“I know. Five more months to go and then we’re free,” Anna said as she leaned in.
Lara met her halfway, her eyes fluttering shut as their lips parted against one another’s.
Their kiss earlier had been rushed, something they’d both been craving for months.
Now, Anna kissed her slowly, trying to savor the moment, to commit the feeling of Lara’s lips against hers to her memory.
Anna’s hand moved to the back of Lara’s head, her fingertips moving through Lara’s thick chestnut hair as she deepened the kiss.
Lara’s hand had slid underneath Anna’s sweater, sending a chill through Anna’s body.
Lara’s fingertips glided along Anna’s soft skin, running down her ribcage to caress her hips and back up again to massage her breasts through her black lace bra.
Anna didn’t know how much more of this she could take. She felt like she might implode.
“Will we go upstairs?” Anna asked as she broke their kiss. She was already out of breath.
“Let’s go.” Lara stood up and led her by the hand upstairs.
Chapter Seventeen
Anna rolled over with her eyes still shut and draped her arm across Lara’s stomach. She felt a light kiss on her forehead and slowly opened her eyes.
“Hey,” Lara said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“No. It’s okay.” Anna’s eyes finally focused on Lara as she blinked away the tiredness.
Lara was sitting up, her back resting against the headboard.
Anna covered her mouth as she tried to stifle a yawn. “I don’t want to spend the day sleeping.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Anything… Everything. I want to stay in bed… Pick up where we left off last night… Talk… But we only have a few more hours together.”
“I know what you mean,” Lara said quietly.
Anna sat up, pushing her blond hair away from her face as Lara wrapped her arm around her. Lara dipped her head to meet her lips and Anna’s hand slid up to her breast.
“Maybe we should just stay in bed,” Anna whispered between kisses. She didn’t think she could ever get enough of Lara.
Chapter Eighteen
On Monday evening when Lara walked into room 137, Anna was so tempted to cross the room and wrap her arms around her, but she didn’t.
She stayed where she was, leaning over the teacher’s desk and organizing the stories that they had for the next edition of the school paper.
Lara smiled warmly as she entered the room. “Hi…”
She looked absolutely stunning in a black dress with her rich brown hair down in lose curls. She had her hands in the pockets of her dress.
“Hey,” Anna said, returning her smile. She could feel the warmth of Lara’s hand on her arm, but it was gone a second later.
Lara seemed anxious to get down to business and Anna was happy to go over the articles that had been submitted so far.
She needed the distraction of being busy again. As soon as she’d gotten back from the cabin last night she went straight into studying.
She wanted to spend the night reliving their weekend together, but it wasn’t an option.
Anna knew she’d head into a downward spiral if she didn’t push those thoughts away.
Nothing had changed.
They still needed to keep things professional until the end of June. The weekend at the cabin had been a momentary break from reality.
“So, is that everything?” Lara asked when they’d gone over the articles that Anna had shown her.
“Yeah.” Anna met Lara’s eyes and she couldn’t quiet figure out her expression. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… Things at home aren’t great. I don’t want to get into it with you… You have enough things to worry about right now.”
“What is it?” Anna asked, lightly touching her arm.
Lara sighed. “I told Jake a few weeks ago that I wasn’t happy, but he brushed it off. Now I’ve been laying it on pretty thick and it’s pissing him off. I think I’m finally getting through to him that it’s just not going to work out between us.”
Anna nodded. “He needs time… It was probably a shock, right?”
“Yeah. I know… I just thought this would be easier.”
Anna gave her arm a light squeeze before dropping her hand. “It’ll be worth it.”
Lara nodded. “Thanks for inviting me to the cabin… It’s only been a day, but it seems like that happened weeks ago. I don’t know how I’m going to get through another four and a half months.”
“I don’t know either. I can’t believe that I won’t be able to kiss you until then,” Anna said, her eyes flickering down to Lara’s lips.
Lara met her eyes for a few seconds but had to look away. “This is torture.”
“We might be able to find another free weekend before June and sneak away,” Anna said with a lopsided smile. She was half joking. She knew Lara wouldn’t want to risk getting caught again.
“We should.” Lara reached out and covered Anna’s hand with her own. “We might even be able to stay closer to home.”
Anna’s eyebrows rose. What is she talking about?
“Jake’s schedule is crazy the next few weeks. I’ll hardly see him.”
“So, you think we could get together?” Anna asked. Lara’s fingertips were lightly stroking her palm and it was driving her insane. She needed more than that.
“Maybe… We’d have to be careful. Obviously.”
“And we’re still not communicating outside of school?” Anna asked.
“Right. You’re okay with that?”
Anna nodded. “It makes sense. So… if we were getting together… We’d talk about it here?”
