Worse still, she had no idea of my conflict. I tossed my sketchpad on her bed.
Hands in my pockets, I feigned fascination with the room décor and felt her stare trace over me – from the worn shitkickers on my feet to the nondescript hoodie and the ring in my lip. Part beach bum, part redneck, part perfected don’t f**k with me front – I was nothing like her preppy ex, for all that I could have been him, once upon forever ago. I thought nothing of what I wore then, or what it cost. The labels Kennedy Moore and his upper middle class bros sported wouldn’t have impressed my middle-school comrades, whose parents were influential lobbyists, senators and CEOs of multimillion-dollar associations.
I’d never be intimidated by a boy flaunting his parents’ money; I knew how fast it could all disappear, especially when it wasn’t yours to begin with. This was a truth I’d learned, and learned hard: if you wanted something out of life, you had to depend on yourself to get it. And to keep it.
As Jacqueline’s gaze ran over my face, I continued my sham inspection of her dorm room while in my head, I visualized the distracted expression she sometimes wore during Heller’s lectures: eyes unfocused and unmoving, fingers tapping against her leg or her desktop, plucking invisible strings.
I had been drawn to her for weeks but kept my distance until the night I became her protector. Like that Chinese proverb that says if you save a life, you’re responsible for that person forever – I couldn’t seem to let her dust herself off and go on. Not when I didn’t believe for one second she had the tools to protect herself. Maybe I hadn’t saved Jacqueline’s life that night – but I’d saved her from something that would have stolen a piece of her soul. I was consumed with watching over her, and to do that effectively, I needed to know her better.
At least that’s the trumped-up story I told myself.
I caught her eyes on mine as I turned, and let my gaze skip to the small speakers on her desk. She was listening to a band I’d seen last month. I asked her if she’d gone to the show, and surprisingly, she nodded. I hadn’t seen her there – but then, I hadn’t known to look for her. I gave her some excuse about alcohol and how dark it was. If I’d known she was there, no amount of beer or darkness would have kept me from finding her.
Best not to disclose that.
I pulled off my cap and hoodie, tossing them on her bed and attempting to compose my expression before turning back to her. She’d probably been there with her boyfriend, anyway, while I’d gone with Joseph.
‘Where do you want me?’ she asked, and my mind blanked momentarily and then filled with images I couldn’t say. She blushed as though she heard them anyway, her lips falling open, unable to take back the coquettish question she’d obviously not meant as a seduction tactic.
I cleared my throat and suggested the bed, matching her unintentional come-on with one of my own. Shoving my hoodie and cap off her comforter as she sat, I reminded my resurrected hormones that there were a million reasons Jacqueline Wallace was not for me, starting with the fact that I was basically lying to her about who I really was, and ending with the knowledge that girls like her didn’t fall for guys who looked like me.
But she didn’t have to fall, did she, for me to be the boy she slummed with? Her bad-boy phase. Her rebound. God help me, I was all too willing.
She stared at me with wide, apprehensive eyes, and I wanted to calm her, to gentle her with my hands. Instead, I found myself telling her we didn’t have to do this if she didn’t want to. I waited for her to release that pent-up breath she was holding and tell me this was a mistake. Part of me hoped for those words, because then I could backpedal before I made the monumental mistake of compromising my integrity in too many ways to count.
But I wouldn’t leave unless she told me to. Not while my head was full of nothing but wanting to move closer to her.
‘I want to,’ she said softly, her body still rigid, like one of my wooden sketch models – bendable at the joints but otherwise inflexible. Her declaration didn’t correspond with her posture, but I didn’t know which was valid – her body or her words.
‘What position would be the most comfortable for you?’ I asked, and she blushed again, harder than she had a moment before.
I bit my lip and turned away, parking my ass on the floor several feet from her, my back against the only blank section of wall in her room. Opening the pad against my knees, I took a slow breath through my nose and cursed myself for sending that text. Even though my request to sketch her was no ploy, this private proximity was nothing short of hell. In one crashing moment, I realized that I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone before. This desire had been building for weeks, and I’d left it unchecked, because she had a boyfriend, because she was a student in a class I tutored, because she was impossible, unattainable, a fantasy and nothing more.
Then there was that night – a night that must terrify her, still – but I’d kept it from being so much worse. My hand gripped the pencil. I couldn’t credit myself for saving her and then take her as the prize, not under false pretences, not when she could never be mine.
But then, she had false pretences as well, didn’t she? I could give her what she wanted.
I told her to lie on her stomach and face me, and she obeyed.
‘Like this?’
I nodded, and my head swam. Goddamn – what had I done to myself? I had to touch her.
Unmoving, she watched as I tossed the pad and pencil to the side, coming up on my knees and closing the distance between us. She closed her eyes when I pulled my fingers through her hair, arranging it to reveal the curve of her jaw. A tiny, solitary freckle became visible just under her chin, and I forced my hand away to keep from stroking a finger over it. She opened her eyes, and I wondered if she could see the battle raging inside my skull and beneath the surface of my skin.