“Okay,” she whispers, her voice small as I lean down and take her lips with mine.
“I really, really need to go. Can I see you later? I’ll cookyou dinner?” I ask, our lips just a breath away from each other as I rub my hands up and down her back.
“Okay, yes, I would love to,” she answers with a smile. I pull her to me and kiss her one more time before getting lost in her and our tongues dancing together.
“Good God, please don’t make me get the squirt bottle and hose you two off,” Morgan says.
We pull back and laugh. I reluctantly let her go.
I grab my stuff and pull her back in for one more imploring kiss as Morgan throws a dish towel at my back from somewhere in the kitchen.
“I’ll be seeing you, pretty girl,” I add with a grin before I rush out the door and into my truck.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
kane
Seventeen Going Under – Sam Fender
Iwalk into work with a lightness I haven’t felt in months. This morning has been rolling around my head on a nonstop loop. It’s not even the sex I can’t stop thinking about—although that was a surprise I wasn’t expecting—but being able to wake up with her in my arms again. The smell of her lemon shampoo fanned across my chest and face, the feel of her heartbeat steady within my reach, the beats melding with mine until they fell into sync.
I wave to Dawn on my way to the office, a couple minutes later than usual, but the extra minutes were worth it. I sit down in my office chair and boot up my computer, ready to get started for the day. With graduation in just a few short weeks, I’ve had a busier-than-normal calendar, with the anxieties of the future looming over the seniors’ heads. The busier schedule has been nice to fill up my days when all I needed was a distraction from my life, but today, the busy day makes it hard to focus. I pull up my scheduleand see that Trevor’s appointment was marked with a cancellation request and a message to see Dawn.
I slide back my chair, take one last swig of my coffee, and toss it in the trash on my way out the door. The office is already abuzz, most people get here an hour early before the students to finish up last-minute tasks. The sound of ringing phones and typing keys is a welcome sound this Tuesday morning. I go round to the front of the office and wait while Dawn finishes a call. Parents line the corridor with children, signing them in for the day as the bell rings, marking them late.
I wait until I catch Dawn’s eye, and she tilts her head, signaling me to follow her. The tightness in my chest hits immediately with the foreboding in her expression. I follow her with haste in every step until we make it to the teacher’s lounge on this side of the campus. Dawn turns to me with her brows lowered, her eyes scanning from left to right to make sure the coast is clear.
“What’s going on?” I ask slowly, the feeling of unease thick in the air.
“Trevor,” she answers ominously, gauging my reaction.
“What about him? I saw his canceled appointment, but the notes were empty.”
“There’s been an accident.” She hesitates, holding up her hands to put quotation marks around the word accident.
“What do you mean?” I press, hoping for a straight answer before the relentless what-ifs invading my brain take me somewhere bad.
“Trevor was admitted to the hospital. His father brought him in, saying he had tripped and fallen. But there were signs of intense bruising on his body that couldn’t be accounted for with a fall. He was unconscious for a few hours, and CPS was called once he woke up. Unfortunately,Trevor corroborated his father’s story, and there was nothing CPS could do. His father took him out of the hospital against medical advice a few hours later. Because they couldn’t get Trevor to say there was any abuse occurring, children’s services moved on. You know how short-staffed they’ve been in Williamson County lately,” Dawn explains, setting a hand on my forearm before walking away and leaving me enveloped in the silence of the room. The only other sound is the low hum of the refrigerator as I try to let my thoughts catch up with one another.
I walk in a trance back to my desk as all the thoughts hit me at once.
Unaccounted-for bruising all over.
He fell and was unconscious for hours.
His father took him out of the hospital AMA.
My thoughts swarm me from all sides as my breathing quickens and I clutch my chest. I take gasping breaths as I double over in the middle of the hallway. I grab at my chest as it tightens, constricting my throat. My vision blackens and next thing I know is the floor meets my face. After some time when my breathes come easier and the trembling in my hands stops, I drag myself off the floor in a daze. The guilt is heavy in my stomach.
What have I done? Was it because I called? Did I do this?
I reach my office without knowing how I got there, walking on autopilot. I grab my keys and phone from my desktop before storming out. I hurry by Dawn’s desk without a word. I hear someone call after me, but I can’t hear them through the red-hot rage filling my mind.
The thought of Trevor being so unsafe he broke his arm and was knocked unconscious within the span of a few weeks—no one is that clumsy. All those marks and bruiseswere my fault. I saw what was happening to him, and I didn’t call sooner.
What if something worse had happened to him?
What if he never woke up from his “fall”?
