by Haley Pierce
I freeze as reality crashes in.
My mother.
He already has his door open, but he’s looking at me, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I forgot. I have somewhere I have to be,” I say, panic creeping into my voice. I reach for my purse and locate my phone, terror rising inside me.
There are twelve texts, and six missed calls.
“Oh, no,” I mumble. I pull the straps of my camisole into place. “Please. Take me home.”
He does as he’s told. We don’t speak after that, and I don’t blame him for being angry. But what was I thinking? I am in so much trouble, now, I don’t even know what to do. I want to tell him I’m afraid. I want to wrap those big, solid arms around him and beg him to protect me. But he can’t protect me forever. Sooner or later, I will have to go back to my mother, and the sooner I do, the easier she’ll go on me.
I hope.
I thank him for the ride when he pulls up at my door, not bothering to look back as I slam his car door. He doesn’t pull away until I’ve pushed open the front door. When I do, I call out, “Mom? Hobson?”
Carol appears in the kitchen doorway. She looks worried. “They’re gone. They had to get to the city.”
I check my phone. It’s after eight. “Did she look . . .”
Carol swallows. “She isn’t happy with you, young lady.”
I jab in a text to her. I’m home now, mom. Had a flat tire. I’m sorry.
But there is no response. I don’t know what that silence means, but it scares me more than any response she could give.
Oh, god. It means she’s more than angry. She’s furious.
I climb the stairs to my bedroom, drained of every one of the wonderful emotions I’d felt when I was with Dr. Hill.
Now, there is only dread.
I do everything right. I clean my room. Clean the bathroom, even though we have a maid to do that. Do the extra credit assignment for my Physiology class. Stay hard away from anything creative writing. I try to be the daughter my mom raised.
But every time I do, I think of Dr. Hill. Cain. His hands on my body. His rough stubble, grazing my chin. The electricity in the darkness of the cabin.
I’ve always thought my mother knew everything. She’s known what was bad, what was good, and she steered me in the right direction. But she’d clearly steer me away from Cain, and the way he’d made me feel . . .
Very good. Amazing. Unbelievable. I can only imagine how mind-blowing sex with him would be.
All these years, I’ve been asleep. And now, finally, I’m waking up.
I want more.
Dr. Hill is not in her plans. Whatever I do to prove to my mom I’m a good daughter won’t be enough. Not now. Now that I’ve experienced him. Tasted him. Again, I find myself groping my body in the dark, wishing his hands were on me.
And I don’t care. I don’t care if she kills me. At least I will die knowing this amazing feeling exists.
At eleven at night, I’m lying in the darkness, in bed, staring up at the prissy pink dress my mother had bought for me, cringing at every sound that wafts into my window from the outside.
And then it happens. The door opens. I close my eyes and sink down into my covers, praying that she will be too tired, or that her anger will have faded.
For a good ten minutes, nothing happens. I start to relax.
Eventually, I let my guard down enough to roll over and check the doorway.
She’s standing there, still as a statue, her dark figure outlined by the light in the hallway.
Before I can react, she storms inside, flipping on the lights. I blink in the brightness as she reaches over, ripping the covers clear from my bed. “I was just wondering,” she says, her voice sing-song but still full of menace, “is this the fucking Addison McBride show?”
I try to sit up, but before I can, she clamps a hand around my ankle and drags me off the bed, to the floor. “Mom, I’m—“
“Do you realize how much you humiliated me?” she spits out before I can get out the apology. “All I’ve been telling Saul is that you couldn’t wait to meet him. And what do you do? You don’t even fucking bother to show up!”
I blink furiously from the ground, still unable to see anything but the imposing figure in red, towering over me in her heels. She’s drunk. The pungent scent of wine is oozing from her pores, mingling with her Vera Wang Princess perfume.
“You made a fool of me for the last time!” she shrieks.
I lean forward, scrambling onto my knees, but the back of her hand hits me like a firecracker, her diamond ring slicing across my mouth.
I fall onto my backside, clutching my swelling lip.
But she isn’t done yet. I’d known I would have to suffer for my mistake, and that doesn’t seem like nearly enough.
It’s clear she agrees, because she wraps her fingers around the messy ponytail. Pain tears through my skull and I feel the pop-pop-pop of several strands ripping free. I try to tell her she’s hurting me, to stop, but only a muffled wail erupts as she drags me down the hall. I stumble after her, barely able to keep up. She shoves me against a wall and stalks to her vanity.
“Look at this.”
I recoil in horror. Not at what it is, but because now she has a weapon.
It’s her pink curling iron, and the tiny red light on it tells me it’s heated through. “I—“
“I was so worried about you that I left it on!” she snarls at me, ripping the cord out of the wall and pacing in front of me. “Would’ve been wonderful to come back from a nice evening to have the house burned to the ground. You’re lucky, Addison. If anything had happened, it would’ve been your fault.”
I nod. When she is in this state, it’s best to agree. “Yes. I know.”
“Do you know?” she asks. “Because ever since school started this year, you’ve been repeating that to me over and over, and yet you’ve changed. Your head isn’t in it. It’s like you want all those balls to come crashing to the ground in the last act.”
