Star-Crossed (12 page)

In his office, he shut the door, his chest heaving.

“I missed you, too,” I told him.

Hands touched; fingers traced over skin that in the span of just three weeks already felt foreign.

Pressing me against the door, my teacher kissed me with a rabid, apocalyptic intensity. He had never held me like this before; there was an urgency, a black-veiled fear and twinge of despair in the way our hidden bodies clung together in the confines of that small, windowless room.

“This terrifies me,” he whispered. “You terrify me. I'm scared.”

Will pulled away, hands still on my shoulders.

“This job, it makes me happy,” he continued quietly. “I'm happy here. I'm happy teaching, I'm happiest on stage, watching you. Watching everyone perform and grow. What kind of man am I to be doing something like this? Something so reckless.”

“You're scared,” I repeated. “I am, too. But I know that you'll always have more to lose than I will.”

The word
victim
sprang to mind, the irony sinking into my blood like lead. Here I was, with the all-enveloping understanding that if we were discovered, Mr. Tennant would be sent away in shackles; perhaps not literally - my age made the bodily consummation legal. But he would never see another morning at Trinity Prep.

Victim.

I looked at him, and thought of Marius. I thought of myself - and I wondered, silently, who the real victim was in this game of seduction. Was it the man who stood in front of me, touching me like my skin were something of a flower petal; frail and balmy. The man whose desire I could feel in warm fingerprints and shallow breath.

And me, a child. As Tyler would so quickly say, a
kid
. A student.

My mouth found his hands, kissing warm fingers, taking one of them and running the skin over my lips. We kissed again, slow and savory.

I knew who the real victim was, and it wasn't me. If there were some fragment of this inevitable explosion that wrote out my name in blood across the tracks, I would smear it and cry hearsay. Mr. Tennant was the victim.

Yet I kissed him continuously. I ran my tongue along his neck and listened to him gasp and moan with a timid noise.

I had to have him, and I had to win. I had to win, but I had to have him.

Melting into his body, the two of us embraced in an office chair; my legs folded against his lap. I could no longer tell what was a part of the game between Marius and I, and what was real.

Mr. Tennant caressed my face, our veins buzzing. When bell rang, we slid back into our respectable places. He covered the front of his pants, his half-smile embarrassed.

“I know we can't keep doing this here,” I said. “But I would still really like to see you. I like you, Will. There's something about you that's different than the rest of these boys.”

He smiled became symmetrical; both ends pulling into a wide, ironic grin.

“That would be my age,” he said plainly. “These boys are still boys. I've seen over a decade of seasons come and go. I'm arguably old.”

“I don't care,” I said.

“You should,” he said.

“Maybe,” I confessed. “But you obviously don't.”

There was a still moment between us, like the final drop of an EKG wave; the shrill flat-line sound of a heart that was no longer beating; and yet, mine was fluttering. A red-winged moth that was coming closer and closer to the beckoning flame, with only one possible ending.

The truth behind our mutual interested blossomed like a Moon Flower; only seen in the nightfall, crumpling at the first sign of sunlight. Hidden, like us.

“You're wrong. I do care,” he said. “But there's something about you.”

“As long as you don't try and tell me I'm special,” I said. “Let's keep this as it should be.”

“What does that mean?” he asked. “I can't fancy you?”

“You can fancy me all you want,” I smiled, adjusting my tie. “As long we can agree not to bring love into this equation.”

He left with me, returning to the stage where he gathered his things and moved the small table behind the scarlet curtain. His theatrical throne was still in the center, and after seating himself down, he leaned forward, hands clasped, watching me go.

“Saturday,” he said. “Tell me you're free.”

“Are you going to help me run lines?” I mused, smiling; not at him, or to anyone. I smiled to the floor. “Or maybe take a first glance at that chapter summary that's due on Friday.”

“I was thinking of something a bit more escapist,” he said. “Like a concert in the city.”

The wide, open city. Oh, the recklessness of it all.

“I'll see you Saturday night,” I told him. “Meet me on the front steps of your apartment. I'll wear something pretty.”

