk and we talked. Anyone walking into the classroom could see that. Even I noticed that the smile he gave me was different than the ones he offered to everyone else. We did have a thing, it just wasn’t what they assumed. Which, more than likely, if anyone gave it much thought, they’d probably come to the same conclusions Jill and Rebecca did.
I guess it was a good thing that we ended things when we did. It wouldn’t have been long before people started talking, and that would make the rest of the school year difficult on both of us. More so for Axel, though. I’m sure having something like that going around would be damaging for his reputation. That realization was enough to calm my a
ching heart.
But then class started, and instead of my chest tightening over the loss of Axel like I’d anticipated, it tensed for him. He was so angry, cold and distant. As he taught from his podium, he lacked all the enthusiasm he once had for teaching. His patience seemed to have evaporated, yelling at the class for things they’ve always gotten away with before. His eyes were dull, no longer shining like beacons of blue light. His shoulders sagged and his tie wasn’t even on straight. Just looking at the man, it was obvious he was in pain. I wanted to make it better for him, but I knew there was no way I could. I wasn’t the one who’d made this decision. He was. He’d cut things off with me, turned his back and walked away, leaving me crying and alone. I’d begged him to change his mind, yet he didn’t. So why was he standing there, looking like a man who had lost everything? He didn’t lose shit. He gave it all up, let it effortlessly slip through his fingers.
You can’t have sympathy for people like that. The ones that throw everything away and then regret it. But did he regret it? Or was this just the fallout? I needed to believe that he’d turn around and change his mind. I desperately yearned to hear him say that he’d made a mistake and had to have me in his life anyway he could have me. But the longer class drug on, and the more time that passed without a single glance my way, or even a simple acknowledgment of my existence, the more my hope dissipated.