The Fall of Troy

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  I do know what you want… I know you want me, I wanted to tell her. Instead I told her a different truth that she would equally deny even though her body told me otherwise.

  “I have not thought about my parents since that day… until this moment… because I don’t want someone in my life who doesn’t care. I moved on. But you… you ran. You ran because no matter what you tell yourself, you know he cares and you want that.” I walked toward her desk, blood pumping loudly in my ears to convince her and then kiss away every objection that thought to pass her lips. “In spite of the hurt, you want to forgive him, that’s why you’re angry.”

  I froze as she stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe I do, but he doesn’t deserve it. And what about you? I’ve heard the rumors. I’ve seen how you teach, but I’ve experienced how you treat students. Why don’t you care anymore? Who are you angry at if not your parents?”

  My body hardened. This conversation wasn’t going any further; I wasn’t going to discuss Amélie.

  I walked around her and froze when I looked down at her sketchbook.

  She’d drawn me.

  “What’s this?” I demanded.

  Her hair slipped over her shoulder like silken armor trying to shield her.

  “You told me to draw something with a little more depth.” She closed the space between us. “And you, Professor Baudin, are deeper than the ocean.”

  My eyes narrowed on her lips as they moved, tempting me to reveal my truth like I’d asked of her. Except my hurt had nothing except that to offer.

  I reached down and grabbed her sketchbook, flipping it shut and pushing it into her hands like a paper barrier between us.

  “Then you should watch where you swim, Miss Milanovic, before you get out of your depth. If you’re not careful, you’re liable to drown.”

  I stalked away from her before I couldn’t stop myself from dragging her under. It was bad enough I had to return to Paris in a few months, return to the past that was my only future. The last thing I needed to do was drag that mess here.

  “Is that another threat, Professor Baudin?” she wondered as I grabbed my things off the desk.

  “It’s the truth.” I glared over my shoulder. “We’re done for today.”

  Wednesday rolled around and I didn’t wonder if she would wait after class, I worried that she wouldn’t.

  I shouldn’t have. Troy was a fighter. And I wanted to push her to fight for herself, for what she wanted. As long as what she wanted wasn’t me.

  “How was your chicken parmesan?” I asked as soon as the room cleared. I’d thought about ma petite cooking last night as I drank my own dinner behind my desk.

  Amélie never cooked. She always wanted to go out, always wanted to be seen—a luxury that dwindled after my career cut my parents from my life.

  She eyed me thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “You remembered.”

  “You said it was your masterpiece.”

  She dug into her bag and then approached my desk. I lost myself in the soft sway of her hips, like brushstrokes dipping into my need and painting it through the air. My gaze whipped up to hers when she dropped a container onto the desk in front of me. I didn’t have to look to know what was inside.

  “You brought me some,” I said flatly.

  “It’s my masterpiece.” She shrugged. “Plus, you look like you could use a little more food.”

  I grunted and reached for the container, setting it on top of my bag for later. Aside from my dinners with Jack or leftovers that Giselle brought me, regular, decent meals weren’t a luxury I indulged in.

  “You’re not going to eat it now?” The disappointment in her eyes punched right into my gut.

  “No. I’ll eat it later,” I promised. Unfortunately, the only thing I could think about eating when she was around was her. “Now, it’s time to work.”

  She began to get out her things like our conversation yesterday ended in a draw that was to be forgotten. Today was a new day for a new kind of battle in the same war of wanting her.

  “Maybe you should work on something too. You know, whatever project it is that you are avoiding,” she suggested nonchalantly. My eyes narrowed suspiciously, the thought treading precariously close to the ledge we’d brushed against on Monday.

  I speared a hand through my hair because I could. I wanted to. Especially because the subject was going to be sitting right in front of me instead of just teasing me with her memory.

  “I’m not avoiding it. I just can’t work on it right now.”

  She sat down slowly and pulled out her things. “Oh. Why not? What is it?”