“My head is in it,” I insist. Or at least, I try to, but it seems so weak. “I promise it is. I got an A on my Statistics test, and I--”
I trail off when I realize she’s shaking her head. A bit of calmness has returned to her voice, but I know better than to let down my guard now. “There’s something going on with you. The Addison I knew listened. She tried. But that incident with your laptop? And you’ve been late twice in as many weeks. I can’t help feeling something is going on, and you need to tell me what it is.”
I shake my head feverishly, feeling the blood oozing down my chin.
She can see. She sees through my lies. She knows I’d jumped on the laptop because I was hiding something. She knows I lied about why I was late.
But she doesn’t know everything. If she’d known exactly what my secret was, I’d be in much worse shape than I am now.
When I realize that, a strange peace settles over me. It’s a satisfying feeling, knowing there are places within me that she can’t reach.
And this secret, with Dr. Hill, whatever it is . . . it’s worth protecting. A million times over.
Her face hardens more. I realize that a small smile has appeared on my face.
And that, of course, is the last straw. She lifts the iron over her head, and before I can react, before I can even shout at her to stop, its silver barrel whistles through the air, straight toward me.
The pain of my burning flesh is enough to take my breath away.
Cain
I sit in my shoebox office, trying half-heartedly to grade papers. But I can’t fucking concentrate.
The truth is, I’m waiting. Waiting for her.
This is exasperating.
It’s been an entire week since I saw her, kissed her, touched her. She’d wanted me. It was unmistakable in her eyes. And then . . .
Woosh. Gone. She turned off her emotions again, like flipping a light switch, leaving me ready to fucking burst.
And she hasn’t been in m
y class for over a week. She doesn’t strike me as the type to skip out on class without at least trying to catch up the work she’s missed. But I haven’t heard a word from her. Maybe she decided to drop the class after all.
I check my watch. It’s after eight. Office hours are over.
She’s not coming.
Shit.
I start to pack up my things, then do a last-ditch check of the online classroom. She hasn’t logged in here in a week. Every time I check, all I see are questions from the other students, but nothing from her.
I’m surprised when I see the green light beside her name.
I quickly open a chat to her and type in: Addison. Are you okay?
Then I wait. And wait. And wait.
Finally, the three dots appear, indicating she’s writing a message. I lean forward, waiting for the answer.
Yes. I’m sorry.
I sigh. Remember what I told you about being sorry?
I know. But I am. I wanted . . . what you said. So much.
Wanted, in the past tense. It doesn’t sound good. And?
I frown when she comes back with: I can’t. I can’t talk about this here. Or anywhere. And I AM sorry.
I don’t understand it. She’s censuring herself. There is something she’s not telling me. That fragile smile has always been hiding something from the world. It takes all the strength I have to push aside the disappointment. All right. But you’ve missed my class twice now. How will you make up the assignments?
I will. Homer gave me the notes.
I rub my tired face. So that’s it, then. You understand if you miss another class, I will have to fail you? That’s school policy.
I understand.
I suppose there’s nothing further to say. I’ll see you on Monday, then. Have a good weekend.
And then, there’s no response. I wait for an eternity for one, for something, but there is nothing. Slamming the top of my laptop down, I pack up my things and slip out of my office, then drive home, remembering how I’d experienced one of the fucking hottest kisses in my life in that car, just a week ago, and cursing myself because it’s done.
I go home to my empty, cold apartment, and pull a beer out of the fridge. The extension Anna got me is only for the next month, but as usual, I have no desire to sit down in front of the manuscript. Instead, I drink myself into a stupor, where I stay for most of the weekend.
The following Monday, I get a call from Dean Armstrong. She prefaces it with, “I have something rather serious to discuss with you, Doctor,” which only serves to make me think the jig is up. Maybe Addison told, or she might have seen Addison and me on the side of the road that night.
My nerves getting a workout, I feign innocence. “Oh? What about?”
“I’ve gotten a call from the parent of one of your students,” she says, drawing it out, making me imagine, in those ten seconds, every possible scenario that will land me jobless. “There’s some concern about your assignments not being fair?”
I let out a sigh of relief. Still, that irks me. My assignments have been nothing if not fair. “Oh? Which?”
“Well, I haven’t looked into it fully; just received a message from my assistant. I’m going call the parent to find out more about it, certainly,” she says. “But I wanted to arm myself with the knowledge. Could you please send me a copy of your syllabus and accompanying lesson plans?”
I grip the receiver harder. “Certainly.”
She must sense the tension in my voice, because she adds, “Don’t be alarmed, Doctor. I deal with overbearing parents all the time. They can’t stand to see their children do badly on an assignment, so they come down hard on the professor. They’re especially tough on new professors. Don’t fret.”
I manage to put strength in my voice. “I’m not, Dean Armstrong. I’m sure there’s nothing to be concerned about.”
When I disconnect the call, I breathe a sigh of relief. This is why I need to forget about Addison. If the Dean had been calling me because she’d caught me with my student, it’d be game over. I may hate my teaching career, I may take it for granted far too often, but it’s all I have now. I can’t make a stupid mistake and lose it.
