Air is thick.
My mind is fogged.
Tell me we’re not about to lose it all.
~ Romeo’s Quest
The next few days of school were tough. I was stuck in a clouded, jaded mood. I’d hardly had any sleep because when I wasn’t thinking about Ashlyn, I was worrying about Jace. He could hurt someone. He could hurt himself. He could hurt my students. He could hurt Ashlyn.
After class with Ashlyn never looking up from her desk, I knew I should talk to her. Try to explain the situation. Right before lunch, I saw her walking with that Jake kid. He had been by her side each and every day, trying to ease his way into her heart. Trying to steal my placement. He didn’t have to try too hard though. I was merely handing it to him. I wasn’t even fighting for her…
She looked my way for a split second before she turned back to him and laughed loudly. Her hand landed on his chest, and he smirked wide. The way she flipped her hair over her shoulder and giggled for him made me sick. The way he moved in close and amused her made me pissed.
He was flirting with her, and she was flirting back.
But I knew her.
She was only flirting to make me jealous.
It was working.
Even though it was only to piss me off, I knew she liked the idea of it. Touching in public. Something I couldn’t give her. What kind of man couldn’t give his woman the love she longed for, she needed?
My fists balled up and I stepped forward, rage filling my body. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had to do something. I couldn’t just give her up, let him have her. She might not have been mine. She might have rejected the idea of us ever being us after I’d f*cked up and ignored her in some weird attempt to protect her, but…
I was hers.
Every part of me.
Every inch of my being belonged to Ashlyn Jennings.
And every time she laughed at something Jake said, every time she touched his arm and not mine, a part of me faded away. A part of me vanished.
“Ashlyn!” I called after her. She looked at me as if I were crazy, narrowing her eyes. “Can I speak to you about your paper?”
She told Jake that she would see him in class and came over to me. “What is it?”
I led her into my classroom and closed the door behind me. My fists remained and I leaned in a bit, whispering, “Why are you all over him like that?”
She crossed her arms. “None of your business,” she remarked, attitude in her tone.
I growled, running my hands through my hair. “You’re doing it to make me jealous.”
“I’m not doing anything,” she said with a sly smirk, loving the fact that she was getting under my skin.
“Yes you—” I took a breath. I lowered my voice. “Ashlyn… Now is not the time to start acting your age.”
“Are you calling me childish? Me?! The only one who seems to know that communication makes things work?” Her eyes widened at my comment and she parted her lips. “F*ck you, Mr. Daniels.”
My hands landed on her shoulders, my eyes pleading for just a moment for us to be us. “Ashlyn, it’s me. Daniel. I’m still me.”
I saw her eyes soften. She looked to the ground, and when she looked up, she was on the edge of tears. “I miss you.”
Without thinking, I crashed my mouth against hers, wrapping my hand around her neck. She kissed me back, slamming her hands against my chest. I lifted her up and pinned her against my storage closet. My hands cupped her breasts through her shirt and I heard a moan escape from her and into my mouth as I circled my thumbs over her hardened nipples. My hand wrapped against the edge of her shirt and I slid it up as she dug her fingers into my back, pushing her hips against mine.
I stopped myself when there was a pounding on my classroom door. Without thinking, I opened my storage closet and shoved Ashlyn into it.
My door opened and I saw Henry peeking his head inside. He was smiling my way. My heart landed in my throat. Had he seen me shove his daughter?
Holy shit, I shoved Ashlyn into a closet.
“Hey, Dan.”
I gave him a strained smile. “Henry, how are you?”
“Good, good. I was just wondering… Can I see you in my office real fast? About Ashlyn?”
About Ashlyn. Those words echoed in my head. The accelerated beat of my thoughts was terrifying. Everything in my body tightened. He knows. I wondered if Jace had told him, if he had really stooped to that level. Clearing my throat, I spoke. “I’m on lunch duty.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It will be fast.” A loud noise was heard from the closet and Henry raised an eyebrow. “Did you hear that?”
I started coughing harshly, trying my best to cover up the noise Ashlyn was making. “Hear something? Yeah, one of my lights needs to be changed. It’s been making a weird buzzing noise lately. Anyway, I’ll meet you down in your office in a second.”
He frowned, staring at my ceiling before he thanked me and walked away. My hands ran over my face, trying to shake myself from my own nerves. I opened the closet and Ashlyn stepped out. I slid my hands into my pockets.
“He knows?” she whispered.
I shrugged. “It’s okay.” Her green eyes relaxed a bit. I gave her a sad grin. “We’re okay.”
“No. We’re not. You know, I imagined this before…” She shook her head. “Almost being caught in school. I thought it would be sexy and adventurous. But in all reality, you just shoved me into a closet.”
My mind was racing, trying to figure out a way to explain it to her. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“If you were caught in a relationship with a student, there might be trouble,” she muttered. “I’m so stupid.”
“Ashlyn—”
“It’s my fault, really. I live in my books. I romanticized this whole thing. But the truth is, it’s not romantic—being someone’s secret.” Her long eyelashes blinked and she shifted her weight around. “You can’t do this. You can’t pull me into your classroom again.”
