“In here!” I call back, taking the milk out from the fridge and pouring me a glass. When he doesn’t answer me, I walk into the living room.
The glass in my hand almost slips when I see Mrs. Welch standing at my front door on what was a beautiful Saturday morning. My heart feels like it has plummeted to my feet, weighing me down. I force a smile on my face and swallow hard before I set the glass of milk down on the end table and walk over to greet her.
“Mrs. Welch. Is everything okay?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” She says, holding up an envelope. The front is blank, but it has already been opened. I take it from her when she extends her hand toward me. I do my best to steady my trembling hands as I take the single piece of paper out and open it.
Mrs. Welch,
I didn’t know who else to turn to, but I figured you would be the best start.
I messed up big time and before anyone gets hurt even further than what will ensue, I'm going to leave. I understand that you will have to notify my parents and the authorities but do me a solid and at least give me a 24-hour head start.
You were the only one to ever believe me. Sorry to let you down.
-Ryan.
My heart leaps from my feet to my throat in an instant, failing to beat on its way up. I blink back the tears that threaten to spill down my cheeks.
He left.
He just…left.
I look up at the school's counselor, folding the letter and placing it back in the envelope. Clearing my throat, I hand it back to her. “I—uh—I'm sorry, but I can't tell you what’s going on. The last dance session we had he was fine.”
Liar.
“I’m going to need you to come with me, Emily. Since you two hung out more than he did with anyone else during his short time here, I figured you could help in finding him.” She says sternly.
“Um. Yeah, just…just let me get dressed. I’ll meet you at the school.”
Before she has a chance to say anything else, I close the door in her face and turn around. Dan is standing behind me, looking worried. “I hope the kid is okay. He didn’t seem troubled when he came here.”
“Yeah.” I reply, pushing past him. Guilt and anger swell in the pit of my stomach as I dig through my drawers to find clothes. Why did he leave? Was it because of me? He was fine yesterday. Or maybe he wasn’t. I was too caught up in what we were doing to even notice anything but that.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Dan asks, walking into the bedroom.
“No, that’s okay. I won't be gone long. He's probably either pulling a prank or at a friends’ house.” I put force behind my words in hopes to convince more than just my husband. “I’m going to change.”
I give him a chaste kiss on the cheek before I walk into the bathroom and lock the door.
I strip down, taking a moment of pause to string my fingers along the small bruises on my waist from Ryan. Just touching them makes me quiver.
What if something bad happened to him? What if he can't be found? If he even wants to be found. I mean, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have left a note.
I sigh, trying to rid my mind of the negative thoughts swirling in it. I will find him. I have too.
It’s been about four hours since a small search party has been sent out to find Ryan. I’ve been sitting in my car for the past ten minutes trying not to have a mental break down but to no avail. Tears run down my cheeks as I silently cry.
I know nothing about this kid, yet I feel so devastated that he ran away without so much as a goodbye. But that’s my fault for believing that I could have everything and him and get away with it.
I should have stayed inside my boundaries instead of stepping over them like they meant nothing. I was his teacher. Not his lover.
My phone rings. Snatching it up, I answer it frantically, hoping that by some miracle Ryan figured out my number and decided to reach out.
“Hello?” I sniffle.
“Hey, honey. How's it going out there, any luck?”
The sound of my husband’s voice wrecks me, causing all my emotions to overtake me at once.
“Um.” I whisper, “No luck right now.”
“Are you okay? You sound distraught.”
His question stings, but I answer him with the best lie I can think of. “I’m just a little worried. He was a good kid. One of my good students.”
As the words leave my lips, everything goes silent. A few days in my own paradise has been reduced to one solid truth.
He was just my student.
Cinder and Smoke
ADDISON KLINE
Abridged Version
Chapter One
This is not a love story… and the quicker you get that into your skull the better off you and I will be, thought Gabriel Cartwright. Despite the words love and need and want and desire being thrown around like a bad habit, sprinkled upon each sentence and injected into each conversation like someone tossing confetti into the air, do not swallow these sugar-coated lies. They are tempting. They are delicious. But they are lies intended to deceive. I am immune to such deception.
