Chapter Eight

 

Gwendolyn

 

 

The next morning, I stopped by the coffee shop on the way to work to treat myself to a fancy drink that I could barely pronounce but that made me feel like an adult when I sipped it. I was taking one of those ultra-heated foamy sips as I walked toward my classroom when I heard Mr. Jefferson calling my name. I turned around to look at him and saw him gesture for me to follow him. He looked uncharacteristically serious and I felt a sense of dread that even the fancy coffee couldn't fix. We walked in silence toward the office and he closed the door before gesturing for me to take my seat across from his desk.

Was this it? Was I about to get fired? What could I have done that would justify me not even getting through a whole year of teaching?

I sat down and settled my bags at my feet. I thought about putting my coffee down with them but figured that if I needed to make a dramatic and indignant exit it would be better if I didn't kick the cup over and send the coffee splashing across the carpet. Instead, I held it in my lap, cupping it between my suddenly cold palms as Mr. Jefferson walked around the desk and took his place in his chair. He folded his hands on the desk in front of him and let out a long breath. There was a strange silence and I briefly thought that he might have forgotten why he brought me into the office and now thought that I had come in for a visit. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time that that had happened. I was starting to tell him that I needed to get to homeroom when he opened his mouth to speak.

"You came to me yesterday and told me about a problem that you are having with a student," he said.

"Yes, Jason Baxter."

"He didn't come for his detention yesterday afternoon."

Thank you for the recap.

"I had given him the detention because of a behavioral problem and because he failed to complete an assignment that I had given the rest of the class during the allotted time. He never showed up yesterday afternoon."

"I appreciate you bringing this to my attention and I wanted to let you know that I have been in contact with his father and we discussed the situation."

"Thank you," I said, feeling relieved. "I really appreciate…"

"We've agreed to let the situation go and move forward."

I blinked. I couldn't possibly have heard what I thought I just did.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"I discussed the situation with him and he told me that there were apparently extenuating circumstances that were at play."

"If you want to describe a non-mandatory work out for the baseball team as extenuating circumstances," I said.

"Apparently that practice is very important, and I agreed that we need to give our new students encouragement and space to grow and participating in school programs such as sports teams is a good way to make them feel involved and welcomed."

It sounded as though he were reciting something that was written in a brochure about the school. I stared at him for a few more seconds, trying to process what he was telling me.

"So, what you're saying is that even though I am his teacher and I decided that it was appropriate for him to have a detention after school, nothing is going to be done. He is going to get away with the way that he talks to me and not doing the work that was expected of him."

"I must say, Gwendolyn, I am disappointed by your reaction."

"Disappointed?"

"Yes. When you first came to work here I was looking forward to having a fresh, young, new teacher who would be able to engage with our students and connect with them on a more personal level than some of our more experienced instructors. I would hope that that would extend to new students who may be having difficulty settling in and who only want to expand their horizons and broaden the opportunities that they have for their future."

More from the Silver Lake High brochure.

"With all due respect, Mr. Jefferson, I believe that the most important part of being a teacher is holding students accountable and helping them to understand the importance of living up to the responsibilities that they have. I can appreciate that he wants to be on the baseball team and that attending the workout would look good to the coach, but what about his dedication to his actual classes?"

"I understand that this is upsetting you, Gwendolyn, but the matter is settled. I hope that you can see that this is in the best interest of everybody involved. Now you can have a fresh start. I'm sure that Jason will come back to class with greater enthusiasm and more commitment to being a good student."

I walked out of the office still furious. I couldn't believe that the principal would override my decision like that and release Jason from his punishment without at least consulting me. Nothing that the principal had said had made any sense to me. I didn't care that Jason was new. There were two other new students in another grade who had started within a day or two of Jason, and I didn't see them getting any special treatment. I knew that there wasn't really anything that I could do about it, though. I wanted to help Jason. I wanted to figure out what it was that was making him act out the way that he was and be the influence that guided him through it. But I was at the mercy of Mr. Jefferson. He was the head of the school and if he decided that the situation didn't warrant intervention, I couldn't go against him. I would just have to hope that he was right about Jason having a change of heart and that I would be able to reach out to him in a different way.

