AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh no,” I said. “It’s not that. I mean you... I...” I closed the 3DS, pausing the game. Words swept through my mind, but I wasn’t sure how to say what I was feeling.
“Miss Sorenson?” he asked quietly, with an edge of a plea.
With my heart threatening to burst through my ribs, I placed my palm carefully on his forearm. He locked his gaze with mine.
“Thank you,” I said, forcing the words out, even though I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing.
I think it was the first time I ever reached out to touch him. The feel of his skin under my hand sent waves through me, like the slice of a knife across my skin. It wasn’t painful, not cutting. Just the edge tracing, risky and thrilling. Mr. Blackbourne was perfection, impossible to reach, and I’d just crossed that boundary.
Through all those requests of me to be perfect, he really did care. I knew he did. I saw it in moments we were alone. Sometimes, though, he backed off and I wasn’t sure why. But maybe he never really did stop. He just had a different way of showing it. I didn’t understand him completely, but I wanted to. I wanted to be better, to do what he said, to trust.
My heart soared now for him, for what he had done for me.
He was quiet and immobile for so long that I thought I was making him uncomfortable.
His hand touched my shoulder lightly, then slid around until he was cupping my cheek. This gentle touch guided me to face him again. He held quietly to me for a moment, his palm warming.
Then his face relaxed. The steel in his eyes was gone, replaced by shining silver.
“You’re welcome, Miss Sorenson.”
Perfection. I trembled from that light brush of air from his touch, and his words.
He released me quickly, a hand returning to my shoulder. He backed up, his eyes boring steel into me again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, the full strength of the commanding tone was back. He expected an answer.
“Huh?” I asked, unsure of what he meant.
“Why are you shaking?” he asked. “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you sleep?”
I didn’t have any answers for him, except for a slight nod to the last question. I shook when I was nervous, or tired. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I suspected a lot of things. But I did sleep.
His hand gripped my shoulder. His eyes were unwavering as he stared. “What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure how to appease him. “I’m fine.”
“Lying to me won’t tell me how to fix it,” he said. “You’re not fine.” He sighed and took a step away. He snatched up his coat and tie that had been placed on one of the other chairs, fixed the chair he had used until it was back in place. “But you will be.”
“Mr. Blackbourne?”
He turned to me, laying his coat and tie over his arm. When he was done, he reached for me, clutching my chin between his fingers and directing my attention to his face.
“I promise,” he said. “Maybe I wasn’t clear before, but I want you to understand every word I say now. I don’t care what time it is. I don’t care where you are. If something is wrong, you call me. Tell me everything going on. If you’re concerned about where you live, or about vitamins, or your grades, or even ... even if the boys are bothering you about kissing or dates.”
My heart burst and my body refused to hide it. I was forced to look at those eyes, the cold steel telling me he meant every word, and to not do so would be a disappointment to him. I couldn’t bear to think what would happen if I were to do so.
He knew. He probably knew everything, from Dr. Green kissing me, to some of the other boys and that they were close, or had tried, in one way or another. Nothing happened to his team that he didn’t know about. I sensed in what he was saying that he was tired of hearing about me from other people’s lips.
“Until the day you ask me not to,” he said quietly, but with the same concern and command. “I’ve promised you, and I’ll repeat that promise until the day you actually believe me.”
“I believe you,” I said quietly, afraid to suggest otherwise, or to let the moment pass and not say it out loud.
His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, and his lips tightened. The fingers at my chin lifted my head higher.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said. He released me and walked around me, heading to the door.
I stared at that table long after I heard the front door of the condo open and close, and the start of the gray BMW, and it fading away down the street.
I did believe him.
I vowed to prove it.
ULTIMATUM NEGOTIATIONS
I bathed and dressed in a downstairs bathroom. I put on clothes from my bag, a sporty dark skirt, a T-shirt and the white angel hoodie. I wasn’t sure who picked out this outfit, but I thought perhaps Victor or Nathan. It was all Victoria’s Secret items, from the new clothing Victor had brought, but the style was sporty like Nathan often wanted me to wear. Were they all deciding which clothes ended up in my bag?
I hurried and met Dr. Green at the door. The journey to the school was quiet, except for a short stop at Starbucks to pick up breakfast.
Perhaps he sensed I didn’t want to talk. I kept thinking about Mr. Blackbourne, his words haunting me. At some point, I had done something wrong, and I didn’t know how to take it back. Now I was the one that broke something in him, and I needed to fix it.
“I hate to do this to you,” Dr. Green said once the school was within sight. “But we should probably split up in the parking lot, and go in through different doors.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t want to start any additional rumors,” he said. “Not even ones that might be true.”
Despite us being only three years apart, he still had to pretend to be my teacher, and us arriving at school together could be disastrous. “I understand,” I said.
“And please forgive me if I’m a little distant,” he said. “If I don’t... I mean, I can’t just kiss you in the middle of class.”
The corner of my mouth lifted. “You almost did once.”
He laughed.
We parted in the parking lot as he suggested. I headed straight for the courtyard where North, Silas and Luke were already waiting.
After a cold Frappuccino and a breakfast sandwich which I split with Silas, I was leaning against Luke before class started. My nerves were jumbling from the coffee, but my body was refusing to use the energy, the effects of those sleeping pills lingering.
And maybe part of me was worried about seeing Mr. Blackbourne later in the day. For some reason, I felt I should talk to him as soon as possible, but I didn’t know where to start or what
to say to him.
I wondered about the other boys. "They're going to be late," I said, using my phone to check the time before tucking it back into my bra.
Silas placed a hand on my back between my shoulder blades and rubbed slowly. "Don't worry about them, aggele mou."
"Is something wrong? Is it Academy stuff?"
North grunted. "Kota was trying to make sure your sister got to school."
"Is she okay?"
"Let's just say she's unmotivated. But they are on the way now."
"How was Dr. Green's?" Luke asked.
I was filling them in on dinner but stopped when Kota and Nathan arrived, trailed by Victor and Gabriel. But not even Gabriel's makeup could hide the swelling on Nathan's face.
I started to jump up but Kota sliced a hand through the air between us. "Don't draw attention to it."
I sat down hard on the bench. Nathan checked with Silas, who nodded, before Nathan sad down next to me on my other side. His white shirt that went with the faux school uniform was crumpled. His eyes were intense, the blue shimmering as he squinted at everyone. And the swelling almost forcing his eye closed.
Despite Kota's warning, I couldn't stop my staring. "What happened?"
Nathan grunted. "I had to go back to my house for some stuff. I thought he was asleep. He surprised me. Payback for putting him in the hospital. Guess he got it out of his system."
I sucked in a breath. "We should show Mr. Blackbourne. He should..."
"He already knows, Peanut. It’s why I slept at your house last night."
"There's got to be something we can do. We have to... I don't know. Maybe now we have to move you out."
Kota sighed. "Sang, we can't..."
I interrupted, "You guys are trying to get me out, I know but Nathan's the priority. Was Mr. Griffin always like this?"
"He used to be pretty bad," Nathan said. "But we managed to keep him at his job and it was a big salary jump for him to take those longer routes. When he works, he’s pretty calm. When I went in yesterday, after he’d been back from the hospital, there were whiskey bottles everywhere. He hasn't responded to phone calls from work."