My name is Gabriel Cartwright. I learned at an early age, that the only person’s love you could really count on was your mother’s and the loyalty from a handful of friends. Everyone else, well, they really only stuck around to see what they could get out of you. Perhaps, for some it’s money. For others, it’s sex. And then there are those who try to use my kindness and influence to boost their standings in their career. In the end, all those people are exposed. They try to play me as a fool. There’s just one problem with that - I can’t be played. I can guess their next move before they’ve thought of it themselves. It’s really not hard, you see. Human nature gives away their motives and triggers. The average adult is self-serving. They are looking for the next best thing, the step-up, the “in” to the life they’ve always dreamed of. This is how I have survived in the business world.
From a young age, I learned from my mother, the world-renowned psychologist Marcia Cartwright, that life is a series of transactions. In this life, nothing is free. A smile is a trap. A gift comes at a cost. Even in the most intimate of relationships, cunning intellect is required to come out unscathed. One way or another, you pay a cost. You can never let your guard down. You can never let anyone get too close. And most importantly, never divulge all of your secrets, because you will be betrayed in the end.
People are self-serving, and just like in the cut-throat world of corporations and boardroom deals, those in the business of love and lust will eventually betray your trust. In the end, it is a matter of obligation, a matter of priority, and a matter of deception. No one had ever gotten the upper hand with me. This was no time to start. But there is always a first for everything - and in Cinder, I had met my match.
Some of the most beautiful things in nature are also the most lethal. Behind the most alluring of facades, the most cunning of masks, often lies a calculating danger; a cold cruelty. Beauty acts as a mask, and the true nature of the being is only revealed after its prey has been lured in, ready to be devoured. Akin to the deadly beauty of the white oleander, an exquisite flower that is poisonous in all its parts. One touch is dangerous. One kiss is toxic. Cinder is much the same. Once you are affected by her, you are forever altered. Tarnished by the beautiful poison that roams within her.
Cinder.
The name sends shock waves through my body every time I hear it spoken out loud.
I would rue the day I ever crossed her path. Contrary to what I said earlier about being immune to all deception, I must admit that this is a lie. I am immune to all but one. Cinder’s deception would cause my undoing.
“Hi, my name is Cinder,” she said in a voice as smooth as honey, and as pure as the scent of lavender in air on an early Spring day. “Cinder Alexander.” There was something poetic in the way she spoke. She didn’t need to introduce herself. My soul seemed to recognize her as soon as she entered the room.
Gabriel held his ha
nd out to her and shook it as a kind greeting. “Gabriel Cartwright, Miss Alexander… But everyone calls me Gabe.”
“I know who you are, Mr. Cartwright…” Cinder said with a sly smirk. She tapped on her bottom lip with one of her perfectly manicured fingernails. “I recognize your face from the billboard on the highway.”
Her eyes smoldered as she gazed down at Gabe with his hot coffee in her left hand. Her red lips pursed a little as Gabe told her his name. Guessing from the attire she wore under her barista apron, Cinder was most certainly not from the Upper East Side. It didn’t matter though. At least not to Gabe. The members of the board’s opinions wouldn’t be quite so warm, but I didn’t care. There was something about her; something different. She wasn’t a snob like most women that circled around me. The women who sought to be Mrs. Gabriel Cartwright, CEO of Cartwright Manufacturing; trophy wife to the grandson of the steel magnate and one of New York City’s most eligible bachelors. Cinder completely broke the mold that those other women fit right into. That is part of the reason she was so appealing to me. Her beauty could not be denied, though. Standing at a pint sized five foot one, she was petite but built with supple curves. Her flaming red hair cascaded in waves past her elbows, and her smile was nearly as vibrant as the southern accent that flowed from her lips.