I thought about Garrett as I wove my way through the crowd of students filling the hallways as they made their way to their first class after homeroom. The stress and tension that I was feeling made me want to visit him even more. I had learned that he was very good at distracting me and easing any stress that I was feeling. I wondered if I could sneak out and visit him again, but I knew that it wouldn't be as soon as I wanted to. I already had plans for that evening. It was my bi-weekly standing date with several of the other teachers from the school. Some of them I knew from before I started teaching and others I had met in my first days at the high school. We started meeting every other week to go to a local bar for drinks and gossip in my first week of teaching and had kept up with it since. It was an opportunity for us to say all the things about other teachers, students, and parents that we would never dare say in the hallowed halls of the high school, but that we could later blame on whatever cocktail we had been drinking. It was the promise of that gathering that got me through the rest of the day, but I was still brooding about the situation when I arrived at the bar that evening.

"What's with the face?" Sarah asked as I approached the table and slid into the booth beside her.

"Hello to you too," I said.

"Wow," Elise, another teacher from the school, said. "Someone is in a truly delightful mood this evening."

I sighed.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just had kind of a rough day. I have this new student and he's driving me up a wall."

"And why is that?" Sarah asked.

I gave them the rundown of everything that had happened since Jason's first day in class, occasionally backtracking to fill in the other teachers as they arrived. I kept his name out of my rant. Somehow, I wanted to protect him. Even after everything, I still felt a strong sense of compassion and responsibility toward him, and I didn't want the teachers forming any type of opinions about him based only on me. When I was finished I looked into the faces of each of my colleagues, waiting for their responses.

"It sounds to me like he's just having a really hard time getting used to being in a new place," Elise said.

"Do you know how far he moved?" Laura asked.

I shook my head.

"I really don't know much about him. I haven't had the chance to actually talk to him."

"Well, maybe you should. I have a new student in my class, too. He started a few weeks before Christmas break, but he had a rough start, too. He didn't want anything to do with the town, the school, or me. He was outright nasty to me and raised holy hell with some of the other students."

"What did you do about it?" I asked.

"I kept him after school for a couple of detentions and then I started doing lunch detention with him. During those is when we really started talking. That's when I found out that he was going through some pretty tough things at home. He was being raised by his grandparents along with six siblings and was having to work before and after school just to help support all of them. He's been much better since we talked."

Hearing that made me feel terrible about the way I had been thinking about Jason.

"When you gave him detention, did Mr. Jefferson ever step in and cancel the detention? Or tell you what you were supposed to do to handle the situation?"

Laura shook her head.

"No," she said. “He never got involved.”

I sighed.

And somehow now I felt even worse. I also felt jipped. I had come out tonight for the promise of being able to throw some shade and hear about the juicy, sometimes dirty details of the lives of my much more interesting colleagues. Instead, I felt like it had turned into a group therapy session and I just wasn't up for that. Elise apparently saw the expression on my face and she straightened her back, lifting her cocktail into the air and looking into each of our faces.

"I proclaim that all discussions about students and the somewhat depressing effect that they can have on our lives over and done with for this evening. Tomorrow we can all go back to being the caring mentors and role models we all hope to be, but for tonight all conversation will be interesting and preferably inappropriate in nature."

We laughed and lifted our drinks toward hers.

"Here, here!" A couple of the teachers said enthusiastically.

"So, what did everybody do for New Year's?" Laura asked.

"Well, we all know that Gwendolyn had a hot date with Mr. Chili Beans," Elise said.

I gasped in mock horror.

"His name is The Reverend Holy Frijole," I corrected. "Show some respect."

"I'm sorry. So, are you saying that you didn't share a magical evening with your cat and you actually rang in the New Year with a real-live human?"

I hesitated, and the other women laughed. I didn't find the whole thing quite as rip-roaringly hilarious as they seemed to, but finally, they stopped laughing and Sarah wrapped her arm encouragingly around my shoulders, giving me a squeeze.

"Alright," she said. "Enough teasing. We love our sweet little Gwendolyn and I, for one, think that it's much better to ring in the New Year with a handsome, loving man like Frijole than by having anonymous sex with a partner of dubious origin."

"Is it possible to have anonymous sex with a partner of distinct origin?" Elise asked.

I picked up my drink and took a sip, wanting to cover the curve of my lips. Apparently, I didn't sip fast enough, however, because Laura's eyes locked on my face

"Is that a smile I see?" she asked. "Is there something you aren't telling us, Gwendolyn?"

