by Renee Porter
“I wrote those books to try to give myself a sense of comfort. To really know that I had done the right thing to let you to go…and I began to release the regret of losing you out shadowed the fact that you were living your dream.” I ducked my head to my hands as I rubbed my face. “The only problem was I could let the regret go but I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I wouldn’t even go see your movies, did you know that? Just seeing your picture made my stomach flip, so I hid from you. And then I saw the last one and I just…I knew that this was the way that the story should end. Because Blake shouldn’t have let her go, he should have asked Holly to stay with him. Just like how I should’ve asked you to stay as well.”
I had done it. I had told Maddie the whole story and my chest felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off of it. I didn’t know what to expect but it definitely wasn’t what I saw Maddie do. Instead of Maddie speaking, saying something, even just one word to acknowledge what I had just told her, she turned away from me, closed her window and then the curtains, and then the lights. I sat there, staring at where she once was and the tears fell like rain. I should have known she wouldn’t react kindly to the knowledge that I had hid my feelings from her. I broke her heart that night and it was intentional. How does someone trust you after that?
“B?” The soft voice of my mother came through my closed door as I wiped away the tears quickly. I didn’t want to open it, knowing she would ask questions of why I was crying.
“Yeah?” I cleared my throat as it croaked.
“Maddie is at the door, thought I should let you know.” I heard my mother walk back to her room as I quickly stood. Not allowing my brain to overthink anything I opened my door and ran down the dark stairway. I don’t know how my brain was telling my body to move. I felt numb and if it weren’t for my eyes registering the movement of my quickening pace I would think that I was paralyzed.
I found Maddie standing on the porch, her eyes downcast and her arms held around her chest, as if she was holding herself. When she heard my shuffling feet she looked up, her expression still as blank as I saw a few minutes ago.
I stepped out on the porch with her as I closed the door behind me, not wanting my mother to hear. She would already give me the third degree tomorrow morning but right now I didn’t want any interruptions.
“Hi,” I whispered. Maddie glanced up at me and opened her mouth but closed it again. She looked over my shoulder, around the porch, anywhere but at me.
“Maddie…” I tried but she held up her hand for me to stop. She finally took a chance and looked at me.
“I can’t even tell you how I feel right now. Everything you just said…” she shook her head. “I need time to let it sink in.”
I nodded my head, still keeping my silence at her upturned palm. I would give her all the time she needed. I wanted to ask her why she came over here to tell me this. I wanted to ask why she was at my doorstep when all she had to do was tell me from across the large Oak but I wasn’t about to say anything more. I think I wreaked enough havoc on her heart for a while.
And then when I thought she was going to turn and leave she instead took a step forward and then another and another. I took a deep breath in as her body almost became flush with mine. Her eyes darted to mine and then they softened as her own breath stilled in the night air. Finally she let out a deep sigh as she closed the remaining distance, placing the softest of kisses on my lips. It was so sincere, so intense that the contrasting feelings warred inside of me. I responded into the kiss but allowed her to take control, afraid that any movement would wake me from this dream. And as fast as it had started the kiss ended, leaving me with the purest sense of wanting more. She placed her head on my forehead breathing in my breath, taking it from my lungs and me giving it to her willingly.
“Good night,” I heard her whisper. My brain barely registered the words. Barely registered her taking a step back and turning away from me. Barely registered her walking off of the porch and back to her house. And then finally, when my senses came to and I realized she was no longer there something inside of me broke. I flashed back to Maddie walking away ten years ago, and although tonight had ended in a kiss I realized I never wanted to watch her walk away from me again. So with the last ounce of will I had in me left, I forced my legs to move. Forced my lungs to breathe and forced my heart to beat.
“Maddie, wait!” I caught her halfway to her house, her eyes twinkling with the street lights. She waited for me, standing there in her stunning beauty. And without saying a word I brought my lips to hers again. While Maddie’s kiss was soft and sincere, mine held nothing back. Everything I had ever felt for Maddie was in that kiss. The love, the hurt, the longing. When I slowed for a moment to catch my breath she drew me in closer, her lips finding mine again. I moaned deeply when I felt her tongue graze mine and at the sound of her own throaty groan my knees buckled. Never had I felt anything akin to this. I was grounded, yet soaring, the stars in my eyes more brilliant than anything I had seen in the night sky.
I finally peeled away from her, disconnecting my lips but still holding her. So many words were on my tongue but the taste of her vanished any thought. All I wanted to do was keep kissing her but I knew that we eventually had to stop or the neighbors would see more than I was willing to show.
A heartbeat later we were kissing again. I hadn’t realized that we had made it to her door, then to the inside of her foyer and then to the living room couch. I felt Maddie all over me, her hands impossibly touching everywhere as if there were hundreds of them. I breathed in every one of her breaths, our hearts pounding in time with the rhythm our bodies were unknowingly dancing to. Her body was so soft, so strong under my own and as she moaned yet again as my hips slipped between her legs my sudden need faltered to something more urgent. I pulled away in a haze, gazing down at the impossibly dark green eyes that held me in their lock.