  I ignored her and leaned forward. “What are you doing? I didn’t give you any instructions.”

  “I assumed I’d pick up where I left off on Monday.” Her eyes flicked up, not to mine, but to my face.

  “Drawing me wasn’t in the instructions then either,” I growled. “I want you to work on the Bernini.”

  She set her pencil down and slowly began to peel her gray sweater off of her shoulders, leaving her in nothing but a loose white tank that sat low in the front to test me with the shadows of the swells of her tits.

  “Telling me I need to work on emotion and then asking me to copy Bernini rather than you is like telling me to capture a scene with water but choosing a raindrop instead of the sea.” She picked up her pencil as she spoke and it moved in small motions as she stared at my mouth, capturing its shape that was thinning in frustration.

  “I want you to draw the Bernini.” I’d be in mountains of shit if anyone saw her sketch of me, no matter how angry I looked in it.

  “I want you to eat my dinner.”

  I growled. Blackmailed by my own fucking student.

  Grabbing the container, I popped the lid and found silverware inside. Holding her stare, I picked up a good chunk of what smelled delicious and shoved it in my mouth.

  Mon Dieu.

  I wanted to ask if she was happy now, but I was too stunned by how incroyable her meal was.

  “Good, right?” she asked smugly, already knowing the answer.

  I nodded. “Bernini. Now,” I got out between bites.

  We sat in silence as she worked and I ate. I was so tempted to get up and make sure she was following my directions, but I didn’t trust myself to be close to her. Not when she was so focused, all it made me want to do was see how many touches… how many kisses… it would take to disrupt her.

  Finishing the container of food, I couldn’t help but reach for my sketchbook, prop it between my waist and the desk and begin to draw her. Every other time was just flickers, small sketches that hardly amounted to anything. It felt like I was chasing a dandelion on the wind, closing my hand around her image, feeling the first outlines of her on the paper, before she slipped from my grasp and drifted out of reach into the recesses of my damaged mind.

  “Why can’t you work on your project?” she asked softly.

  I tensed.

  Because the project is the future, and what kind of future did I have with how Amélie left? She’d stranded me on a ship that would have sunk with her, and with her gone, revealed all the holes she’d left in it to take me down. Sabotaged by a woman who vanished.

  I could have pretended not to hear Troy. Hell, I could have—should have just shot her down again. Instead, I said things that I shouldn’t.

  “I… lost someone,” I answered hoarsely. The sordid details of my failing marriage, failed attempt at divorce, and subsequent public condemnation was so far beyond the line of what was appropriate or even necessary to share with a student.

  Her eyes widened painfully to mine. “I’m so sorry.” Troy struggled to swallow as she asked more of me. “Did you… did you love her?”

  My body tensed. Loving Amélie was like loving the sunset, the bright colors momentarily distracting you before you realize that she was only leading you into darkness. “Something like that…” was all I could say.

  “What happened?” she croaked.

/>   I cleared my throat, realizing I’d dug myself into a hole that I needed to carefully get out of. “She hurt me and then she was gone and all I have left is anger. So much of it that sometimes it’s hard to breathe. I won’t make my art in anger. I can’t. Not for this. Not for her.”

  I watched the way her expression changed, especially in the way she had to force herself not to look at me. She hurt for me… ma petite… the one who always fought me now ached for me even though she only knew the surface of my pain. And I cursed myself. She was already fighting for her own happiness, I never should have given her this… given her the desire to fight for mine, too.

  Standing, my feet carried me over to her desk. “Let’s see how you’re doing,” I murmured as I looked at her work. My fists clenched in my pockets and I wished I could handcuff them to my sides. “I told you to draw the Bernini.”

  Her head tipped up to me. “I couldn’t. There was too much of you that it was hard to breathe.”

  I sucked in a heavy breath, my heart pounding against my chest, begging to reach for her—for her oxygen.

  I watched, paralyzed as she stood from her desk. I’d stopped too close that for her to stand meant her chest brushed against mine, the contact hardening my cock instantly against my pants.