What would they think if they knew that the sweet, unlucky-in-love member of their group had not only had insanely hot anonymous sex but that it had segued into another passionate encounter with the gorgeous new fire chief?

I knew that I couldn't tell them. I couldn't put Garrett's reputation at risk. Beyond that, though, I liked keeping him a secret. I liked the thrill of it, the elevated scandal that came from going about my normal life not letting on that I was delving into purely physical, irresistible pleasures. It was like wearing a simple dress with no panties underneath.

Oh, shit. Panties.

I had left my panties at the firehouse the night I went to see Garrett. How could I have walked out of there bare-assed and not noticed until now? I couldn't stop thinking about it throughout the rest of the evening and by the time that I bowed out of the possibility of a karaoke night breaking out among the teachers, my hand was already on my phone. I started dialing Garrett before I even closed my car door.

"Hello?"

"Where are my panties?"

"Oh, so we've moved beyond texting now, have we?"

"Yes. This seemed like more of a phone call type situation. Where are my panties?"

"I would think that you are wearing them."

"Not those panties."

"In your dresser, perhaps? Unless you are a lingerie chest type of woman."

There was a hint of playfulness in his voice, adding some lightness to its velvety tone.

"Look, Mr. Fire Chief, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Do I? I'm sorry. I must be distracted by all the silence in this empty firehouse."

I hung up and tossed the phone to the seat beside me, turning at the nearest street and heading back in the other direction toward the firehouse. The single cocktail that I had had wasn't enough to affect me, yet I felt my mind swimming. I knew that it was thoughts of Garrett and the anticipation of getting to the firehouse. When I did, I walked up to the door and knocked on it just as I had the first time that I visited. It didn't take long this time for me to hear footsteps approaching the door and the locks releasing. The door opened, and I saw Garrett step back, one hand held up and my flimsy black thong dangling from his finger.

"Are these what you were looking for?" he asked.

"Are you starting a collection?" I asked.

He shook his head as I stepped into the firehouse and closed the door behind me.

"I'd have to have at least two pairs for it to be a collection," he said.

"Mmmm --- then I guess I'll just be taking those back."

Garrett looked at the panties in his hand and then shook his head.

"No," he said. "I don't think so."

He started for the door that led out of the lobby.

"What do you mean you don't think so?" I asked, following him.

"I think that I have other plans for these."

We walked into the furnished room just as we had the last time when he suddenly turned and looked at me. I expected him to kiss me, but he didn't. Instead, Garrett took the few steps to close the space between us and reached out to untie the belt of my jacket. I watched him ball up my panties and push them into his pocket before sliding the jacket back from my shoulders and onto the floor. I was wearing black jeans and a cream-colored sweater, nothing as enticing as I had worn during our last encounters, but as he scrutinized me, he still looked at me with hunger in his eyes. He tucked his hands under my sweater and ran them up my stomach and onto my ribs, pressing with his fingertips as if counting my ribs. He then touched his fingertips to the underwire of my bra and followed it to the center where they traveled up between my breasts and then swept over the swells before his hands settled fully over the soft cotton of the cups. He massaged into them for a few seconds and then ran his hands to my arms, so he could guide my sweater off over my head. When it had dropped from my fingers, Garrett knelt down in front of me and picked up one of my feet. He propped it on his thigh and untied the black ankle boot I was wearing.

I watched as Garrett took off my shoe and set it aside, then peeled away my sock. He placed my foot back down on the floor and picked up the other, repeating the process. The movements were slow, methodical. I wanted to speak, but something about the meticulous way that he was gradually undressing me kept me silent. Still on his knees, Garrett released the button on the front of my pants and drew the zipper down. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my pants and wriggled them down over my hips and down my legs until I stepped out of them. When he had pushed them aside, his hands found my ankles and ran up the backs of my legs until they reached the panties I was wearing. They were white cotton to match my bra, a simple, practical choice, and I found myself feeling strange with him looking at them. I waited for them to turn him off, to be the final emphasis on how different I was from the person he met, but he seemed unfazed.

Garrett continued on with his slow, systematic undressing, guiding me first out of my panties and then out of my bra. Finally, I was standing completely bare in front of him, but he hadn't shed a single shred of clothing. He hadn't even kissed me. Without a word, he looped one finger around one of mine and led me across the room toward the fire pole that came down from the upstairs quarters. I remembered being a child and not believing that there were poles in actual firehouses. They were just on playgrounds and in old movies. That was the one truly enlightening thing about our field trip.