“Yes.”
“Okay… At least we’ll have something to look forward to,” Anna said with a smile.
“We deserve that much at least,” Lara said as she caressed Anna’s hand one last time before letting hers fall.
Chapter Nineteen
May 2010
The last few weeks had flown by and Anna knew it was because she’d been sneaking around with Lara.
If Jake was away for a few days, Anna spent her evenings at Lara’s and had even stayed the night a few times.
They came up with a story, in case they ever got caught. Lara’s desktop computer was brand new and had software that the school didn’t. They agreed that sometimes it made sense to get their work done here.
Anna didn’t think they’d get caught though. They’d been careful all along and had never sent each other a text during the school year.
They were nearly there anyway. Just a few more weeks.
Their story really was just a story though. They never did any work when they were at Lara’s house.
The first time that Anna went to Lara’s, it felt strange. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be there. Lara was edgy too.
They curled up together on the couch and tried to watch a movie, but it didn’t take long for things to escalate.
A simple kiss would turn into a full-blown make up session.
Anna had assumed that they wouldn’t sleep together… not there. Not in Lara’s house that she shared with Jake.
That first night they took things slow and Anna guessed that was Lara’s intention... To draw the line at some point but that never happened.
They moved into the guest bedroom when their clothes started coming off, but Anna didn’t feel comfortable staying the night. She left after ten o’clock and went home, her adrenaline pumping.
That’s how things went the first few times that Anna went over to Lara’s but at some point, Anna ended up staying the night and it became normal.
A few weeks later, they were in Lara’s bed and then that became normal.
They both had little panic attacks along the way…
Maybe they should try and stop, wait until Anna graduated but a few days later they slipped back into their old routine.
Anna had lost count
of the amount of times she’d slept with Lara in her bedroom and ended up staying the night.
Anna knew she should feel guilty. She was wrecking a marriage, but she reconciled that it was already broken. Lara had made up her mind to leave, she was just taking her time doing it.
In five weeks’ time, Lara would be meeting her at their spot: the bench where they’d watched the Aurora Borealis back in August, when Anna had asked her what would happen if it were just the two of them with nothing else to consider.
That night had started it all, so they agreed to meet there on the first day of summer vacation at 8pm.
Lara said that she’d have officially ended things with Jake by then.
They’d be able to watch the sunset together, knowing that they were free to do whatever they wanted.
Chapter Twenty
June 24, 2010
Anna drove up to the look out at 7:50pm glad to see that she was the only person there. Lara would arrive any minute, hopefully with good news.
They hadn’t seen much of each other in the last three weeks. The newspaper had published its last issue at the end of May and Anna had only seen Lara from a distance since then.
Jake hadn’t been traveling for work, so they didn’t risk meeting up outside of school.
Anna got out of her car and walked over to the bench, her flip flops lightly slapping against the soles of her feet with each step.
She smiled as she thought back to that night up here almost a year ago.
She didn’t know where she’d gotten the courage to ask Lara that question. She could remember that moment like it was yesterday.
“What if it was just me and you? No one else… No other commitments… No expectations…”
Now that was their reality. There was no one else.
She sat down and watched the sun set further in the sky, resting just above the tree tops.
She listened to the birds and the crickets that had just started chirping now that the day was nearly over.
As the sun continued to set, she checked her watch. It was almost 8:15pm. Lara was usually punctual.
A few minutes later she was pacing, and she couldn’t help jumping to the conclusion that something was wrong.
She checked her watch again and it was almost 8:30pm. The sun dropped out of site and Anna wondered how long she would be willing to wait.
They had agreed not to use their phones during the school year, but Anna had graduated now.
She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her jean shorts and tried to call Lara but there was no answer.
Thirty minutes later, Anna was sitting in the dark. She typed a message to Lara and hit send.
Hi. Hope everything went okay. I’m heading home now. Call me x
She didn’t want to say too much in the text just in case Jake or someone else saw it, but she didn’t want Lara to arrive here a few minutes later and think she’d been stood up.
I’ve been stood up though…
Anna got into her car and drove home. She tried not to get upset.
There had to be an explanation and they’d probably laugh about it all tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-One
June 27, 2010
Anna had been on edge all weekend, jumping every time her phone made a noise. But it was never Lara.
Anna called her a few times since she’d text her Thursday night, but Lara never answered.
She drove by Lara’s house yesterday and saw that both her and Jake’s cars were in the driveway. She did the same again this morning too and they were both still there.
She didn’t want to turn into a stalker, but Lara wasn’t answering her calls and she didn’t know what to do.
She knew that ending things with Jake was going to be hard but that didn’t mean that Lara had to completely ignore her. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen.