  Too close.

  I’d let her get too close.

  My breath and my heart refused to move in sync as her hand rose and she planted her palm on my chest, white hot desire radiating from her touch.

  “I want to let you feel something other than anger,” she whispered, her breaths just as unsteady, making her nipples rub against my chest. “I want to let you breathe.”

  She licked her lips as her eyes called to mine. Just one taste.

  “Don’t, Troy,” I groaned harshly. “Please.”

  “I want to let you breathe because that’s when I feel like I can breathe, too.”

  My head drifted down against my will until my forehead rested on her. “Mon Dieu,” I swore and squeezed my eyes shut. “What kind of woman begs for a breath at the bottom of the ocean, ma petite?”

  I felt her soft exhale against my lips… too close.

  “The same kind who kisses her professor.”

  Soft lips pushed against mine before I could lie and swear I didn’t want them. My hands unlocked themselves from my pockets and found the soft skin of her waist at the edge of her tank, pulling her hard against me.

  Slowly, I tugged her fat lower lip into my mouth and sucked on the juicy flesh, taking a mental note to never tell Troy that her most delicious masterpiece was her body and the way it responded to mine.

  This kiss wasn’t angry, but it was just as devastating. I licked and breathed every inch of her defiant mouth and in return, drowned her with my kiss.

  Her fingers curled into my shirt, leaving wrinkles in the fabric that mirrored the scars on my heart. I could never tell her that her presence drowned out the anger. That it lightened the weight of my past and lit a small spark of hope in the uncertain fog of my future. I could never tell her that I was captivated by her imperfect strength and exquisite ferocity. I could never tell her because she’d give me more until there was nothing left.

  Troy whimpered against my mouth and every silent alarm went off in my head as I pulled my mouth back, our breaths fighting for the air rights in the small space between us.

  “Merde, this is wrong.” I stepped back, rubbing my hands along the side of my pants like I could wipe away the feel of the sweet heat of her skin. “This can’t happen, Troy. I told you—” I broke off and spun away from her, staring at the Bernini on the board who seemed to be smirking like a smug little fucker at me.

  “Léo…”

  I shuddered as her voice that was laced with lethal lust caressed my name.

  “Please,” I growled, my breaths fuming. “Just follow my instructions for once, Troy, and please go.”

  “I just wanted to—”

  “I know,” I bit out with a sigh. “I know what you wanted, but you can’t help me and I’m sorry if what I said made you think that you could.”

  Liar. Léo the Liar, that’s who I was.

  For once she didn’t argue, she didn’t push. She packed up her things quickly and quietly, her silence like armor, and walked out of the room with her head held high.

  Like oxygen, it was hard to describe just how essential she was to me… and how absolutely debilitating it was to know I needed to survive without her.

  I sat with Baudelaire a long time last night, soaking my soul that had begun to dry. Maybe that’s why I was pulled to Léo, because he drenched me with emotions that made the ones I was living with seem okay.

  Dr. Shelly had a family emergency on Tuesday morning, so our session was postponed. She offered to have a call with me on her drive to Maine where her parents were, but I declined. I was too mired with feelings to be able to focus on any word games with her.

  Should I even tell her about Léo?

  I shuddered, staring off into the empty space of the school supply store; Jay was out sick this morning, so I’d been asked to cover. Monday had been hard—hard to hear what he’d told me about myself. There were moments when I swore I was done with it all, that I didn’t care if Luke’s face looked like an ice cream cone full of shit until the end of time.

  But then what Léo said festered inside me, especially as I continued to ignore my dad’s phone calls. I knew something had changed when I realized I wasn’t ignoring them completely out of anger any longer, but rather fear.

  Was I weak to forgive him?

  Was I a coward to want to work through this?

  Shouldn’t I be fighting to punish him for what he did?

  There were more questions than snowflakes that fell over Providence this week, and all because of him.

