Fuck the writing.

I haven’t been able to get shit done. Not since Addison went out of my apartment. She’d looked wild, like she might do something crazy.

And I should’ve kept her here. The more I think about it, the more I should’ve done anything to keep her.

I need her. I’m lying in bed, listening to icy pellets of rain hit my window outside when I get a text from an unknown number. Come to 110 at the Patio Court Motel.

I study it for a minute, coming up blank. I know the Patio Court Motel only because it’s a fleabag hotel right outside the main intersection before the college comes into view. Respectable people don’t go there. I’ve never seen any cars in the parking lot, so whenever I’m sitting at the red light on Main, I always imagine the type of clientele. Prostitutes, addicts, that sort of thing. It has a sign outside that offers hourly rates.

Addison couldn’t have . . .

But then again, who else could it be? I type in, Addison?

Just meet me.

I don’t ask. I just do. If this is Addison, I’m not missing the chance to be with her. It’s in a haze that I get myself ready, throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt and racing through driving rain the three miles to the hotel. When I get there, the entire hotel is dark, except for the glowing red VACANCY sign and the glow of a television set coming from the rental office. I strain through the rain-studded windshield, finding 110 at the very end of a strip of 10 doors.

I step outside and into the overhang. Before I can knock, I notice the door is open. “Come in,” a voice calls.

I push the door open into a darkened room, wondering what I’m getting myself into when she launches herself into my arms. She’s naked, her skin warm and soft against mine. Her mouth is open and ravenous on mine.

“Fuck me,” she says. “Fuck me for the first time, as a free woman.”

“What?” I ask. “What are you—“

“I’m running away. Leaving school. I wanted to see you, though, first. Before—“

“What?” I repeat. Every inch of me wants to feel her, touch her, bathe in her, but this is wrong. “You can’t do that, Addison. You have to finish school.”

“I will. Eventually. Not now.”

She kisses me again, and before I can get lost in it, I hold her back. “How are you going to—“

“I got a new phone. I have my car. I have almost a thousand dollars. I’ll go to the city and get a job.”

Her eyes are so wild, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this. Hell, I know I’ve never seen her like this. Where did this come from? And why the hell does it make me feel so angry? I should be glad she’s finally got the nerve to leave her mother. “You’re leaving here?”

She nods, and I realize what it is.

I wanted to be the one she needed. I wanted her to need me the way I . . .

The way I need her. “Don’t,” I say into her hair, inhaling that strawberry scent as she lifts my sweatshirt and delves her warm hands over my torso. I help her take it off me, and hold her to me, savoring the feeling of her skin against mine. I guess it never occurred to me, or I thought I would be the one to go first, because I keep repeating it. “Don’t leave. Don’t leave. Don’t leave.”

She doesn’t. And I make love to her, again and again, holding in my arms the entire time, as if even an inch of separation will mean the end. In the morning, when I wake up with her tucked under the crook of my arm, she says, innocently, “Why don’t you want me to go?”

“I’m not inspired by the sex,” I tell her. “I’m inspired by you, Addison. And love might be brutal, but what’s more brutal is thinking about you, in another city, without me.”

She blinks, studying my face, as if wondering whether I’m telling the truth. But she doesn’t say anything.

“I want you in my class,” I tell her. “But more than that, I want you. Any way I can get you. You got that?”

She swallows and looks away. “I’m scared to death of going to the city, actually. I don’t think I was actually going to go through with it. But I know I can’t stay with my mother. I didn’t complete the application. When she finds out, I’m dead.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And you couldn’t stay with me, because?”

“Because your meeting is tomorrow. If they know I’m staying in your apartment, you’re as good as fired.”

“Let them fire me,” I mutter. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

“How can I, if you don’t have a means to support yourself?” she asks. “Have you finished the book?”

“Fuck the deadline,” I tell her. “You’re a priority right now. I’ll deal with that once I know you’re taken care of.”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m not going to be the one who brings you down, Cain. Even if you hate it, you’re a great teacher. Almost as good a teacher as you are a writer.” She smiles. “I’m giving you all the inspiration you need to finish your book. But I also want you to go into that meeting tomorrow and show my mother that she can’t push everyone around. Can you do that?”

I kiss her. “Yeah. I’ll do that. On one condition.”

She nods, already understanding. “That I stay?”

I smile as I roll onto her, pinning her against the bed. “You’re not my favorite student for nothing.”