When I arrive at the classroom on Monday afternoon, I convince myself that I’ve moved on, beyond her. That I can be in the same room with her without wanting her. That I need to concentrate on being the best teacher I can be. That molding these young minds to create wonderful prose is akin to creating it myself.
All that conviction disappears the second she walks into the room.
She’s fucking beautiful, her hair falling loose in waves down her shoulders, wearing a tiny flowered dress and cowboy boots that show off most of her mile-long legs. She’s gnawing on her lip again, those gorgeous bow lips I’d tasted and sucked on, not so very long ago.
“Hi,” she says to me, her voice fragile.
Despite them begging to drink her beautiful form in more, I glue my eyes to my laptop. “Good afternoon, McBride,” I say in my most professional voice. “How was your weekend?”
She slides into her seat. “Oh. Fine. Thank you.”
Enough with this fucking small talk. I can’t take it. All I want to do is take her.
And I can’t. It’s excruciating. She’s early again, so it ends up being just the two of us, sitting alone in the classroom, for what seems like hours. By the time the rest of the students arrive, I feel like I’ve been through a war.
I start the class early.
“Today,” I say, deliberately not looking her way as I stride into the center of the horseshoe, “We’ll talk about how certain words, certain sounds, can evoke an emotional response, just by the sound of them. For example, how do you feel when I say this word: Moist?”
The class rumbles with laughter. “Disgusted,” Ackerman calls out.
“Turned on,” Dalton says with a smug smile.
“Only you,” Ackerman volleys back, rolling her eyes.
“There is a certain thing called ‘word aversion,’ and believe it or not, that word tops the list. Other words, such as phlegm, orifice, crevice all make the list. Thus, if you are writing love poetry, you’d probably do well to stay away from them.”
The class laughs.
“But if you want to make your audience uncomfortable, seek them out. Now, just as there are words that create an aversion, certain words are euphonious, that is to say, pleasing to the ear. Such as love, lithe, cinnamon . . .” I smile. “There are many more. These are words you can infuse your prose with in order to make people feel settled, relaxed.”
Eventually, thankfully, I manage to slip out of the hyperaware state to all things Addison and get into my lecture. When we are done, we practice listing and ranking words by their emotional impact.
By the end, I can count the class as a success. The students filter out, but Addison remains. She approaches me nervously and slides a few notebook pages over to me. “My missed assignments,” she says. “A warning: They’re terrible.”
I slide them into my briefcase. “I’ll be the judge of that. One thing I could guarantee, though, is that they’d be better if you’d attended class.”
“I’m sure.” She nods, and when she does, I notice a small cut on her upper lip.
She’d had a busted lip. It’s a recent cut, because I’d done a thorough, hands-on inspection of that mouth not a week ago.
That’s twice I’ve seen bruises on her.
Someone’s hitting her. What fucking prick boyfriend would lay a hand on this gentle, gorgeous creature?
Haven’t her parents noticed? Probably too busy with their careers. She lives in that giant house with her family, enjoying what looks like the picture-perfect rich kid life, when it’s all a lie. My eyes trail down to where she’s holding her arm. There’s the start of a red welt curving from her wrist, up to the ruffled sleeve of her dress.
I reach out and grab her arm, pulling the sleeve back. “What the fuck is this?”
She tries to yank her hand away
, but I hold it in place. Yellowing, silvery-red blisters, the length and thickness of my finger, run up nearly halfway to her elbow. “Nothing,” she mumbles. “I burned myself with my curling iron.”
I touch her lip. “Did you also walk into another door?”
She pulls away from me. “Not a door this time.” When I start to ask if she really thinks I’m that foolish, she snaps, “You don’t know me. I’m a very clumsy person.”
It is a lie. I know she’s been hiding something from me. I want to peel the layers back, so I try to think of an in. A way to get her to reveal something more than what her emotionless poems have told me. “You can tell me if anything’s bothering you.”
She closes her eyes, and looks on the verge of saying something. “I . . .” She stops and shakes her head. “I’ve got to go. I can’t be late.”
Suddenly, it occurs to me why she’d been so panicked when I’d picked her up after her flat tire. Why she’d broken things off and insisted I drive her home. “You can’t be late or . . . what?”
When she doesn’t answer, I hold her wrist even tighter. But it only makes her shut down faster. She suddenly laughs. “For class! I like to be punctual!” She shakes her head. “God, Dr. Phil! Stop it. Not everyone is experiencing emotional trauma. I’m fine. If me having a fight with my curling iron is that big a deal to you, I’ll promise never to use hot hair tools again, okay?”
I stare at her, crossing my arms.
“And yes,” she says, nodding. “I’m a little stressed out because I’m waiting on the acceptance letter to Harvard, so it’s putting me on edge. But if I don’t put the pedal to the metal right now I’ll never—“
“Be a doctor?” I finish. “Whose idea was that, anyway?”
She wrinkles her nose. “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t yours. You don’t even want to be a doctor, do you?”
“Of course I do!” she shouts at me, backing away, her face filling with anger. “Like I said, you don’t even know me. I have more drive and ability than any student here. I was born to be a surgeon.”
