Sweetest Taboo (19 page)

In a quivering voice I whispered into Tom’s ear, “I’m still in love with you.”

Tom responded by tightening his embrace. Then he reached for my right hand, which was clutching his back. He pulled it gently toward his chest and placed it over his heart, with his hand firmly on mine. I could feel the racing of his heart against my palm.

I felt his warm breath in my ear. “I know, sweetheart, I know. It’s okay.”

Tom took my face into his hands and kissed me lovingly, his lips moving softly across my mouth. My lips immediately responded, and every inch of me focused on the feeling of Tom’s body on mine. I wanted this moment to last forever. It felt like a dream, a dream I never wanted to wake from, and for the first time since returning to California, I felt like I had finally found my way home.

Chapter Sixteen

Come What May

A
few days later, Tom approached me at the locker I shared with Liz. I had asked my fourth period teacher for a pass to collect an assignment that I had left inside my locker. When Tom appeared next to me, I was alone in the empty hallway near his classroom.

“Hi there,” he said coyly.

“Hi,” I replied while rummaging through my locker, “I left one of my assignments in here, and I need it for class.”

“Lucky for me then.”

I couldn’t suppress a smile. “You realize we’re standing right in front of the principal’s office, right?”

“Yeah, I do. Since you mentioned Warren, you know what he said to me when he found out you were returning to Royal Oaks?”

“No, what did he say?”

“He said that he didn’t want to see me within 50 feet of you, or else,” Tom said matter-of-factly.

“What? Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me this before? Are you just
asking
to get caught?”

“Isabel,” Tom said patiently, “Warren can’t do anything to me. He’s just trying to keep me on my toes. Anyway, as long as we’re just talking, no one can accuse me of anything. Let’s make this easier on both of us. Give me your new number and we can talk over the phone like we used to. That way you won’t be so worried all the time, and I can stop constantly looking for you from my classroom and making excuses to come out and talk to you. We can both stop worrying about getting caught.”

I nodded. “You’re right, that would be better.” I pulled a pen from my locker and started to jot my number on a piece of paper.

“No,” Tom interrupted, putting a hand out. “Just tell me the number and I’ll memorize it. I don’t want anyone to see you hand me anything.”

“Okay, but you’ll remember it?”

“Isabel, anything about you becomes ingrained in my memory like carvings on stone.”

Unable to control my blush, I rattled off my number. “You got that?”

He nodded. “I’ve committed it to memory.” He scanned our surroundings out of the corner of his eye. “Is it okay if I call you tonight?”

“Sure,” I said. “Call whenever you want, but make up a guy’s name if my parents or my brother answer the phone. No more John, okay? My mom was giving me grief about blowing you off.”

“Smart lady,” Tom said with a smile on his face.

I closed my locker, assignment in hand. “I have to get going. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Sure, Isabel, I’ll call you tonight.”

I skipped back to class, unable to contain my excitement. This seemed like exactly the solution we needed. We only wanted to talk, after all, and what was wrong with that?

***

As promised, Tom called me at home that evening just as I was heading into my bedroom after dinner.

“Isabel! Isabel, you have a phone call,” my mother called from the kitchen.

I ran to the living room and grabbed the cordless phone from the cradle.

“Okay, thanks, Mami,” I yelled back, rushing to my room. “You can hang up the kitchen phone now!”

I closed the door to my bedroom and held the receiver to my ear, waiting for the click of the other phone. When it came, I breathed out and cleared my throat.

“Hello?” I said, trying to sound casual.

“Hi there,” the deep voice on the other end replied. “I’m glad I caught you. I’ve got about twenty minutes before Danielle gets home.”

The mention of his wife’s name immediately darkened my mood. Tom rarely talked about his wife, but on those occasions when he did, the harsh reality smothered my cheerful nature.
Nothing’s going on, we’re just talking
, I reminded myself. This was nothing like it had been before. I did my best to overcome my jealous mood, trying to focus on my conversation with Tom.

“Thanks for coming by my classroom the other day,” he started, his voice dropping. “It was so good to feel you in my arms again. I’d forgotten how good you smell, how wonderful your lips felt. I didn’t want to let you go.”

“I know,” I whispered back. “I wish I could’ve stayed in your arms forever. But we shouldn’t be talking about that now.”