“Where are you from, sugar?” Gabriel asked, hoping he sounded as suave as he meant to. Sometimes I am as smooth as cream cheese being spread on a bagel. Other times, it’s like chewing glass. His voice came out in a low, deep growl. He hadn’t meant it to. Cinder didn’t seem to mind, though.
Cinder’s eyes narrowed on Gabriel’s face slyly. Lifting her eyebrows subtly, she appeared to be amused at his question. “Whatever gave it away?” she asked as her pouty lips curled into a toothy smile.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say coyly. I can feel a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. “Couldn’t be that Georgia twang, or the smile that comes easier than most ladies around these parts… or the whole lack of snobbery in your sunny disposition,” Gabriel explained.
Cinder laughed. It was a beautiful sound; high pitched and happy. There was no malice in her tone. Every giggle and smile lured Gabriel in.
“Actually, Mr. Cartwright…” Cinder began.
“Please,” Gabriel interrupted as he reached his hand out and placed his palm over top of her hand. “Mr. Cartwright was my father. Call me Gabe.”
Her eyes warmed as she took in my words. “Okay, Gabe. Everyone just calls me Cinder.”
“Cinder,” the name rolled off of Gabriel’s lips.
“And actually,” she continued. “I’m from Tennessee.” She winked at me slyly.
“Oh, really?” Gabe replied sounding surprised. I was. “Nashville?” he asked, taking a stab at what southern town she hailed from. “I’m usually pretty good with accents… I had you pegged for a Georgia peach.”
“Oh, no honey,” Cinder replied with a chuckle. “There’s a lot more to Tennessee to the Opry and Music City. I’m from Pigeon Forge, about three hours away. That’s where I was born and raised.”
Gabriel raised his eyebrows in surprise. He was unsure what to say next. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It sounded as backwoods country as you could get. I wonder what brings a small town country girl like her to the big city. The question swirled around and around in Gabriel’s head until eventually he plucked up the courage to ask.
“So… Cinder. What brings a sweet lil thing like you to the mean streets of the Big Apple?” Gabriel asked, trying his very best not to sound like a judgmental dick. Hearing my voice, I was confident that I had left all traces of judgment from my tone and instead just sounded curious and inquisitive.
“Oh, I needed a change of scenery. But I love it here. I work here in the mornings, and I work at the theatres at night, over on Broadway, for a variety of shows.”
“Oh?” I asked, sounded more surprised than I probably should have let on. I did not expect this. She did not appear to be the typical Broadway stage diva. She was far too low-key to fit that particular mold. Cinder certainly was her own type of woman, and she marched to her own off-key beat. There was something that I found deeply attractive by her independent and rebellious nature. Breaking myself from my train of thought, I continued, “Which shows are you performing in?”
A smile grew upon Cinder’s face. Obviously the theatre was something that she was very passionate about. “I perform three days a week in A Streetcar Named Desire, twice a week in Cats, and I am in the Saturday night performance of Tromperie each week,” Cinder explained.
She smiled as she watched my expression morph from curiosity to muted surprise.
“You’re kidding?” I ask, knowing that just by the look on her face that she indeed was not kidding at all.
“No. You should come to a show one night. I’ll give a free backstage pass,” Cinder said with a sly wink. “I’ll leave it at Will Call,” Cinder offered jovially as she placed my coffee cup down on the table.
In her usual style, she wrote my name on the side of the cup in cursive and left her digits once again. I had been tempted to strike up this conversation with her for months now. Maybe this time, I would actually pluck up the nerve to call her. Imagine that. Mr. Big Time CEO is afraid to call a cute barrista at the coffee shop outside the skyscraper I own. What the fuck is wrong with this picture? Well let me tell you. It wasn’t shyness and it certainly wasn’t lack of confidence. That is something I have never lacked. What scared me, though, was that this time, it felt real. There was genuine chemistry and true interest. This wouldn’t be just another one-night stand. I could feel it in my bones. I hated breaking my rules. They had served me well so far... but something told me that Cinder would make it worth my while.