Maybe that was the mysterious moral of the trip.

Garrett led me to the pole and pressed me against it so that my belly faced the metal. He stood behind me and swept both arms up and over my head, clasping my hands around the pole. A second later I felt his hands come back to my wrists and something tightening around them. I looked up and saw Garrett tying my panties tightly around my hands, lashing them to the pole over my head. When he was finished, he ran his hands down my arms and down the sides of my body until he reached my thighs. Once there, he tucked his hands to the insides of my legs and pushed them apart. He grabbed me by my hips and pulled them back so that I took several steps away from the pole. This put me in a bent over position, my hands still wrapped around the metal and my body fully exposed to him. The dominance sent a shiver of nervousness through me, but I also found myself intrigued, excited by the unknown, by his quiet strength that made me feel at once perfectly safe and at his mercy.

I had been craving Garrett's kiss since I arrived at the firehouse and now I finally felt his lips on my skin. They burned along my spine from the base of my head to the dip in the small of my back, then his tongue came between his lips and ran back up, following the path that he had just made until he reached my neck. I gasped at the feeling, arching toward it. Garrett stood close behind me and I felt his hand touch my thigh again and move up to dip between them, finding my core and stroking my sensitive pearl with his fingertips. His other hand found one of my breasts and his fingers teased my nipple, squeezing it lightly and pulling it as he increased the speed and pressure of his fingers. I rose up onto my toes in response to the delicious sensations and Garrett responded by gliding his fingers back through my folds and pushing them into me. My entrance stretched, and my walls softened at his touch, wanting more and eagerly readying to accept it. He continued to play with my nipple as he turned his hand, pressing the pad of his thumb to my clit and swirling it in a dizzying pattern that made me cry out. In an instant, the intense pressure of a mind-blowing orgasm rushed over me and I screamed out, pressing my hips back toward him and spreading my legs further so he could push his fingers deeper inside me to soothe the still-aching need throbbing there.

Garrett withdrew his fingers and grasped my hips, pushing me back toward the pole so that I stood upright. He reached above my head and slightly loosened the panties so that he could turn me around to face him and use my shoulders to push me down to a crouching position in front of him. I watched hungrily as he slowly unhooked his belt and unbuttoned his pants. My hands twitched with desire to undress him, to hasten the release of the erection I could see bulging against his zipper. The fact that I couldn't only intensified my arousal and my mouth was watering by the time that I finally got to see his lush length stretching toward me. He stepped forward, so he stood between my spread knees and grasped the base of his shaft, directing the head toward my mouth.

I parted my lips and accepted the head between them. I let the tip of my tongue glide along the slit, gathering the sweet-salty taste of the crystalline drops that were forming there before dipping inside for a brief instant. I then brought my attention down, concentrating on the taut, sensitive bundle of nerves on the underside. I could feel the blood coursing through the swollen veins along his cock and I licked each of them in turn. Finally, I opened my mouth fully and took him in. Garrett pressed his hips forward so that he slid across my tongue and plunged toward my throat. I relaxed, welcoming him, accepting every inch of him until I felt him sink down into my throat and his hips begin to thrust.

Rather than trying to control the movements, I gave myself over to him completely. I allowed the movements of Garrett's hips to control how my mouth glided along his cock and the depth that it reached in my throat. I looked up at him, meeting his eyes and feeling my stomach flutter as he watched me without hesitation. We remained that way for only a few moments before he pulled out of my mouth and stepped back to undress the rest of the way. When he was finished, he approached me and grasped me by the sides of my ribs, pulling me up off the floor and to my feet. He reached up and grabbed onto the panties around my wrists again, twisting them so that I faced away from him as I had before. His hands moved swiftly as they brought my hips back toward him and my feet spread far apart so that again I was bent over and vulnerable to him. I heard the unmistakable rip of a condom wrapper opening and I wrapped my hands tightly around the pole, moaning loudly as he filled me with one thrust.

Garrett pressed deeper and deeper into me until I felt the slight pain that made the ache within me release and filled me with a sense of fulfillment and wholeness. I felt something with him that I never had before, and I wanted more of it. I wanted everything that I could have of him, and to give him all of me that I had to give. Even if it was only the broken pieces. Even if it wasn't all of me. There was some of me that was locked away, kept silenced and untouchable, but what I was capable of offering him, I was willing to give.