There was a slight pause then he asked, “Do you have any plans for this Memorial Day weekend?”

“My uncle is visiting from Chile and my parents are taking him to Yosemite,” I told him. “They leave on Friday morning, and I think they get back on Monday afternoon.”

Tom laughed. “It’s either coincidence or the stars are aligned in our favor. Danielle is taking the kids to Yosemite this weekend as well. She’s going with friends of ours and their kids. They’re leaving on Thursday morning and won’t return until Monday night. I told her that I couldn’t go – too many assignments to grade. It looks like we might have some time to spend together.”

I sat up on my bed, pulling on a strand of my wet hair. The thought of spending time alone with Tom excited and frightened me at the same time. Was it crazy for us to pick up where we left off so quickly, despite the obvious risks? I was in love with him, and I knew that I wanted to be with him, but was it worth the danger? We were both putting ourselves at risk here, and for what?

“Tom, I –” I started, thinking that I should put an end to this before it started.

He paused expectantly, waiting for me to finish. When I didn’t, he cleared his throat and spoke. “Yes, Isabel?”

I took a deep breath then spoke. “I just wonder if this is a good idea, that’s all. There’s so much at risk, and we –”

“Isabel, I can’t live without you,” he interrupted briskly. “I don’t
want
to live without you. I love you, and I’m willing to risk anything to be with you. That’s all there is to it.” He paused for a second then continued. “Are you willing to take a risk with me, or is that too much for you?”

I gulped then nodded in agreement silently. That was the clearest he’d ever been on the subject, and it answered the questions I’d had. He was willing to risk everything for me. The least I could do, given how much we loved each other, was risk the same for him. “I would do anything to be with you,” I murmured, putting my heart and soul behind the words.

“Good,” he said, his voice softening. “Then that’s settled. And maybe once we’re alone, you can tell me why you stopped taking my calls last summer after I came back from my camping trip.” His voice became serious again. “And why you didn’t bother to say goodbye when you left to Chile. I thought you hated me, and it broke my heart.”

“Tom, it wasn’t anything you did,” I told him. “Trust me. I was going through a lot before the move, and the emotions affected my thinking in all the wrong ways. I even wrote you a long letter from Chile explaining everything, but I never mailed it. I wrote it right before the police called me, and I figured it would be a terrible idea to mail it to you at school after you know, the incident. So I just tossed it out.”

“The idea of not even saying goodbye to you drove me crazy,” Tom said, a raw edge in his voice that both startled me and warmed my heart. “Anyway, we can talk about it later. So, let’s plan on meeting up on Saturday, maybe in the late afternoon? How does that sound?”

“Sure,” I replied. “It would be so nice to get to spend time alone again. And now that I have a car, it’ll be easier for me. Where do you want to meet?”

There was a pause.

“To be honest, I would love it if you came over,” Tom said. “It would be much more private for us here, instead of up in the mountains. What do you think?”

The idea of meeting him at his house – the home he shared with his wife and kids – sent a rush of blood to my brain and made me feel dizzy. I couldn’t believe he was suggesting I meet him at his home. On top of that, though, there was the obvious fact of the danger involved.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” I asked anxiously. “I mean, it’s your home. What would your neighbors say if they saw me walking through your door while your wife is out of town?”

Tom chuckled. “Isabel, don’t worry. Just come over. We’ll sit around, cuddle for a few hours on the couch and catch up. That’s it. You worry too much.”

“Sorry, I can’t help it.” I took a deep breath and then said, “Fine. I’ll come by your place on Saturday. Now you’d better get going.”

“Goodnight, Isabel,” Tom whispered.

“Goodnight,” I replied softly. I hung up the phone and allowed a large, satisfied smile to form on my face.

***

“Wait a minute,” Liz interrupted, lifting her hand up in the air with the flair of a pissed-off diva. “So, are you or aren’t you?”

I was in Liz’s bedroom, sitting on her large bed and cuddling with one of her oversized pillows. It was Saturday evening, and I’d just come from my rendezvous with Tom. There was something magical about being with an older man, something incredibly exhilarating and illicit. I’d found that everything was even more exciting when I told Liz about it, and I’d rushed straight here from his house. All of the worries, doubts, and guilt I harbored about being in a relationship with a married man fragmented and vanished when I talked to Liz about it. Besides that, talking to her made it feel real, rather than imaginary. If I was the only one who knew about it, then I could be imagining it all. If she knew as well, it made it real. I knew I shouldn’t be talking to her, but I didn’t want to stop.

