Because of Dylan: A forbidden student teacher slow burn romance (Riggins U Book 3)

by Erica Alexander

  “Quiet!”

  “Shut up!”

  “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you and kill your mother.”

  “No one would believe you.”

  “You’re nothing. No one loves you. No one cares.”

  “I know you like it, you little whore.”

  I fall apart, fold into myself, make my body smaller, melt into my bed. I’ve kept his voice at bay for so long, but he finds me now. His ghost haunts me still. The pressure builds like magma inside a volcano until I crack wide open. Erupt. Let it all pour out like lava running over rocks. It scorches my heart. My shame is fire, and it’s burning me alive.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I don’t know how long I cried before exhaustion and sleep claimed me. My room lay in shadows. There’s no light coming through the window. The sky outside is winter gray, even though winter is still a month away.

  I shiver. A hot shower will make me feel better. I force my limbs to move. Everything weighs me down. I’m heavy and lethargic. A pounding headache beats against my temples. I gather a towel, bath robe, and shower supplies. Looping my keycard lanyard around my wrist, I make my way to the common showers, glad it’s on this floor and only two doors down the hall. I don’t even know what time it is. But it’s probably too early to get ready for a night out. I should have the space to myself.

  Weeks ago, I would be at a party. On the prowl for someone to numb myself with. That’s no longer an option. I’m not that girl anymore. I don’t know why or how it happened. But the idea of a meaningless hookup repels me.

  I glimpse myself in a mirror. Stop. Turn to it. My reflection doesn’t lie. Pale skin, puffy, red eyes and dried, black mascara tracks on my cheeks. I see my mother’s face in mine.

  Her hollow empty eyes sunk into dark circles stare at me in my dreams sometimes. It’s been nearly four years since I last saw or spoke with her. I don’t even know if she’s alive. She must be. If something had happened to her, I would have heard about it. Someone would have found me. She never tried to contact me. It would have been easy enough to find me. She knows where I am.

  The door to the shower room opens with a creak that begs for oil. It’s followed by voices, and I retreat to the back. I find a shower stall, close the thick, opaque curtains and hang my things. Stripping, I then turn on the water and step into the spray before it’s warm enough to be comfortable. I welcome the initial sting of icy water as it jolts me out of my head for a few blessed seconds.

  But as the water warms, the thoughts come back. All I’ve ever wanted was a loving family. A mother who cared and protected me. A father. Siblings. I’ve never known the meaning of family. But today, a nine-year-old and five-year-old taught me more about the love of a family than I could ever have imagined.

  I want that. I want that so badly it scares me. What if they let me in? What if I allow myself to love them, and they find out about me? If they find out how unworthy I am. How unlovable. How I cheapened myself with sex.

  I turn the water hotter, wash my hair, wash the mascara and makeup off my face, scrub at my skin with soap and a loofa until it stings. It’s been years since Theodore last touched me. Years since he died, but some days I can still feel his fingers on me, the press of his much larger body on mine. I can still smell the stink of weed, alcohol, and sweat.

  I’ve scrubbed my skin raw too many times before to know that no amount of soap and water can wash off the memories in my head.

  I want to say yes to my father. I want to meet my sister and brother. I want to go to Thanksgiving with them. I want all the things my father wants to offer me, but I know they’ll ask questions. I know they’ll be curious.

  My mind plays a hopscotch game, jumping from one thought to the next.

  I don’t want to lie. I’m tired of lies and deceit, but how can I ever tell them the truth?

  I turn off the water, dry myself. Put on the robe that’s so big on me it swallows me whole. I grab my things and walk back to my room, making no eye contact with the few people in the hall. I lock my door behind me. Night has fallen, and I close the curtains and shut out the outside world of Saturday parties, hookups, and carefree fun.

  I check my phone. I have text messages from both River and Tommy. Nothing from my father. Perhaps he changed his mind, and it’s already too late. Perhaps he decided for me.

  I find my laptop. Log in. Grab my headphones. Navigate to the support page. I sink to my bed in relief when I see his name in bold. He’s available.

  Therapist11. I click on the icon and wait.

  “Good night.” His voice is warm, welcoming.

  “Hi.” Mine quivers.

  “What’s wrong? You sound like you’ve been crying.” He immediately picks up on my mood.

  “How-how can you tell? I said one word.”

  “You sound sad.” Now his voice sounds sad too.

  “I’m having a hard day.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Do you ever get tired of hearing people’s complaints all day?”

  He chuckles. “No, not really. And I don’t get a lot of calls.”

  “No?”

  “No. Besides you, I’ve only had two other people pick me.”

  “I guess the being-a-guy thing might scare some girls off.” I’m still surprised I had the guts to pick a dude too, but I’m glad I did.

  “Why did you pick me? You had other options.”

  “You going to laugh at me?”

  “Hmmm … maybe?”

  “You’re supposed to say you won’t laugh at me.”