“Maddie…” I breathed out and placed my ear on her chest, listening to the erratic beating of her heart. When both of our breathing returned and the vibrations of our hearts settled into a slow rhythm I looked up. The fog seemed to have cleared and I sat up, chewing on my bottom lip, so many questions needing to be said.
“Aren’t you upset?” Probably not the best way to start a conversation after the heated session we just experienced. I closed my eyes and berated myself for my stupidity. My eyelids fluttered open at the feeling of Maddie’s soft fingers caressing my cheek. Just like her words had done to me for years, the touch was only but a whisper but I felt it deep in the pit of my stomach.
“I’m furious, sad, scared…” I traced her green eyes that had returned to somewhat of her normal color. The water starting to pool in them let me know that my words had hit her hard but they had still needed to be said. “…relieved.” Her face broke out into a small smile and I didn’t try to hold back my own.
“I didn’t want to upset you, I just needed you to know. If there was ever a chance for us, I needed you to know that I’ve felt this way since I met you, not just when you returned.” I tilted my head hoping that she believed me. Hoping that she would understand why I needed to tell her about the past and just how much I had wanted her then; just how much I wanted her now.
She adjusted her body to sit upright on the couch, exhaling a breath of confusion or relief or something else that I couldn’t quite place. I knew Maddie, but in a way I didn’t as well. I could tell she was battling her emotions but what those emotions were an enigma.
She stood without words and I followed her form as she made her way to the kitchen. I took the time to settle my own body and hoped that my temperature would lower from the feverish intensity that I still felt rushing through my veins. How many times did I feel this with another woman? I tried to place the last time I was intimate with someone but the experience fell short of any feeling that I just had with Maddie. Hell, just being in her presence fell short of any intimate moment with a woman. Kissing her blew those emotions out of the water. I couldn’t imagine ho
w much stronger I would feel when it led to more. If. I shook my head. If it led to more.
I couldn’t assume so much anymore, that was something that I knew I had to change about myself. Sure Maddie had responded to my kiss and touches but I didn’t give her much chance not to. I basically attacked her after she said she needed time and now I was sitting alone, stewing in my own thoughts, not knowing if this was just a fleeting moment in a dream I had cooked up in my head.
“Don’t think too hard, please. I’d rather talk to you than see you run out of here afraid that you’ve done something wrong.” Maddie returned holding two hot cups of coffee. Handing me one I thanked her, amazed at how well she could read me, even after all this time.
“So I haven’t?” I whispered over my sip of coffee and then spoke in a clearer voice, “Done something wrong?”
Maddie turned towards me, our knees barely touching on the couch that we had just been laying on, where her mouth and hands were doing devilish things that I couldn’t even explain. The thought back to that moment made my cheeks blush and I took another sip of coffee willing the feeling to return to normal so that I could at least be present for this conversation.
“You can hardly do anything wrong, B. Although, you not telling me how you felt…well that was something that came out of left field. You were very convincing. Maybe you should have been the actress.” Her eyes lowered to her mug as she traced the rim of it with her finger.
“I was young, Maddie. I didn’t know what was right or wrong at the time.” I placed my free hand on her knee, the warmth of her settling within me. “All I knew was what you wanted to be in life and I didn’t want to hold you back. I couldn’t see you wanting to stay with some awkward girl who was still in high school.”
“I don’t remember an awkward girl. Just someone who was funny and selfless and honest.” She made sure to say that last part with inflection to make her point. “But I guess I could have been more forthcoming too. Instead of waiting until the morning I left to tell you how I felt. I put you in a position that you weren’t ready for and I’m sorry I did that to you.” She inhaled deeply. “You don’t know how many times I kicked myself for coming out to you like that. I should have done it when I started to have feelings for you.”
“When was that?” I was interested. When did Maddie start liking me? A brief image of her braiding my hair and telling me I was beautiful ran through my mind. Surely it couldn’t have been then, when I was chubby and stroppy and all together a stick in the mud.
“It was gradual,” she shrugged her shoulder. “I think it really set in when that girl asked you out.”
My smile slowly made an appearance. Still after all this time she said ‘that girl’. “Regan you mean?” I raised an eyebrow as Maddie waved her hands, wiping away the name from the air.
“Yeah, her. She was so…I don’t know. Out there. And I didn’t trust her and I just remember feeling utterly helpless that you had said yes to her and how you probably wouldn’t say yes to me. Especially if she was your type. I couldn’t compete with that.”
My eyes softened as I remembered Maddie constantly asking me if Regan was my type. I had always just thought she was being protective of me. Not once had I imagined it was because she thought I wouldn’t be interested in her more feminine looks.
“And I had broken up with her because I didn’t think it was fair to be in a relationship with someone when I had feelings for someone else.”
