by C L Walker
He started to walk away so I shouted, “You didn’t answer my question!”
He turned around impatiently. “I can’t be mad at you for doing what you should have been doing all along, fighting back.”
“That wasn’t fighting back, that was petty revenge.” I was not ashamed to admit my own faults.
“Same difference,” he replied. “See you soon.”
I looked at the time on my phone and scurried away without another word because I didn’t want to be late again because of him.
Later, when I arrived in the student parking lot after letting Sai know I didn’t need a ride any longer I stopped when I spotted Micah as he leaned against the hood of his car. He had on dark classic Ray-Bans so I couldn’t tell if he saw me. His leather jacket was pulled snuggly against his arms and his legs were crossed at his ankles, so he looked like the bad boy from a movie.
Sadly, that meant that I was the pathetic girl who was destined to get her heart crushed.
Wait, no, you’d have to like him in order to be crushed by him.
He quirked an eyebrow and I cursed as I realized he saw me and was aware that I was procrastinating in favor of glaring at him.
“It’s about time, princess,” he said as he pushed off his car.
“What can I say, an afternoon with you sounds like hell so I was walking rather slowly.”
“A day in Hell,” he said, “with you, that could be interesting.”
I got in beside him and was put off by how good it smelt in his car, it smelt just like him. “I don’t even want to know why you said that like you have been there.”
“Perhaps I have.” He put his hand on my seat as he turned around to back out of the parking space with a sly smirk on his face.
There was something oddly sexy about a man when he backed out like that, hell there was something sexy about the pure confidence men displayed when they were driving vehicles period.
“Spoken like a true devil.”
He pulled out of the parking lot and said, “Close, but I’m not a devil.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“Do you believe in the supernatural?” He turned down the road to head up to his house.
He was taking me home to make me pay in some way for breaking his mirror, he said I owed him… but what did I owe him and why the hell hadn’t I thought to offer him money instead?
I gulped loudly and he glanced at me in question.
“No, I don’t,” I said finally as I had recalled that he asked me a question. “I think the supernatural was made up to scare, comfort, or make excuses for people.”
He chuckled at my cynical answer. “Do elaborate.”
I clamped my hands together and stuck them in between my thighs to stop myself from fidgeting but the movement drew his attention to them before he gave me another questioning look.
I cleared my throat and looked straight ahead. “God, Satan, demons, angels, vampires, ghosts etc. were all made up to either control people with fear or make excuses for the evil that is in human beings.”
He looked deep in thought as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and I admired the veins that spread across his hand. “I didn’t expect you to be so close-minded.”
“Close-minded… So, tell me which of those is real and what evidence you have to support such a claim?”
He laughed at my suggestion as he pulled off the main road onto a dirt road that weaved upwards in between thick forest. “Someday you might find out for yourself and I’d hate to be the one to spoil what a surprise that’s going to be.”
“Yeah, and maybe I’ll dance around in the moonlight and summon spirits of the dead in your honor and ask them to haunt your ass while I am at it.”
When genuine laughter hit my ears, my stomach filled with a thousand fluttering butterflies. I had never heard him laugh when he wasn’t being rude and laughing at my expense. They were two different sounds, and this one was something I could get used to.
I hid my smile and looked out the window as we pulled into a small clearing with a log cabin in its center. It was surrounded by big cedar trees and tall grass that desperately needed a mow, but it was beautiful.
“What is it that I am doing to make up for my crime?”
He shut his car door and led the way up a stone path to his front porch that was either new or recently refinished because the wood stood out against the weathered logs of the cabin.
He turned when he got to the door. “You’re going to put new cloth on my dining chairs and refinish the wood while I attempt to cut this damn grass.”
“That’s a whole ass project!”
He took a step closer to me and lowered his head to my level. “You broke my whole ass mirror.”
“You could have reported me like a normal person.”
“No, I wanted to punish you myself.” The look in his eyes made the air catch in my throat.
“Sick bastard.”
He cleared his throat and turned to open the front door before he said, “No one said you have to like me.”
“Good, because I don’t.”
And I never would.
Twelve
Micah
This was not good, no, it was not good at all.
I made another mistake and there was clearly no taking it back, I should have made her pay for my mirror and been done with it. Instead, I over complicated the situation.
“Would you please just work for me?” she begged quietly as she tried to stretch a piece of fabric that she had cut too small over the cushion of a chair.
She hadn’t noticed me come in so I leaned against the doorway and watched her struggle, but when she started talking to herself and the seat, I couldn’t help but smile because it was sort of cute.
And therein lies the problem.
I ran my hand across the lower half of my face and with it I wiped away my smile and replaced it with a frown.
“Must you waste fabric?” I asked, after she gave up and tossed it aside in favor of cutting a new piece.
She flinched at the sound of my voice and I felt bad for scaring her.