  “But then I might laugh and that would be lying, and the one promise I can make you is to always be truthful with my words.”

  “I appreciate that.” Funny, being that I lie all the time.

  “So?” he prompts me.

  “It was … I don’t know. Fate? Divine intervention if you believe such things.” I pull a blanket over my legs. “I saw the flier, and when I checked on the website it was eleven eleven.”

  “Ah, and my number is eleven.”

  “Yes, but it’s more than that. I tossed a coin too.”

  “You tossed a coin?”

  “Yes. Got heads three times.”

  “I see.” He doesn’t sound like he sees it at all.

  “You do?” I challenge him.

  “Yes. You left it to fate to decide on who you would talk to.”

  “Yes, my past choices haven’t been that great. I figured if I removed myself from the equation, I might have better luck. I think it worked.”

  “Well, I’m glad you picked me. I enjoy talking to you.” There’s a hesitation in his voice at the end. Like he didn’t mean to say that last part.

  “I enjoy talking to you too. It … it’s easier than I thought.”

  A silence falls between us and extends for a few seconds more. I know he’s waiting for me to speak, to tell him why I’m upset. And I’m grateful for the extra time he gives me to get around to it.

  “I met my father today.”

  He waits a beat before speaking again. “Is that good or bad?”

  “I’m not sure. Good, I guess.”

  “Go on.”

  “I met my father for the first time several weeks ago.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “At first, it enraged me. After all this time, I thought, why come to find me now?”

  “Did you ask him that? Why now?”

  “Yes. He said it was time.”

  “You said when you first met your father you felt enraged. How do you feel about him now?”

  “Not enraged. Sad. I’m mourning all the lost time.” I didn’t know that’s what I was feeling until I said the words, but they ring so true the sting of tears comes back to my eyes.

  “Despite the fact that he wasn’t in my life this whole time, he’s a good guy.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I have no idea. He wants me in his life. Today he told me he has a family, wife, kids.
I have a brother and sister, and he wants me to meet them.”

  “Do you want to meet them?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “Okay. I can see how finding out you have siblings can be a shock. Let’s break it down into small bites. Yes?”

  My chest expands with a deep inhale as if I’m preparing to go under water. “Yes.”

  “Tell me how you feel about letting your father into your life.”

  I drop to my bed, lie on my back and adjust the buds in my ears. “I think he really cares about me. He told me all about growing up, showed me pictures of his parents and grandparents. He told me he regrets not being in my life. He didn’t know about me at first, and when he found out, my mother pushed him away, and he let her. He sent her money, but he didn’t stay around to check on me.”

  “So, he cares about you. He regrets not being present in your life and wants to make amends. Do you want him in your life?”

  “Yes, but I’m scared.”

  “What are you scared of?” His voice softens, and I push my buds in to hear him better.

  “Disappointing him. Disappointing myself. I don’t know.”

  “I think you know.”

  Jesus. “This is hard. Why is it so hard?”

  “We all fear speaking out our innermost thoughts because that makes them real. Secrets, pain, shame—all of it thrives in the dark. The more we bury and hide them, the stronger and bigger they grow. Speaking up doesn’t make them real, it weakens them. The fear is a result of the lies we tell ourselves to feel safer. But we don’t feel safer at all, do we?”

  “No. I don’t feel safer.”

  “Why not?” He waits for me to connect the dots.

  “Because I’m always afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That someone will find out. That someone will figure out all of my secrets.” And pain and shame.

  “Exactly. So we trap ourselves in this never-ending loop. Bury the secrets and the shame as deep as we can so no one can find them, and then we live in fear of someone finding out. We hold ourselves hostage to our own humanity.”

  “We hold ourselves hostage to our own humanity,” I repeat, letting it sink in.

  “Yes. No one is perfect. Every single person on this planet has skeletons in their closets and shame over them. It’s our collective flaw as a human race.”

  “How do we fix that?”

  “We deal with shame the same way you’d deal with someone who’s blackmailing you.”

  “Pay them off?”

  He laughs. “No. The way to stop someone from blackmailing you is to remove what they hold over you.”

  “I’m not getting it.”

  “Someone can’t blackmail you if you expose whatever they have on you first. You come clean and show the world whatever is the thing that has a hold on you. You beat them at their own game.”

  I’m shaking my head before he even finishes speaking. And as if he can sense it, he speaks again.

  “Stop it. That’s shame and fear talking to you right now. That’s shame and fear blackmailing you into thinking you have to hide and run and give in to whatever it wants. It’s not true. It’s a lie.”

  “You don’t know what I have to hide.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He pauses after that. Each second taking a millennium. One thousand years.

  Two thousand years.

  Three thousand years.

  Then he breaks the silence. “No, you're right, I don't know what secrets you keep. Each person’s pain is uniquely theirs. Even if their experiences are similar. We all process differently. But I’ve worked at this for a while now. I have delved deep into people’s darkness, and I can assure you that nothing you can say would shock me.”