I clenched the pillow in my hands and silenced my laughter with the feathery cloud. “What?” I slyly asked. “Can’t you tell?”

Liz jumped on the bed and snatched the pillow from my hands. “Come on, Isabel, tell me! Are you still a virgin or not?”

“Well, it’s difficult to say,” I confessed. “We didn’t actually have sex, but
something
certainly happened.”

Liz looked as if she was going to burst with anticipation.

“I want to hear everything, from the start,” she demanded. “What did you guys do? Were you on his bed? Tell me everything, from the beginning!”

“All right.” I took a moment to organize the details of the afternoon in my head. “I parked about a block away from his place because I didn’t want his neighbors to see an unfamiliar car outside his house. I walked to up the porch and knocked on the front door. Within a few seconds, he came to let me in. He walked me straight to the sofa in the living room, but before we started anything, he told me something that I still don’t believe … well, I don’t know, maybe it’s true…”

“What, Isabel? What did he say?”

“Well, you know how I’m freaked out about losing my virginity to just any guy, and how I don’t want to have sex because I’m terrified of getting pregnant and my parents killing me?”

“Yeah, so what? Who isn’t?”

“Apparently, Tom decided to get a vasectomy a few weeks ago. I mean, he said he told his wife it was because he didn’t want to have any more kids, but he said he did it because of me.”

Liz began to laugh. “Are you kidding me? What does that mean?”

“He said he didn’t want me to worry so much. I had told him that I didn’t want to sleep with him until I was ready, and until I knew that it would be safe … you know, until I knew that I wouldn’t get pregnant. Well, I think he took that seriously. Anyway, maybe he’s just saying that, maybe the truth is his wife forced him to get one so that she wouldn’t get pregnant again. You know, guys can say all kinds of things to have sex and it’s impossible to know exactly what’s true and what isn’t. I think he really got one, you know, got the surgery, but I don’t know why he really did it. Anyway, who cares? That’s not really important.”

“Okay, fine. Come on, get to the good stuff,” Liz said impatiently.

“Then Tom excused himself for a minute, so I took the opportunity to look around. His house was nice. It was pretty small, but cozy. The first thing I looked for were pictures of him and his wife, or his kids. Can you believe there was nothing?”

“Maybe he took them down because he knew they would make you feel uncomfortable,” Liz answered. “Or maybe they just don’t keep pictures up.”

“I thought there would be pictures for sure. After all, Tom’s a photography teacher! Well, maybe you’re right, maybe he took them down for my sake. I obviously wasn’t going to ask him why there were no pictures. Anyway, Tom came back and we sat on the sofa together. It was kind of weird being there, in complete privacy. Most times I’m thinking about who might drive up and see us naked in the truck, or who might open the door when we’re in his classroom, or who’s going to pick up the phone when we’re talking. This time it was like we were completely free. Okay, actually, I was afraid that his wife might have forgotten something at home and come back to find us on the couch.”

Liz giggled. “That would’ve completely sucked! I’m sure Tom was worrying about the same thing.”

“Actually, he seemed pretty relaxed,” I told her. “It’s almost unsettling how easygoing he is about the whole thing, like it doesn’t really phase him. I’m not sure what to make of it. But then again, he’s a very easy going and relaxed guy. That’s his personality, after all. Anyway, he sat on the sofa and seemed really comfortable holding me in his arms. We talked for a while, about everything that’s happened, and then we started making out. First we were kissing, just sitting up on the sofa, then before I knew it, we were lying naked on the sofa, tossing and turning…”

“What do you mean tossing and turning? Was he on top or were you? Come on, you’re flying past the details, Isabel!”

I paused, thinking back to the events of the afternoon. I knew that I was leaving things out and telling her only half the story, but a large part of me didn’t want to tell her everything. That part of me wanted to keep it a secret, to keep those special moments between Tom and me private, to be shared between the two of us. “Listen, Liz, we did a lot of stuff, and it all felt incredible. But this was our first time, really, and I don’t want to give up
all
the details. I want to keep some to myself, you know?” I looked up at her, hoping that she’d understand.