“I know!” I shouted a hair too loud, but my heart was pounding aggressively in my chest. I wanted to punch something because I was so damn confused. I hated how I couldn’t be seen with her. I hated how, when we were together, she would look at the other couples holding hands with a twitch of envy in her lips. I hated everything about our situation.
I walked to Henry’s office, where he already was, and I closed the door behind me. He took a seat behind his desk and cleared his throat. The first thing I noticed was the picture of Ryan and his sister sitting on his desk. Ashlyn and Gabby were nowhere to be found.
“Thanks for meeting with me…” He sounded nervous. A lot more nervous than a father would sound if he knew his daughter was involved with a teacher. He didn’t know. Holy shit, he didn’t know. “I wanted to ask you for a favor.”
I arched an eyebrow and sat back in my chair. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, as you know…” He lifted a picture frame that was facing him and stared at it. When he sat it back down, I got a glimpse of it—the twins. They’d been there all along, facing toward Henry. “Ashlyn is my daughter. She’s been going through a lot with the loss of her sister…”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered and meant it.
He cleared his voice and strained to get his words out. “Thank you. But the thing is, Ashlyn’s mom is dealing with some personal issues and needed space. So Ashlyn came to stay with me. Her mom, Kim, just called me and told me that a letter came from Ashlyn’s dream college in California. They are asking for one more letter of recommendation. She’s just been through so much...”
California.
The word played over and over in my head. It ran across my skin, trampling me with the truth behind it.
I nodded slowly, wanting to rush out of his office to find Ashlyn and hold her. I wanted to tell her that she couldn’t go. That she could stay with me. That after the school year, we could be together. But I couldn’t. Henry continued.
“And I know this may be out of line but…I don’t think she can handle another letdown. It’s too much. I plan to tell her about the letter later this week. But do you think—only if you feel like you can—do you think you could write her a letter of recommendation? Again, you do not have to. I just need her to have more ups than downs.”
I placed my hands on the edge of his desk. Could I write her a letter to help her get into her dream college in California? My throat dried and a sharp sting hit my eyes. I blinked repeatedly, wanting to scream, “No! She can’t go! She can’t leave me!”
My eyes shut again. And when they reopened, I said okay. I agreed to help send Ashlyn away to live her own life.
“It would be my honor.”
When I turned toward Ashlyn’s lunch table, she was looking my way. A sigh of relief left her lips as she realized that everything would be fine with Henry. My feet led me to her table, where Ryan and Hailey were eating with her.
“Hey, Mr. D, you joining us for lunch?” Ryan joked.
I smiled and shook my head. “Ah, no. On a scale of one to inappropriate…that would be at the top of the charts.” I saw Ashlyn lightly laugh at my comment, which made everything feel right. I missed that sound so f*cking much. “Ashlyn, I’m supposed to take you to the assistant principal’s office.” Hailey asked why. I appeared stumped. “Don’t know. He just asked for her.”
“Maybe Henry saw the hickey,” Ryan smirked.
I watched as Ashlyn’s cheeks blushed over and she combed her hair down against her neck. She stood up from her seat, grabbed her backpack, and followed me out of the lunchroom.
“Follow me,” I whispered to her.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
I turned and saw the confusion in her eyes. A sad inquiry dwelled in her gaze. “Do you trust me?”
She released a breath. Her beautiful full lips turned up.
Yet she didn’t follow me.
She walked beside me, our footsteps in perfect sync.
We traveled down a stairway, which led us to another staircase, leading to the basement. The space was completely silent, minus the pipes and storage closest that held all the power switches inside. We walked to a dark corner where a few unhinged doors lay against a gated area.
I lifted the door that was blocking the entrance to the gated area and moved it out of the way. Ashlyn lowered the book that was held to her chest and we stepped into the area.
“What did Henry want?” she wondered out loud.
I hesitated to tell her. I didn’t want to say the words, because if I did, that would mean that California was actually a choice.
“You um…” Shit. “You applied to a school in California?” I posed as a question.
Her eyes widened and she turned quickly away from me. Jittery, her body shook. “University of Southern California. Gabby made me apply. I didn’t think I would get in.” She whipped back around, her long blond hair flying across her face. “I got in?”
I saw it—the look of pure joy in her face. Her jade eyes smiled so deep.
Gabby might have had Ashlyn apply, but it was her dream.
“They need one more letter of recommendation,” I choked out. Her expression shifted to disappointment. “Ashlyn, that’s amazing. They’re interested!” I wanted her to be happy about it again. I liked it best when she was smiling. “This is huge!”
Her lips turned up. She was unable to hold her joy. “It is huge, isn’t it? So what do you have to do with this?”
“He wants me to write it.”
“And you’ll do that?” she questioned nervously.
“Of course I will.”
“Don’t do it because of…this…” She gestured between her and me. “Don’t do it because of whatever this is. Only do it if you think I deserve it.”
I crossed my arms and shook my head back and forth. “All feelings aside, our situation out of the picture…you deserve it. You work hard, and you’re beyond gifted. You deserve it.”