Just when I felt that my body couldn't possibly accommodate any more of him, Garrett began to thrust inside me. His hips moved in a fast, even pace, his silence finally broken with his grunts that accompanied each stroke. My body was still humming with my first orgasm and now I could feel another growing, creeping up through me as it tightened my muscles and made my mind cloudy. Our panting and whimpering groans came out of us with abandon, filling the space around us, echoing off the walls and reverberating through me as I gave myself over to the climax that took me as suddenly and intensely as the first. I felt Garrett swell and throb within me at the same moment and his own animal growl covered even the sound of my cry.

As our bodies cooled, Garrett released my wrists and lowered me down to sit in his lap as he leaned back against the pole. I tucked my head against the curve of his neck and shoulder, breathing in the musky smell of him, and smiled. He turned and kissed my hair and I nuzzled closer to him.

"Maybe we should actually schedule a time when we can see each other rather than just finding ourselves here," he finally said.

"Maybe we should," I murmured.

"How about this weekend?"

I sighed and lifted my head, so I could look at him.

"I can't," I told him. "I have to go to my parents' house."

"Your parents' house? Is it far?"

"No. They live in Silver Lake. Well, just outside of Silver Lake. It's about ten minutes from my house."

He laughed.

"If they live that close, why is the visit such a big deal?"

"I'm their only child," I explained. "So, my growing up and moving out of the house was a major thing for them. Besides, they always wanted to be the classic parents and grandparents welcoming the family home for visits. They don't have any grandchildren, so I'm it. I see them all the time, but they insist that every so often I come home and pretend that I'm returning after a long absence and spend the night with them. It's completely ridiculous, but I do it to amuse them."

"That is pretty ridiculous," he said, but there was still laughter in his voice.

I shrugged.

"It makes them happy. What about your parents? Don't they ever ask you to do silly things that you do just to humor them?"

Garrett's eyes darkened and his smile disappeared. I immediately wished that I hadn't asked that, realizing that I knew nothing about him or his family and that I had obviously just touched on something extremely difficult for him.

"No," he said.

That was it. No further explanation. No details.

I felt suddenly very aware of my nakedness in the open space and I climbed from his lap. I moved around as fast as I could, gathering my clothes and stuffing myself back into them. I was starting for the door when I felt his hand grasp my elbow. He turned me around and held me around my waist, leaning back slightly so that he could look into my face. My eyes explored his, searching for something within him, wanting to find what was hiding from me. After a few silent seconds, he leaned down and touched his lips to mine in a soft kiss.

That kiss was still on my mind when I arrived at my parents’ house the next evening. As I always did, I had brought several pieces of luggage with me. Though each one only held one or two items, it made it look as though I had made a grand journey to visit them. I hauled the pieces of luggage out of my car and carried them up onto the porch of the house. My mother burst out of the front door and held her arms open, gasping when she saw me as though we hadn't just gone to lunch the week before. I gave a deep sigh and mimicked sagging under the exhaustion of a long drive, and she rushed forward to wrap me in a hug. It was a charade that had played out every month or two for almost two years, and while I knew that it was silly and nonsensical, it also made my heart warm. I enjoyed the playfulness and it made me happy to know that even though I was still close and able to see them frequently, my parents still missed me and enjoyed having any opportunity to spend time with me.

Just as he always did, my father stepped out of the porch and eyed my luggage.

"Do you think you brought enough?" he asked.

"I think I have everything that I need," I told him.

He nodded and reached for two of my suitcases. Neither one of them could have weighed more than two pounds, but he put on a dramatic show of hauling them up off the ground and lugging them into the house. My mother and I laughed as she wrapped her arm around my waist to guide me into the house. It smelled just like it had when I was a little girl. In the background, it was clean like fresh linens with a wisp of flowers from somewhere, but the first thing that I smelled was dough and cinnamon. Every time that I came home I was welcomed by my mother's baking and the smell was always enough to soothe any hurt and make me feel safe and secure again.

I curled up on the couch while my father carried my luggage up to my childhood bedroom. They hadn't changed it since I moved out, but I found that comforting each time that I returned. It was as though if I were feeling out of control or like I had veered away from myself, I could come home and hit a reset button, anchoring myself back into who I was so that I could find myself again.