Maddie’s mouth was slightly agape. “Am I right to assume that person was me?”
I rolled my eyes as I took a small decorative pillow and threw it at Maddie. She chuckled as she grabbed it, along with my hand. Her eyes darkened as I placed the coffee mug on the table next to her own. I leaned over Maddie, placing her hair behind her ear, allowing me to see the stunning green of those eyes. She was so strikingly beautiful that my soul ached. How had I gone this long not being able to look at her like this with such open intensity?
I closed the last remaining distance with a short, soft kiss to her lips. When I pulled back she placed her hand on my cheek.
“I take it you’re sleeping in your own bed tonight?” Her raspy voice sent a shiver from the top of my spine down to my toes. I wanted to take her up on her unspoken offer but I knew we both needed time to let what was happening to sink in.
“You know my rule. No sleeping over on school nights.” She smiled at me and nodded and I sat up, standing from the couch and holding my hand out to her. “Walk me to the door?”
And she did while giving me a proper good night and making me feel like throwing caution to the wind and giving into my desires to feel her body under me; on top of me. And as I made my way home and up to my room, careful to not wake my mother, I looked out across my still opened blinds and caught Maddie staring back. I felt warm, protected, elated. Nothing could touch me now.
Chapter 13
How to date a celebrity? Was I really typing this into Google? I click ‘search’ as I looked at the clock. I had twenty minutes before my class started but still kept a close eye on the door. The last thing I wanted was to have someone surprise me by walking in early and see what I was researching. How would you explain that, B?
The results were staggering to say the least. Over two hundred thousand hits on one simple sentence. Did that many people actually have experience dating a celebrity? I doubted it but I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.
The first few articles I read through were about quite popular celebrities and their wives or significant others. If I had thought that researching the topic would make me feel less anxious about the implications of dating Maddie then I was wrong. One thought seemed to stick out at me. You’re not in a relationship with the person. You’re in a relationship with the world. If your significant other is a celebrity, get ready to deal with your personal life being on front stage. You’re no longer just someone on the street, now you’re in a life where everyone knows everything about you, sometimes better than you know yourself.
I closed the laptop, staring out into the empty classroom. My mind had wistfully gone to last night with Maddie’s hands roaming my back and her lips touching my own. It didn’t dawn on me until this morning that I wasn’t just dating Maddie, the woman next door. When I received a call from Liz Tierney something clicked into place.
“Sony just announced the new movie and if the book reviews are anything to judge what the movie is going to be like, then your friend is going to have a long and healthy career. They are even talking possible Oscar nominations.”
Liz’s voice was thrilled and ecstatic and although I was happy that everything was going well I didn’t want to think about the implications of what this would do to our relationship. Relationship? You don’t have a label yet. You’ve barely kissed her that doesn’t make you her girlfriend.
So how do you date a celebrity that has managed to keep her personal life out of the media by not even having one? Earlier I had wanted to call Maddie and ask her out on a date. But what would that mean? Could we go out to the movies? Go to dinner? Could we hold hands and kiss and pretend like there wasn’t a possibility that she would end up in some tabloid about her exploits with a school teacher from the valley?
“Hi, Ms. Montgomery.” The sudden greeting from one of my students almost made me spill my coffee. I saved myself from smiling back and saying good morning to the trickling of students coming into the classroom. The twenty minutes that I once had was now only down to five but the bodies in the class let me know that I wouldn’t even have that to allow me the comfort of worrying. I guess that would have to wait until after school.
***
“For your final project,” I waited until the cheers and applause died down. Next week was the last day of summer school and I knew the kids were excited to have two free weeks before the school semester started again. “I want you to write a controversial subject and your stance on that subject and turn it into me. You have five minutes to come up with something, start now
.” I watched the students quickly jot down on their papers. Bryan Donnelly who had to retake my class this summer for drop failing last semester was the first one to bring his paper up. I didn’t want to look down at it, afraid of what I would see. For those first few weeks after Maddie’s talk to the students, Bryan had been on his best behavior, but even that seemed to wear off as the days passed. I gathered all of the student projects and paper clipped them, placing them on my desk.
“So now that I have every one’s topics, I’ll give you the details of what the final project is going to be.”
“Didn’t we just turn in our subjects?” Tracey stated from the front of the room. I pointed at her and smiled.
“Yes you did, but you will be arguing the opposite stance of what you wrote down.” I heard the mob groan in protest and one voice over powered the rest.
“That’s bullshit! I want to change my subject, then. I’m not arguing for gay marriage!”
“Bryan, enough with the profanity,” I looked at him sternly and he lowered in his seat slightly. “As I was saying, whatever your stance is on the subject you will be arguing the opposite. It’s important to understand that every controversial topic has two sides. This project allows you to delve deep into the side that you’re not too fond of, but gives you ways to understand why the topic is discussed as it is. These speeches are due in one week. Get to researching – have a good weekend.”