Anna was leaving for UCLA in six weeks and she hadn’t talked to Lara about it.
She knew that Lara would be expecting her to go to college and she’d known that UCLA was always an option, but it was really happening now.
In six weeks, Anna would be moving three thousand miles away to the opposite side of the country.
She wanted to spend every moment she could with Lara this summer, but she was slamming her head against a brick wall.
She just couldn’t understand it.
What could have possibly happened that Lara couldn’t call her back?
Even if… Worst case scenario… Lara doesn’t want to go through with it…
Couldn’t she at least call me and tell me that?
Anna threw herself into researching UCLA and trying to line up a part-time job for when she got there.
Her parents could see that she was stressed but they assumed it was just the normal worries about leaving home for the first time and starting something new.
That was true but ninety percent of it was Lara.
She hadn’t seen this coming. She thought that the week or two after she’d graduated would be difficult but only because everything was new.
They were going to be an actual couple for the first time and Anna was going to come out to her parents.
Lara had been looking at apartments and thinking ahead to where she wanted to live when she moved out of their house. Everything was going to be changing.
Except it wasn’t. Not in the way that Anna had imagined.
Now, she was being ignored and Anna didn’t know how much more she could take.
That night she decided to give Lara a week. If she didn’t hear from Lara by Saturday, that was it. She wasn’t going to call or text her anymore.
If Lara hadn’t gotten back to her by Saturday, Anna was leaving.
She had no reason to spend the summer here other than to be with Lara and with every day that went by that looked less and less likely.
Chapter Twenty-Two
July 5 th , 2010
Anna had let her parents convince her to stay for the fourth of July. She wanted to get going, to book her flight to Los Angeles but they wanted her to stay for a family barbeque.
Her brothers and their families came home this year to say goodbye to Anna. She put on a brave face, but she couldn’t enjoy herself.
She was on the verge of tears several times yesterday, thinking about last year and how she had spent the day with Lara, getting to know her.
Lara still hadn’t text her back. No phone calls either.
Anna’s deadline had come and gone so she booked a flight to Los Angeles.
She couldn’t wait to get out of there. Everything reminded her of Lara.
She needed to start over. She wasn’t going to chase after Lara and wait around for her to change her mind.
Something had happened. She must have changed her mind, but Anna would have thought that she’d have had the decency to tell her to her face rather than leave her wondering like this.
Now she was waiting to board the plane and she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder, half expecting a dramatic scene from a movie to unfold before her eyes.
She wished Lara would come storming through the crowd, pushing people aside, to reach Anna before she left but she wasn’t there.
Anna hadn’t exactly told her she was leaving. She could have figured it out if she wanted to though.
Anna had put up a post on Facebook and Instagram of her packing and of her waiting in the airport. Lara could have said goodbye, but she hadn’t.
Anna got on the plane, promising herself that when she landed, she would start over and forget about Lara.
She wouldn’t regret the time they’d spent together. It had been amazing.
She’d discovered who she really was this last year. Yes, she would have figured it out eventually, but Lara had made it so easy.
But she had to move on.
Anna promised herself that she was going to enjoy college. She wasn’t going to mope around, checking her phone, waiting for Lara to change her mind.
Part Two
> Chapter Twenty-Three
September 4, 2016
Anna Cooper stood in front of her old high school, the red brick exterior looking much the same as it had seven years ago.
In two days’ time, she would be teaching her first English class here, probably in a classroom that she’d once sat in.
She stood there in jean shorts and a black tank top wondering where the last seven years went.
She’d be lying to herself is she said that she wasn’t nervous. She was absolutely petrified.
When she left this small town behind, she was eighteen and she thought she knew exactly what she wanted.
She was going to study journalism at UCLA and work for a major newspaper, maybe even travel the world while doing so but at some point in her first year of college things weren’t working out the way she had imagined.
She started thinking about teaching. She’d been volunteering to help tutor high school students in the evenings and she loved it.
She transferred to Penn and back to the east coast, only a few hours from home.
Now she was back to her old high school, to small town life, to all the things she couldn’t wait to leave behind when she was eighteen.
Anna took a deep breath and made her way into the building, a light breeze blowing her blond hair away from her face.
She hadn’t set foot inside the school since she graduated and as she pushed the door open, seeing the familiar brick walls and the packed trophy cabinets brought back a lot of memories.
Her time here had been pretty forgettable really.
She’d been a better than average student and played several sports. She hadn’t been popular, but she’d had a group of friends that she’d spent most of her four years here with.
There was only one thing… one person that had made her senior year here one of the best of her life. She didn’t know if she was still teaching here or if she even cared if she was.
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