Everything is fine. So why do I feel like crying?
I don’t even realize class is over until I hear the screech of chairs shifting across the cement floor. People are murmuring and packing up their bags, ready to leave.
Emma puts her hand on my shoulders. “Hey, you ready to go?”
“Yeah. Yes. Let me pack up.”
I’ve just put my notebook in my backpack and picked up my winter gear when I hear my name called.
“Miss Robinson, I’d like to see you after class.”
I gulp as I hear Thomas use his formal, curt voice. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to confront him today. I tell Emma to go ahead without me and she leaves with Dylan. The class is almost empty as I shuffle to Thomas’ desk, leaving my belongings behind.
He watches me with open fascination, his arms folded across his chest. I glance up at him and catalog the separate parts of his appearance. Maroon shirt paired with black jeans. Wild hair. Glinting eyes. Sleek lines of his jaw. Thumb grazing his lower lip in soft caresses. I want to both keep looking at him and escape from his masculine beauty. It’s too soothing and too overwhelming for my senses.
This is the second time he’s stopped me after class. The first time he told me I had a crush on him, which turned out to be true. I wonder what he’ll say now.
“How did you like the class today, Miss Robinson?”
Busted. I wasn’t paying attention—he knows it, I know it, but still I keep up the charade. “Great, as usual.”
“Is that right?”
I nod, keeping my gaze on the desk.
“Remember what I said, Layla?” His powerful, rich voice creates a buzz inside my body. “Lying might land you in trouble.”
I lift up my eyes to look at him. The buzz escalates into a restless trembling and words slip out of my mouth in a thick whisper. “I’m not afraid of a little trouble.”
His thumb arcs in a long sweep across his lip, before he straightens his arms and thrusts them in his pockets. The silence between us has a certain drama to it. Thomas is preparing to unveil something. My pulse is pounding.
“Who’s Caleb?”
My breath tangles up in my throat and all I can do is gasp. It’s both quiet and loud, a breeze and a gust.
How does he know that name?
The name of the boy I love in Thomas’ low, thick voice sounds wrong. Caleb is so gentle, so soft. His name needs to be spoken quietly, with reverence. He is nothing like Thomas—or me, for that matter.
Thomas frowns when I don’t say anything. “Did he do something to you?”
“What?” The idea is so insane that I can only stand there and mutter useless words.
“The guy who called you yesterday,” he explains. “Did he do something to you? Did he hurt you in some way?”
I shake my head once, still reeling from the fact that Thomas knows anything about Caleb. “It’s none of your business.”
It’s a default response, but instead of coming out commanding, my voice wobbles and distorts into a broken whisper. It is none of his business. It’s no one’s business what happened with Caleb.
Even as I think it, confession balloons up in my chest and rushes into my mouth. For a split second, I entertain the thought of telling him. Everything. Every single thing.
It’s a novel feeling, completely alien and terrifying. I can’t. I can’t tell him what I did. He’ll hate me. But I like that. I need the accusation. Someone to remind me that I deserve to be shunned by my own mother. Tell me how bad I am, how pathetic and sick and insane.
God, I am so confused.
“I’m leaving,” I tell him, because if I don’t leave, I’ll spill all my secrets.
I make to go but his fingers clamp around my wrist, stopping me from moving. This is the second time he’s touched me. Skin to skin. This time around it isn’t as shocking, but it’s still as vibrant. A boom in the air, and then all falls silent. The world goes mute before it starts back up. I know the door is open. I know there are people in the vicinity. I know he shouldn’t be holding my hand this way, but I don’t care. I can’t…
Like him, his fingers are magic.
Thomas tugs me toward him, forcing my pelvis against the desk. The edge bites into my bone but I don’t wince. I lean into it.
“What’d he do to you?” he asks again, harshly. The lines of his beautiful face are stiff and there is a severe glint in his eyes. He is angry—at what? Maybe it’s there on my behalf. It’s such a sweet delusion.
I can’t help but feel warm as I shake my head at him. “Nothing.”
“Layla,” he warns.
His raspy voice, like his touch, is a form of hypnosis. My body relaxes, gives in. My rationality is trapped under the rubble of my languid, obedient muscles.
“He just…he didn’t love me. Ever.”
“And you loved him?” His fingers flex over my wrist, gripping even tighter. Does he realize how tight he is holding me? What does my skin feel like to him?
“Yes.” I loved him. Do I still love him, though? I don’t know. I’ve been in pain and agony for so long that I can’t really tell.
The angles of Thomas’ face shift. He looks at me in a way he never has before, in a new light, maybe. I bask in it, even though I don’t deserve his fresh eyes.
I’m like you, I want to say.
A fleeting thought enters my mind: maybe I was always meant to find him, to find this symmetry to my disfigured soul. Maybe I was always meant to find Emma and Dylan too. I was meant to pick up their tiny broken hearts and patch them back up. I wonder how I can help Thomas do that, how can I mend his cracked heart.
Licking my lips, I tell him, “I’m the one who hurt him.”
His blue gaze smolders, as if my words are gasoline, stoking the flame. “What did you do?”
“I forced him to sleep with me.”
There. I said it. It’s out there. Thomas remains silent, waiting for me to explain.
“We were at this party. He was, actually. I just went there to see him. He was leaving for college the next month and I was desperate. I’d always loved him but he never returned my feelings. So I, uh, got him drunk.” I cringe but keep going. “B-But that’s not all. I got him high, too, and I lied about it. I told him it was just a cigarette but it wasn’t, and…and then I took advantage of him.”
I remember the dazed look in Caleb’s eyes as he kept shooting me lazy smiles. That was the night his touch lingered on me. He caressed my cheeks while talking. His arms looped around my waist as we danced. We’d never danced so close to each other before. I could hear his racing heartbeat and for those few seconds, I pretended it was for me and not because of the marijuana and the liquor.