I didn't catch the look on his face; second bell rang, and I bolted quickly as the speed of sound.

The chapel doors were still open, and I found Tyler seated in the middle-center pew. I looked around for Marius, and spotted him cozied up to Piper in the far-back. A look of complete disinterest was scribbled over his face as he maintained a limp arm hooked around her shoulder.

She looked sad. Her cheeks were red, her nose tinged pink; I wondered if she had been crying.

“You were almost late,” Tyler said, raising an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“More than okay,” I told him. “I'm on cloud nine.”

As the sermon started, both of us stared mindlessly at the podium; our eyes slowly drifting to the stained glass, the one thing that could maintain our attention. We were all perpetually infants in that sacred, beautiful place. Entranced by color.

“You smell like men's cologne,” Tyler whispered. “It's making me dizzy.”

I pretended not to hear him; silently remaining fixed on the shimmering glass depiction of Christ; trying to convince myself that you can't lie if you don't say anything at all.

ELEVEN

[Before my family-unit had disintegrated into ash, and then into something indistinguishable, we often visited Times Square. I loved the bright signs and the busy tempo of it all; even the smoke that billowed out from ghastly cracks in the pavement made me think of dragons living beneath the streets and other unworldly creatures. New York City itself was something enchanted and spellbinding. The street vendors and burnt coffee and people walking to-and fro to wherever their destinations were. When I was young, I didn't think much of where their eyes hung, or where they were looking; I was simply swept up in the bustling nature of the city. I was too young to see the emptiness in their straightforward stare.

Looking back, the crowds and blinding buildings were a kind of pacifier. A feigned sort of embrace for all of the cold, open space that I had found at home. I simply wanted to feel like I was in the middle of something, even if was partially smothering.

Even though the city had been veiled in a constant shade of gray since I was small, there was one thing that I always appreciated:

For starters, you can escape in the city. You can blend in with everyone and anyone.

Secondly, living in the city, it's very easy to lie about your whereabouts; to the point that when I told my father I was heading the library, he didn't even bother to lower the paper he was reading.

“I might be late,” I told him.

“Well, your mother and I will be out for the evening, anyway. I suspect we'll be leaving once she's finished getting ready.”

Step-mother.

He didn't even care. Beneath my jacket was a simple black dress, black lace flats, my hair was worn in a low ponytail.

I waited until I was in the cab before I did my makeup; subtle, but more than I had ever bothered wearing before. There was something about this occasion that left me wanting to look different than the person Mr. Tennant knew at school. I wanted to look precocious; emitting anything that would render me as vastly divided from my student label as possible.

Friday had only arrived after what felt like a hellish eternity. Will didn't dare look at me for a second too long in the classroom, and on the stage, he treated me with the same attention and tone as everyone else. We didn't speak after class, or after practice; and I told Tyler that the cologne had been a result of walking through the aftermath of someone deciding to practically bathe in the stuff.

“Gross,” he said. I agreed whole-heartedly.

Will was waiting on the steps for me when I arrived. He was dressed in dark jeans, black Converse, and a Burberry T-shirt that was – of all colors – a remarkably royal purple. It read BRIT in bold letters across the front, which I found incredibly amusing.

“Burberry?” I smirked. “Pretentious much?”

“Are you terribly bothered by it?” he raised an eyebrow. “I can change if you'd like.”

“Kidding, Mr. Tennant,” I said, touching his elbow. He slid into the cab's back seat alongside me, hands raking through licorice hair. “I mean, look at me.”

“Who are you wearing?” he asked, a jestful mock in his voice. “Though granted, I can only see the coat.”

I undid the jacket, draping it over my arm and revealing the moderately-conservative black dress. The most skin it showed was a stretch of pale leg; I hadn't bothered wearing tights or stockings. I wanted to give him something to look at that felt slightly more classy than cleavage.

The dress didn't give much away at the top. Still, his eyes grew to the size of tea plates.

“You know,” I admitted. “I have no idea. I barely bother looking at the tags anymore.”