Her face dropped. “What’s going on with you, Daniel? With us?”
She deserved an answer to that, yet I wasn’t sure I had a good one. “After I found out that you were my student…my mind went crazy.” I sighed. “Then my brother Jace showed up and f*cked up my world…and now I see you with other guys and it kills me, Ashlyn. It kills me that you’ve been through so much and I can’t comfort you, can’t hold you. It kills me that there are other people who can comfort you and hold you.”
She listened calmly as she placed her backpack and her book on the ground. She walked over to me and took my hands into hers. My arms wrapped around her small body and I pulled her close, breathing in her smells, her strawberry shampoo, her perfume. Her.
“I’m so mad at you,” she whispered against my chest.
I smiled slightly. “I know. I’m mad at me, too.”
Her head rose and she looked up at me, shaking her head. “No, I’m only mad at you because I know you’re trying to protect me from something. But I don’t need your protection.”
“I don’t know what to do, Ash. Everything’s a mess.”
“Talk to me about it. Let me in.”
I sighed, holding her against me. “You deserve so much more than hiding out in high school basements. You don’t deserve to be someone’s secret, Ashlyn. You deserve to be the chorus to a person’s favorite song. You deserve to be the dedication in their favorite book. And right now? Right now, I can’t offer you that. You deserve a shot at a normal senior year. I’m just complicating things.”
She pushed herself away from me, frowning. “Stop it, okay?” She looked up with tears in her eyes. “Stop telling me what I deserve. What’s good for me. What’s right for our situation. I don’t care about that stuff.” The tears rolled down her cheeks. “There’s nothing normal about my life. I have a dead twin. My mother disowned me. Hell, I find Hemingway freaking therapeutic.
“And you—you’re in a freaking band that bases their songs off of Shakespeare! Your mother was murdered and you were playing a concert seven days after your father died. We. Are. Not. Normal. I don’t want a normal senior year. I want you.
“If I learned anything these past few months, it’s that life sucks, Daniel. It sucks. It’s mean, it’s vicious, and it’s unapologetic. It’s dark and cruel. But then, sometimes, it’s so beautiful that it knocks all of that darkness out of your system with the light.
“I was so alone…” She paused and rapidly tapped her fingertips against her bottom lip. “I was so alone before I arrived at Joe’s bar. And then you sat on that stage and sang to me. You brought me the light on my darkest days. But you never open up to me. You never let me in.”
I moved over to her and brushed my thumbs underneath her eyes. “I was traveling back from Chicago when I first saw you. I went to spend a few days with my grandmother, making sure she was okay after my father’s death. I sat on that train, seconds away from falling apart. Then I looked up and saw those green eyes and I knew somehow, someway, things would be okay.” When she tilted her head up toward me, my lips glazed over hers. “You didn’t bring me the light, Ashlyn. You are the light.”
She smiled that perfect smile and laughed lightly. “Normal is overrated anyway. Bring on the freaks and weirdos.” She paused. “I don’t have to go to California. I can stay here with you after school is out. I can go to a community college and we can build up your house. We can be together.”
My head fell to the ground. I cleared my throat. What am I doing? I knew I was sending out the wrong signals to her, I knew I was confusing her. But I didn’t bring her down to the basement to reunite. My mind thought of the note Gabby had given me and the threats Jace had made. And now she was considering giving up her dream for me.
“We can’t do this anymore, Ashlyn,” I whispered.
Her eyes widened, surprised by my words. “What?”
“I can’t see you anymore.” I wondered if the words burned her as much as they were burning me.
“What are you doing, Daniel?” she questioned, stepping away from me. “You brought me down here to…to break up with me?” Her eyes glassed over, yet she didn’t let the tears fall.
I didn’t reply. I felt if I said the actual words then they would hold more truth than I was interested in succumbing to.
“Say it!” she hollered, moving over to me. She shoved me hard against the chest. “Say it! Say you don’t want to be with me!”
“Ashlyn,” I choked out. I was doing this to her; I was breaking her.
The tears started to pour out from her eyes and her body began to shake. “Say you don’t want me anymore! Say it!” she cried as she pounded against my chest. With every hit, a part of me died. With every punch, a part of her disappeared, too.
I grabbed her wrists and pulled her against me, holding her close.
“I let you in,” she sobbed against me, her fists hitting my body. “I let you in and you’re leaving me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, holding her in my arms. I tried my best to comfort her, but it felt pointless since I was the one hurting her. “I love you so much.”
“No.” She pushed herself away from my hold. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to hurt me and hold me, Daniel.” She took a deep inhale and wiped away the tears still pouring from her eyes. “That’s the first time you even said those words. You can’t say you love me and then break my heart. So say what you really need to say. Say it and I’m gone.”
I took a breath and looked down to the ground. When my eyes rose, I saw her bloodshot stare. I exhaled. “I’m breaking up with you, Ashlyn.”
She let out a small whimper before all the color was drained from her face. Her body shivered for a moment. She turned toward the exit and began to walk away. “Go to hell, Daniel.”