“I obviously didn’t mean to, I thought for sure that it would fit.” She took better care in measuring the fabric and began to cut it as I sat down beside her on the hardwood floor of my dining room.
She glanced at me from the corner of her eye before she focused on cutting the fabric. “Must you hover?”
“It’s kind of hard not to when I never know what trouble you’ll get into.”
She finished cutting the fabric and wrapped it around the cushion before she flipped it over in her lap.
“Perfect,” she said rather than respond to me.
She reached for the staple gun, but I held my hand up to stop her. “You have two more chairs left, why don’t you use this piece to cut out the other two pieces of fabric, so you don’t waste anymore by trying to get it right each time?”
She pursed her lips, and I could tell she wanted to argue but she saw the value in my suggestion. “Fine. That does make more sense than what I have been doing.”
“See, you need me around.” I couldn’t fathom why I kept saying things that only served to further confuse her and me.
But are you really confused?
No.
Unfortunately, I became less confused about her and our situation more every time I saw her. But did that mean I had given up the fight? Not entirely, although there were moments…ones where I forgot myself.
Stop lying to yourself, you are already giving up…
She stopped what she was doing and met my eyes for a total of three seconds before she looked uncomfortable and looked back down. “I don’t need anyone around.”
There she went again with insisting that she was fine by herself because she was too afraid to get hurt.
I couldn’t say that I blamed her, but her insecurities weren’t any less frustrating to deal with considering they were holding her back from what her heart truly desired, and that
was love.
Not that I was offering her love, or anything else for that matter because I hardly knew her.
Lies. You know her heart.
I reached for the roll of fabric and my arm brushed against her chest on accident. It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize when I heard her heartbeat pick up, but I decided not to.
Goodness! I wish he wouldn’t sit so close.
I bit back a smile as I enjoyed how quickly her body responded to my touch and the thoughts that always followed.
She scooted back just enough so that if I reached for anything else, I wouldn’t have to touch her to get to it. Not because she didn’t like it when I touched her, because she did. I’d bet that she’d even be willing to let me touch more of her if I pursued it but then she would hate herself afterwards.
I put the small piece of fabric over the large one and cut around it, and then once more before I handed her all three pieces.
“I will leave you be now.” I pushed myself up off the floor.
“Thanks,” she said rudely.
I snorted as I glanced down at her and found that she had a defiant tilt to her mouth.
“What?” she asked when she noticed my stare.
“You’re giving me attitude again.”
She pulled her mouth into a stubborn pout as she ignored me and continued to work on the seat with what seemed like genuine interest.
I laughed over her refusal to engage me. “Need I remind you that you took out my mirror just because I pushed your buttons?”
She slammed the chair cushion down. “You do a whole lot more than push my buttons!”
She was still gripping the cushion and I had no doubt that she was squishing her fingers beneath it, but she was so frustrated with me she didn’t even seem to notice.
I crouched before her and we were close enough that neither of us was comfortable, but I didn’t move because apparently, I liked to cause myself as much unease as I did her.
“Are you ready to explain further, or are you going to continue to be vague about all these things I do to you?” I knew the answer, but I wanted her to say it, or at the very least admit it to herself.
Her eyes narrowed as she regarded me, she didn’t know what my angle was, so she didn’t know how to respond to me.
I couldn’t blame her because I didn’t know what it was either, I just couldn’t stop myself when it came to her and I felt like every interaction was bringing me closer to a point where I would no longer try to stop myself.
I reached down and wrapped my hands around her wrists so I could lift them, so she’d stop crushing her fingers, but she yanked them out of my hands and pulled them to her chest.
“Why do you ask me questions I can tell you already know the answers to?”
I stood back up awkwardly, but I didn’t answer her because I didn’t know how to, there was so much about me that she didn’t know.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you.” I pointed to her slightly pink fingers. “You were crushing your fingers.”
“I know you weren’t.” Not Physically.
I wanted to question that one, but I had no way of doing so without revealing myself as something that would probably terrify her for real.
I nodded my head because I didn’t know what to say, the conversation had taken such an awkward turn and I could tell that she needed me to give her some space, so I did.
We had been working for about three hours when she informed me that she was done and that if I didn’t take her back, she was going to report me to the police for forced labor.
When I laughed, she smiled before she quickly hid it, because of course she wouldn’t want to enjoy a moment with me.
It was dark by the time we made our way down the mountain in silence, and it pained me because the closer we got to her place, the more anxious she became. She didn’t say a word about it, but I felt how tightly wound up she was as she mindlessly gazed out at the river with a faraway look in her eyes.
It bugged me because no one should be that anxious all the time, it wasn’t healthy.
I hated that I had to take her there, I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to go, that she could run away, and I would protect her. I knew she didn’t like me but certainly being with me for a short time while she finished school would be better than the alternative.