I rested my head against his shoulder, welcoming the sound of The Smiths as they dribbled through the shared headphones that split by a wire between Will and I. The gray-splashed buildings were alive and flickering. There was something about the lights that always seemed to make the entire place look so much less dull than it did in the daytime.

“Purple looks good on you,” I added. “I think this is the first time I've ever seen you wearing something bright.”

“Chalk it up to my mood, I suppose.”

His smile was benevolent and warm; incapable of anything harsh and ugly. He took my hand, and my face grew hot.

“Shall we walk?” he suggested. “We have a bit of time before the concert starts.”

“Will you be telling the name of said musician?” I mused. He shook his head.

“I'm a man of surprises, Kaitlyn Laurent,” he kissed the back of my hand sweetly. “I believe that even the kindest of us don't get as much thrill and good-natured fun as we deserve.”

Around us, the entire span of Time Square was ablaze in reds and greens and every color imaginable. It sang from the skies that even in their shrouded haze of suggestive gray-cotton clouds were penetrated by that hungry, energized blanket of life.

I wondered what people on the street thought as they saw us walk together, hand in hand; the girl with charcoal-lined eyes and designer dress, the boy in Burberry with his statuesque frame like something out of the magazine cutouts that splattered over the walls of my bedroom.

“Remember, it's just a bet,” I pictured Marius saying. “Don't fall in too deep.”

I loved seeing Will in the lights; the shimmering crystal air that draped over him like a veil that only I was capable of drawing back. He smiled so widely as we walked along the shops, pointing at various dresses or suits in the glossy windows.

“You wear nice clothes for someone who lives in such a quaint apartment,” I observed. “Are you secretly a wealthy man, Mr. Tennant?”

“Story for another time,” he echoed. “But clothes are just clothes, aren't they?”

I shrugged, staring into my ghost-like reflection that wobbled slightly in the staggering window. Beyond the glass was just another shop with silver racks of flimsy, celebrity-crafted pieces that would barely constitute as clothing. Faint-inducing price tags attached to bangles and gems and diamonds; everything was glitter-dusted and tucked away in the city of nauseating gray and sour socialite vapidness.

And I was playing right at the very center; an actress with my right-hand player standing beside me, smiling and touching my shoulders and telling me that it was time to go.

I smiled up at Mr. Tennant, picturing him pressing me against the glass and kissing me with an insatiable hunger; everyone staring; our PDA finally working to pry a glance from the straight-staring gazes.

“I hate this place most days,” I told Will. Mr. Tennant. My teacher. “Do you?”

“I don't know. I'd say I enjoy it for the most part,” he said. “Why do you hate New York so much?”

I didn't answer him right away, merely slumping my shoulders in a manner that would have made my father snap. Will brushed an invisible piece of lint from my shoulder, his hand lingering for a second too long.

“It's like when you spend a lot of time hanging around your favorite waterfront; and at first the water is so clean that you could drink it if you wanted,” I said. “But after awhile, as time passes, it just becomes so polluted that it's poisonous. You can't even swim in it anymore. After awhile you don't even want to look at it.”

He looked sad, Mr. Tennant. Sad and understanding and maybe a little perplexed.

“But I'm also remarkably selfish,” I elaborated, sighing. “I mean, I don't even know what really makes me happy anymore. Or what I want.”

“I don't think you're selfish,” he quick said. “I think you've just got a lot on your mind.”

Will kissed me, and I laughed.

Inside, a part of me sank.

We bought vendor coffee and buzzed around the buildings; eventually we walked past one of the old jewelry shops that Henry's father had owned. I looked at one of the pieces; the same red diamonds that linked together in the necklace that was sitting in a box in a room. The mannequin was just shoulders and neck; no face, no eyes, no mouth.

“What's the future look like for you?” he asked. “School? Work?”

“My father has everything perfectly situated for me to attend Yale in the fall,” I told him. “And I should be happy. I know I should. I mean, Jesus, of all the things that people have to worry about in their day-to-day lives, and I'm upset over the fact that I'll be attending one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the United States.”

