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“Self-preservation. It’s how she works. But when she’s pushing you away, that just means she wants you to hold on tighter.”
“That would make me a stalker.”
She shook her head. “It’s different for us. The moment she starts to get happy, she finds a dozen reasons to run away, when, in all honesty, she’s just afraid of one thing; that if you really tried to get know her, the good, the bad and the awful, you’ll walk away. She likes you, and that probably scares the hell out of her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m scared of all the same things.”
I shook my head, as I accepted the coffee the waitress gave to me, and took a deep breath.
“So what you’re saying is that I should keep chasing after her like a dog?”
I couldn’t do it. My pride just wouldn’t let me do it.
“What I’m saying is, if you can’t handle her, all of her, then walk away now and never contact her again. You’re just going to hurt her, and she’s all alone here, living in Margaret’s house, because we can’t afford to live anywhere else in the city. She walks around like nothing hurts her, but there’s only so much a person can take before they snap.”
“You said she was happy? How do you know?”
“She hummed. She danced to 80s music, and stole my guitar... all in the same week. She’s never been as happy as she was that last week of summer, and she was doing well, until I saw her face last night. I couldn’t just leave without seeing you first.”
“And now that you’ve met me?”
“I’ll save my judgments for a later date, so be sure to stick around for that,” she said, smiling.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Be there long enough, and she’ll come to you. Until then, just watch out for her, okay? I can’t be there for her, so if you can… if you want…”
She shrugged and struggled to find the words to say.
I nodded. “I got it. You really watch out for her.”
“We’re all the family we’ve got left… you should see the things she does for me.”
She stood up, digging in her bag for change.
“I got it.”
“Thanks.” She smiled. “Oh and we never, ever, ever had this conversation. She would kill me—she’d kill us.”
I nodded, and with that, she left.
After spending a week with her, and watching her in class, Thea was an open book to me. She wore all her emotions on her face, and even when she was trying not to, I could still read her as plain as day. The problem was that she was a city surrounded by walls; you could see it from a distance, but there was no front gate and no way to get in.
It was obvious that Selene had no idea that I was her sister’s professor, and I wondered what she would think of the situation then. I wasn’t just her sister’s lover, and I legitimately couldn’t stay away from her until the term ended.
I need something stronger than coffee.
THEA
“Well look who decided to come back to class,” Atticus called from the classroom door. “And here I thought dethroning you was going to be hard. I was all prepared last class too.”
Walking up to him, I smiled wide before I pulled out the notice. “Atticus Michael Logan, born March 27th, to Mary-Ann and Governor Jacob Logan of Greenville, South Carolina. You have two older sisters, and three younger brothers. You favorite team is the Dallas cowboys, and wait—”
He grabbed at me, and pulled me from the doorway, and away from his buddies, but that didn’t stop me.
“Now this can’t be right,” I said in my best southern accent, “but it says here, that you’re a registered republican and yet you’ve been donating to democrats. You must have broken your poor mama’s heart. Oh no, that can’t be right either, here you are, posing with your father, Governor Rick Perry and Senator Ted Cruz, aren’t they republicans? You’re a closet democrat, aren’t you? You put so much effort in hiding to help your father’s campaign. I hear he dreams of being the president one day. It would be a shame if your family found out, or worse yet, if other people found out that you’re just a fraud who’s trying to rattle people’s cages so that you can swoop in for the kill.”