  “That’s sad and horrifying.” My chest constricts with the idea of other little girls and boys living through what I did.

  “Yes, it can be. I've seen all matters of darkness, of pain and hurt, and hopelessness. But I also have seen people learning to love themselves. People learning to forgive the past, letting go, and figuring out how to be happy.”

  I pull a blanked over me, cocoon under its cover. “That sounds kinda impossible right now.”

  “No such thing as impossible.” There’s no hesitation in his reply.

  I laugh at that. "I don't know, Doc, I have never had much faith in the goodness of people."

  “You don't need to have faith in the goodness of other people. You need to have faith in your own goodness.”

  God. His words hit me like a slap to the face. “I guess … I’m even more screwed, then, because I'm not good.” The words hurt when they leave my lips.

  “I don't believe that. Those are the lies you tell yourself.”

  “How could you possibly know if I’m a good person or not? You don’t know me.”

  “I know you are a good person because you care. Because you want to do better and be better.”

  I don’t respond. He has me there. I want to be better. I want to be someone I can be proud of. And I care.

  “Tell me what happened today? What upset you?” he asks me.

  I hesitate, spread my fingers on the bed. “I met my father for breakfast this morning.”

  “How did meeting your father for breakfast upset you?”

  “It’s not his fault I’m upset.” Why am I defending my father?

  The faint sound of a creaking chair comes through my earbuds. “I never said it was.”

  No, he didn’t.

  “Go on,” he says.

  “This is only the third time I met him. He wants to be a part of my life, he wants to get to know me.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “Why are you always asking me that?” My voice is louder than I intended.

  He chuckles. “Because, my friend, how we feel is the crux of the problem.”

  “How should I feel? What is the right feeling?”

  “There is no right or wrong. Emotions, feelings, just are. How we relate to them, and what we do about them, is what matters.”

  “Ugh. That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the only answer I can give you for that question. You are evading my original question, though. How did meeting your father make you feel?”

  I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Everything. It made me feel everything.”

  He waits. I know he wants me to elaborate.

  Why is it so hard to put words to the storm raging in my chest? “The first time I met him, I was so angry. I … I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to feel the same pain I felt. But I also wanted to know him. I wanted to find out why he never came for me.”

  “You said, ‘the first time you met him you were angry.’ You’re not angry anymore?”

  “I don’t know what I am. I’m splintered into a hundred pieces, and each tiny piece feels and wants something different.”

  “Okay, I can see how meeting your father for the first time as an adult can be confusing and conflicting. Let’s name some of those pieces now. We can tackle them together.”

  I already feel like someone put me through a meat grinder. I want to say hell to the no, but I don’t. “Okay.” I put as much enthusiasm in my reply as I can, but I’m not fooling anyone.

  “It’s not a root canal without anesthesia. It’s just talking. Let’s do this out of order. You said you met your father three times. Tell me about the second time you met him.”

  I almost wish for the root canal instead. “We met for lunch a few weeks ago.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “He showed me pictures of his parents and grandparents. Told me about his life, said he wants to get to know me better. To have a real father-daughter relationship.”

  “And—”

  “I know. How did that make me feel? I don’t know. I want that father-daughter relationship more than anything else. But a part of me is so angry still. It wants to tell him to fuck off. I think it will be angry foreve
r.”

  “Hmm.”

  Hmm? What does that mean?

  “Do you communicate with your father often in between those meetings?”

  “He sent several texts in between. I didn’t answer most of them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I wanted him to feel like I felt my entire life.”

  “And what was that? How did you feel your entire life?”

  “Abandoned and waiting for something that would never come.”

  “But now, it is here. The something you were waiting for—your father is here. And it challenges the truth you’ve been holding on to all these years. That he would never come. You don’t have that to hold on to anymore. It’s no longer true.”

  He’s right. I have been holding on to my anger for so long it has become a lifesaver in a rough sea. But now that lifesaver has been pulled from me, and I’m adrift with nothing to hold to but the lies I tell myself. Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier.

  “I know you’re right. I can rationalize it, but I’m still trying to hold on. Why is it so hard to let go?”

  “Because it has become a habit. Because you don’t trust that it’s real. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to disappear again.”

  “I am.” He’s right again. I’m afraid to hope. And what does that “hmm” mean?

  “But what if he stays? What if your father becomes a real father to you?”

  I ignore the question. “What did you mean by ‘hmm’ before?”

  “Ah, that. I was pondering at your choice of words.”

  What did I say? “What choice of words?”

  “You said, ‘I want that father-daughter relationship’ and that a part of you was ‘angry.’ You referred to what you want as ‘I,’ but to the anger as ‘it.’ You didn’t say you are angry. You said a ‘part of me.’ This part is angry, not you. Anger is a separate entity. But the want for your father is you.”