But she’d say no, because she wouldn’t understand or believe that I could protect her because she didn’t know what I was capable of. Also, it was likely that she was dead set on being independent as well and I wouldn’t take that from her unless she had no other choice.
When I got to the four way stop that signified our arrival to town I didn’t turn right immediately, and it took her an entire thirty-four seconds to realize we were no longer moving.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she met my eyes for the first time in ten minutes.
“You looked like you weren’t ready to go home.”
“It’s not my home.” She looked back out her window.
I remained silent because I knew anything I said would only make it worse no matter my intentions.
I was rewarded for my silence a moment later when she said, “You’re the only one who knows it’s not truly a home so please don’t refer to it as such.”
I flipped my blinker on and took a right towards the trailer park.
“Okay.” I could tell by the uncertain look she gave me that my agreeing so quickly threw her off. But I wasn’t a complete asshole, I could do that much for her.
“It’s her house, her trailer, her metal piece of shit, whatever you want to call it. Just not home.”
“I like ‘metal piece of shit,’ it suits her.” I glanced at the window and saw a small smile grace her face in her reflection and it warmed me from the inside out. “But it doesn’t suit you.”
Her smile fell but I wouldn’t say that she frowned over my words either, she was trying to ignore them, for what reason I wasn’t sure. I hated that I couldn’t always hear her inner thoughts.
When I stopped outside of the trailer park, she got out immediately and shut the door and that’s when she began to unravel.
She took a few steps and stopped as she looked down the road, most likely at the trailer she was reluctantly returning to.
She spun around and approached my car once more, so I reached over and rolled down the window.
“Thanks for bringing me back,” she said. “Even though you forced me to go to your house instead of doing the normal thing and asking me for money, so I guess it’s the least you can do.”
I chuckled at how hard she was trying not to be nice to me even though her manners demanded that she thank me for the ride.
Why is he laughing?!
“Don’t be a nuisance by breaking my things or trying to steal them anymore and I won’t force you to do a damn thing.” She was having such a hard time I figured it was best to make it easier for her, besides pushing her away was the only way I could fight fate. It may have brought us together, but we got to choose if we stayed.
Here we go again.
“I won’t play into this anymore, you know very well why I did the things I did, probably better than you should,” she said.
I found it interesting how suspicious she was of the things I said, if she wasn’t so rational, she would be on the verge of thinking I could read her mind. She was certainly in for a treat if she ever discovered that I could at times.
“You won’t play into this anymore? Ha, sure, babe, until next time.”
Asshole!
She spun around again but with less anxiety as some of it had been overshadowed by contempt for me, and I convinced myself it didn’t make my heart ache in the slightest.
I wanted her hate, or so I kept telling myself.
That is until the next time I would see her.
Being around her was quickly chipping away at the guard around my heart, so clearly fate knew something about me that I didn’t.
I couldn’t get a break f
rom her either, not even at home when I did everything that I could think of just to try and forget about her.
I couldn’t even sleep anymore because I couldn’t stop thinking about her and worrying about how she was feeling. And that was the shocker because once you start to worry about how someone is feeling you know you’re in deep.
So, once again after a shit night of trying and failing to sleep and having a dirty dream about her once I did, I went to school and was immediately bombarded by everything that is Skylar Bodin.
I walked into the cafeteria and I was instantly greeted by her thoughts because for some reason she was already on tilt and nervous beyond anything I had yet to feel.
No, no, no. I’m so not ready to see him after the dream I had.
Oh? She’s dreaming about me too…
That caught my attention, which increased even further when my eyes met hers from across the room and I felt the flush that ran through her body.
Her dream had also been dirty, without a doubt because her body was on fire.
I felt heat bloom in my gut as I considered what we could have been doing in that risqué dream of hers.
It didn’t help that there was a part of me that would very much like to put our dreams to practice. There was one thing I couldn’t deny no matter how hard I tried, and that was that she was beautiful and tempting. Even though I shouldn’t have, sometimes when I looked at her, I couldn’t help but wonder what she would taste like.
I started to walk in her direction, my eyes met and held hers and for a moment, maybe five seconds in total I forgot that I shouldn’t be looking at her like that. I looked away as I reminded myself that we were at school and that I needed to calm down and once I did, I made the smart decision and walked past her.
I tried to shake off my lust for her that was growing by the day despite my efforts to will it away. As if I ever needed to want her more than I did the first time I saw her again, it was already unfathomable and had more than steered me away from other women.
Nothing was more frustrating than being consumed by a single person, it gave her far too much power over me.
By the time fifth period had rolled around her thoughts and emotions had chilled out giving me a much-needed break. I found it almost funny that of all the things in the world that could have been my undoing it had to be a woman and it had to be her, it was as crazy as it was humbling.