“Actually,” the word rolled off my tongue before I could even attempt to hold it back. It sounded tempted - animalistic, almost. The word was pregnant with expectation, like a dog who was having a steak waved right under its snout. “I’d love to come.”
Cinder jumped back a little in feigned shock. A vibrant smile broke upon her face and as her pearly white teeth were bared at me, I couldn’t help but notice just how happy my small gesture had made her. That told me a lot about Cinder in that moment. She wasn’t used to being supported in her endeavors. The tiniest bit of encouragement or support went a long way. I knew that she was different from the gate. She was not a spoiled, pampered Fifth Avenue princess. Cinder was salt of the earth, unique, creative and different. Her beauty was undeniable, but there was much more to her than that. Cinder had soul. She had depth; mysteries to be revealed and secrets to be unraveled. I was determined to be the man that uncovered them.
Cinder reached into her back pocket and plucked out a small notepad. Scribbling upon it, she wrote a note for me in broad floral script. She dragged the pen heavily across the paper and when she was done, ripped the page out of the notepad and tucked the pen away. Cinder looked at me with a charged expression in her eyes as she passed the paper to me.
“Here’s the address. Your ticket will be at Will Call,” she explained with a sly smile on her face.
“Awesome,” I said as I took the piece of paper from Cinder. “Thank you. What show will I be seeing tonight?”
Cinder smiled seductively at me, pursuing her mouth and tracing a single, immaculately manicured fingernail along the curve of her lips. “It’s Saturday…” Cinder began. “You’ll be seeing a little show called Tromperie.” She eyed me up and down, appearing to soak up the image before her. Then finally, with the corners of her lips curling into a soft smile, Cinder said, “See you at Seven, Mr. Cartwright… by the way, my stage name is Veronica Westerly.”
The Veronica Westerly?
Without another word, I watched as Cinder departed my table, running her fingers along the surface. My eyes lingered upon her red fingernails trace the edge of the table. Peering up, my eyes met her’s. She was glancing back at me, peering over her shoulders with the most seductive and enticing gaze I had ever encountered in my li
fe. There was just something about her. She was magnetic. My eyes were drawn to her, and I wasn’t about to remove my gaze from the fine lines of her figure. As she sauntered away, I watched her silhouette, dreaming about the curves that awaited me under her dress. I watched the sway of her hips, the gentle way her legs swept away from me, the sweet curl of her strawberry red hair.
“Cinder”, I breathily said out loud.
She heard me. Her smile slid from her mouth. Locking eyes with me, Cinder winked, pursed her lips, and disappeared behind the kitchen door of the coffee shop.
Chapter Two
I want a love that will scorch the night to ashes. I want a passion that will make the stars burn out. Ecstasy and agony, beautiful and brutal. I want something that cannot be ignored. I want something deserving of a spotlight and the headlines. When I first laid eyes upon Gabriel Cartwright, I was transfixed. It happened at the café I work at two summers ago. I would watch him as I served freshly brewed coffee and cappuccinos to the patrons. Mr. Cartwright, who insisted that I call him Gabriel, ordered a venti Espresso. As his hot drink steamed before me, I wrote his name in cursive on the side of the mug with a little heart next to his name. Slyly, I wrote my name and cell phone number just under his name on the cup. Pouring over his black hard-back journal, Gabe’s mysterious gaze focused on the words that streamed from his silver fountain pen. His earthy hazel eyes flickered up at me every few pages. He noticed me, but he didn’t make an advance. There was something about him – something different. Gabriel was watching me, observing me, it seemed. I knew then and there, I had to have him. It wasn’t a question of if, but when. Glancing at me with a charged glint in his eyes, Gabriel acknowledged what I knew.
Our love would set the world aflame.
Cinder hung up her apron in the breakroom and quickly proceeded to the timeclock. She punched out in record time, and hit the pavement, exiting the cafe through the back door. Stepping out into the alleyway, Cinder pulled on her vintage leather jacket tight over her chest to fight against the brisk autumn wind.
Love is Strange: A Taboo Anthology Page 19