“Well, if it doesn't make you happy,” Will offered. “Just don't go.”

I couldn't tell him about the bet with Marius; I couldn't tell him that there was a potential out; a salvation in the form of my step-brother's trust fund.%

“The thing is,” I explained slowly. “I mean, my family has a lot of money. But I don't exactly have anything if I were to leave it all behind.”

“So you're just like the rest of the world, then.”

Mr. Tennant said it so simply, like there wasn't much to it at all; like what I'd say didn't really matter, or wasn't some grand explosion of new and wondrous discovery.

I was normal to him. Just a girl.

My heart sank slowly in that instant; the moment frozen in a temporary snapshot. I looked up at the marquee signs for the concert hall; a beautiful distraction from the torrent of guilt and want and all of the inexplicable things I was feeling. A monster and mouse all wrapped up in a golden bow.

Mr. Tennant squeezed my hand, and I instinctively nuzzled against his chest. He smelled like poignant love notes and street smoke and a punch of something peppery.

“I like you,” I told him. “You can tell me that you fancy me, if you want.”

He smiled; not at me, though. His eyes were on the music hall sign; the people all filtering into the doors with a giddy electric excitement.

“I fancy you,” he told me. “I fancy you a lot.”

We were mixed with a crowd washed in the elemental sounds of the instrumental band that played music often used in film soundtracks. There were no words, and I was glad for that. It allowed to be better present in the moment that I was sharing with Mr. Tennant. The few precious hours that would come and go and then forever be gone and locked within the cautionary confines of my unreliable memory.

Everything was laughter and stolen kisses between the rows of red-suede seats; gilded pillars that stretched over and beyond the ceiling. The stage was just a collective mesh of instruments without players.

In that moment, I could hear his heart beating; I could hear my heart thrumming like the chords of a broken guitar.

We held hands in the empty room; just two people who had no clue what we were doing, or thinking, or anything at all.

“Let's get out of here,” I said. “Let's be stupid and foolish together.”

I kissed him. He kissed me back; a silent gift, an unspoken acceptance.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

The hotel suite was a palette of mauve, Byzantium and damson; shades of purple that weren't quite purple. The bathroom was all glass-walls and stark-black marble; faux orchids sat perched on the double-sink with brass taps, and the single window in the entire place managed to encompass an entire wall. New York City was its painting; the world below just the tops of giant buildings and the wisps of cigarette-smoke clouds.

Mr. Tennant looked at me, I looked at him. It was almost as if he were a teenager all over again; hesitant and anxious and all nerve-endings set fire.

We touched hands, fingers splayed so that the size of his own felt ridiculously large compared to mine. My jacket was on the bed, my makeup smudged, but I didn't care.

The Smiths played in the background on Will's iPod:
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
.

I waited for him to lace his fingers with mine, but he didn't. He simply stayed put; unmoving, totally hesitant.

“What's the worst thing you've ever thought about?” I prompted. “With you and me, I mean.”

He practically choked, our fingers finally coming together; he was trembling a little.

“You know what I mean,” I added.

Will sank down on the bed, touching my coat like it was my own skin; softly, gingerly.

“I've dreamt about seeing what you look like beneath your clothes,” he confessed. “Among other things.”

“Like what?” I asked.

He smiled.

“Having my way with you on my classroom desk. Or on stage,” he said. “I can't stop thinking about what you said to me. About that dream you had where everyone was watching us.”

“Would you want them to watch?”

“No,” he said quickly. “But just the thought of it. That particular spot.”

Will sighed, shaking his head like the idea was preposterous; and it was, certainly. Still, I knelt down between his legs and took his face in my hands, kissing him.

“Look at me,” I told him. “Don't take your eyes off me.”

He listened without protest; his eyes quickly lapping up every movement like the constant shutter-sound of a camera; each millisecond like a frame of film that would forever burn into his mind.

I stood, taking a few steps back, and slowly stepped out of my flats. Then, taking a deep breath, I unzipped my dress (oh, the convenience of side-zippers) and let it fall to the floor.

Mr. Tennant's eyes didn't move.