  “Working hard, I see.” My eyes flicked up at Kev’s taunting voice. I had a feeling he’d show up here, sniffing around for any other juicy details about my private punishment with Professor Baudin. “How did yesterday go?”

  I began to scan through a pile of books that were returned that I had to restock. Wednesday… I took a deep breath. That was what Wednesday felt like—a deep, cleansing breath in the eye of a tornado, knowing the world around me was spinning but as long as I was with him, kissing him, the calm would keep me safe.

  “Fine.” I shrugged. “He actually said I was doing good.” Not a lie.

  “I bet he did,” Kev sassed me, following me as I hoisted the books against my chest and made my way back to the shelves. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Miss Troian.” He winked at me. “I like it, but I don’t want to see you get burned.”

  I sighed and slowly stacked the books by the corresponding tags.

  Hearts light, like balloons, they never turn aside from their fatality and without knowing why they always say: “Let’s go!” The Voyage. Baudelaire.

  Léo made my heart feel light, like it was floating in spite of the weight it carried. And it lifted…floated always to him, the bright and burning center of the universe. Eagerly.

  I didn’t want to get burned, but I did want to touch the flame.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Famous last words. But you have some fight to you, especially wearing that outfit.” He sucked in a breath and shook his head in disapproval. “Really, do you own anything colorful? My word…”

  “Says the kid who is dressed like a unicorn shit all over him,” I teased back, eyeing up his bright purple and blue paisley shirt.

  He completely ignored me. “So, what happened? What did he make you do?”

  I shrugged as we walked back to the front desk. “Draw emotion.”

  “Like what?”

  I bent underneath the counter to grab a new roll of ‘Used’ stickers that needed to be stuck to the growing stacks of books behind the desk. “Like him.”

  “What!” There was a thump and I looked up to see Kev laying over the counter and glaring down at me.

  “He wanted emotional. I don’
t think I’ve ever seen anyone angrier than him.” I stood and Kev peeled himself back.

  He propped his hip against the counter and asked, “He tell you why he’s so mad?”

  “Maybe.” I almost blurted out the reason but stopped because it wasn’t my hurt to share.

  It was hard to decide how I felt about his confession. He’d lost someone that he loved. Someone who had hurt him but who he loved nonetheless. I wasn’t jealous. Although the twinge in my chest to hear him admit to loving someone else wasn’t something I’d expected. Léo wasn’t mine, but in the same breath, he was. Like puzzle pieces… His didn’t belong to me, but they were the only ones made to fit with mine.

  What bothered me most was what came after—the anger and pain knowing someone had hurt him, that someone had tried to damage my matching piece. He was the only one who fit to me.

  “Uh oh.”

  “What?”

  “You know how much trouble you’ll be in for sleeping with a professor, right?” Both eyebrows rose like golden arches on his forehead.

  My cheeks burned. “I’m not sleeping with him,” I hissed.

  “Not yet.” He waved me off. “Don’t even try to deny it. I saw your face. Troy, seriously…” Concern bled into his voice. “I know you didn’t do what they think you did, but that doesn’t change the fact that they still think it. Look, I’m not a shrink. I’m not at all qualified to ask you this question or judge the answer, but that has never stopped me before so…”

  Great. I shifted my weight to my other hip.

  “Are you sure you’re not just infatuated with Professor Baudin because he’s unavailable, like your dad?”

  My swallow echoed in my ears. I wouldn’t lie and say that the question never crossed my mind, especially when I thought of talking to Dr. Shelly about it and what she might say. I’d wondered if this was one more of my failings or simply my twisted fate.

  I thought about it so hard and tried to complicate and analyze it so much, but when it came down to it, the truth was always simple.

  “I’ve spent six years trying to impress an unavailable man. Six. Years,” I replied calmly, holding Kev’s inquisitive stare. “I know what that feels like… I’ve been steeped in that feeling for almost a decade. This feeling… and don’t ask me what it is because I don’t think I have an answer yet… All I know is it’s nothing like that.”