"How is the vacation planning going?" I asked.

My mother came back into the room carrying a tray overflowing with cinnamon buns and mugs of coffee. She settled it onto the table between the couch and her favorite chair and I mused that she was still the only person I knew who actually used a coffee table for coffee. I reached forward and grabbed a mug with one hand and a roll with the other, happy to feel that both of them were warm enough to start thawing me out from the chill outside.

"Wonderfully!" my mother gushed. "You are going to love the place we chose this year!"

Every year of my life my parents had planned a big trip for the three of us for spring break, and each year they strove to keep it a surprise until the day that we left. They had only managed to achieve that a few times. Usually, they ended up spilling all of the plans at least three weeks before leaving, which I always preferred. As much as they tried to convince me that I did, I didn't enjoy not knowing where we were going or what we would be doing. Not only did it present a packing dilemma, but it made me feel queasy knowing that I had absolutely no control.

That thought reminded me of Garrett tying my hands to the pole and I felt a rush of heat across my cheeks. I took a sip of my coffee to try to cover it and focused back on the conversation with my mother.

"I hope that you two haven't come up with anything crazy," I said.

"Oh, don't you worry about us. We can handle anything!"

That sentiment was exactly why I spent so much time worrying about them. My mother and father might have looked like a sweet, quiet little couple, gliding on toward retirement age, but there were times when they certainly didn't act like it. Our family vacations were usually those times and I frequently found them engaging in behaviors that better befitted someone my age, or younger than it did them. Case in point, last year I nearly had a heart attack watching my father zip-line through a forest canopy while the year before found my mother submerging herself in a cage so that she could feed sharks.

"I sure hope you brought along everything you need," my father said as he came back down the steps and made a beeline for the coffee and cinnamon rolls. "But don't worry, even if you forgot something, we can always go up to the store and get it."

Yes, the store that was three minutes closer to my house than it was to my parents'.

That night I was tucked into my lace-edged sheets, staring at the inspirational poster I had hung on my wall during my junior year when I heard my phone chime from beneath my pillow. I had taken to keeping it there in the early days of college when my dorm roommate insisted that my alarm clock was archaic and produced too much light during the night to allow her to get sufficient REM sleep, so I would have to unplug it. An eight AM class necessitated me waking up reliably and using my phone alarm from directly beneath my head proved the only effective way of getting that done. The roommate didn't last beyond the semester, but the phone-pillow habit survived to this day.

I pulled my phone out and looked at the screen. It held a text message from Garrett.

'How was the road trip to your folks'?'

'Strenuous as always, but I got to listen to the top four greatest hits of the 80s, so that made it go by faster.'

'80s music doesn't make anything go faster.'

'Don't besmirch my 80s music.'

'Besmirch? Is that actually a word that is still used?'

'Oh, hush your mouth.'

'I'm not using my mouth. I'm using my fingers.'

'Hush your...fingers.'

'Maybe you should come over and I'll find something better to do with my fingers.'

I wriggled in my bed, squeezing my thighs together against the desire already growing there.

'I told you. I can't. I'm at my parents' house.'

'So, sneak out and come see me. I'll wait outside your window.'

I muffled a laugh against my pillow. I loved that he was playing along, but even more amusing was that he was suggesting something that I would have never even considered in high school. Leaving for my dates when I was a teenager happened strictly through the front door, the exact same way that I returned, always on time and with my goodnight kiss occurring no less than 30 seconds before curfew so that the front door was closed and locked before I could be considered late.

I was boring as hell.

I thought about my response for a few seconds, wondering if I should go along with his request, then thought better of it.

'Sorry. You're just going to have to miss me.'

I felt myself blush as I sent the message and chastised myself for the reaction that brought me just a bit too close to being an actual teenager. I was feeling completely wrapped up in Garrett, my thoughts drifting to him every few minutes and my dreams filling with replays of our encounters and fantasies of what more could come. Even as I felt myself floating when I thought of him, there was a voice in the back of my mind that told me to be cautious. It reminded me that I didn't really know him and that I couldn't truly trust him. I had to protect myself.

'Missing you will just make me want you more.'

I bit my bottom lip and tucked my phone back under my pillow, trying to will myself to go to sleep.