Heartless Page 14

  "Charlie, I'm sorry, we tried." He pulled her into a hug and the nauseous feeling made itself known once again.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  Sam's legs were restless and he couldn't control the way they shook. She'd walk into his class any moment and he was worried he wouldn't be able to mask his emotions. He stared at his lesson plan on his desk and focused on breathing.

  She smacked his desk and he jumped, trying his best to keep a poker face as he looked at her.

  "Looks like you're stuck with me," she growled with an angry expression. He wanted to tell her he was sorry and he wished things were different but he could tell by the look in her eyes, she hated him.

  With his heart aching at the pain he'd caused her, Sam tried his best to redirect his focus to the class.

  When the bell rang for dismissal he needed to talk to her. Jules scowled at him all period so it was clear he knew.

  "Charlotte, I need a moment."

  Charlie glowered at him and it made him want to crawl into a hole. She waited until the room was empty before she walked up to his desk and stood before him with her arms across her chest. Her body language said it all and she didn't say a word. She just lifted an eyebrow at him. He hated the way she looked at him but he knew he deserved it.

  "We... we're going to have to try to make the best of this situation."

  "What situation would that be, Sam? The one where you accused me of setting you up? Or the part that you're stuck with me in your class?"

  Her words cut right through him, his thoughts a jumbled mess that refused to come out the way he wanted.

  "What do you want? I'm going to be late to my next class," she demanded and shifted her weight to her other leg.

  "I don't know how to fix this."

  "I'm pretty sure you made it clear there is no this, and it's not fixable."

  "That's not fair."

  "Don't worry, Mr. Greyson, your wishes were made clear... Asshole."

  The way she spit out the word asshole at him, it was laced with so much hatred he just sat there and watched her walk out of his room.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  By the time Charlie got to lunch, her mind was reeling from the conversation she'd had with Sam. She wasn't really hungry but knew she needed to eat something. Grabbing a bagel and an orange juice from the cafeteria, she headed out to the courtyard. A table was hidden in the corner, tucked under a tree against the side of the building. She sat on top of the table with her knees bent and picked at her bagel.

  Her life had always been screwed up but she wondered how it got that screwed up? Oh thats right, I fell for my freaking teacher. She shook her head to clear the thought and looked up as Sam walked toward her.

  "What the hell," she yelled at him.

  "I don't appreciate being called an asshole."

  Charlie looked around and the courtyard was almost empty. The few people that were out there weren't paying any attention to them.

  "Well there are a lot of things I don't appreciate, but you don't see me tracking you down, do you?" She slid forward on the table and got off. Wanting to be done with the conversation, she tried to walk past him.

  He grabbed her hand to stop her. Yanking her hand away from him, her heart shattered again.

  "Don't touch me."

  "Charlie, I'm sorry I got so upset. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here." He tried to hold her eye contact but she refused to look at him.

  "Oh so I'm Charlie now huh? Convenient for you Sam. Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, you weren't the only one that was blindsided here?" Her cheeks grew hot and her knees shook beneath her.

  "Look, I've realized that but there's something I still can't wrap my head around. You still lied by omission. You could have told me at any time you," he lowered his voice, "That you were still in high school and you didn't. You let me believe you were older."

  "When I first told you I was in school, I'd just met you. How the hell was I supposed to know how fast things were going to happen? It's not like I expected any of this or plotted against you." She frowned.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head before turning on his heel and walking away.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  Sam laid in bed that night conflicted. He liked to think of himself as a man with ethics. When he thought about student teacher relationships it made him sick. My situation with Charlie is different though, isn't it? He groaned and covered his face with his hands.

  They hadn't met under the circumstances of her being his student. They'd shared something intense and passionate and the feelings were impossible to deny, even then.

  He didn't know what to do. Sam wondered if he could find the right passage for his lesson plan the next day so, he could convey to her how he felt without having to come out and say it. He hoped with their shared passion for literature and poetry, she would pick up on it.

  Sam was on pins and needles when the bell rang. He prayed the passage he'd chosen and written on his white board would show her how he really felt.

  For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed but my soul — Judy Garland

  The students started to file into the room but there was no sight of her. He wondered if she'd skip his class, so she didn't have to see him at all. Charlie walked in the door right before the second bell rang and refused to look in his direction.

  There was a hum amongst the girls in the room and he figured they must have noticed the poem on the board.

  Taking a deep breath, he walked to the front of his desk and picked up a stack of books. "Okay guys, were starting this semester with poetry. You can use the books I'm passing out now or you can use the Internet for research. I know most of you have internet access on your phones. I don't care if you use them while we are working on this assignment. However, if I walk by and you're texting, on Facebook, or doing anything other than looking up reference materials... your phone is mine until the end of class, fair?"

  "Yeah sounds fair," Sarah said.

  "Anyone else have an opinion on this?" He looked back in Charlie's direction and she was writing furiously in her notebook. That was either a really good thing or a really bad thing.

  "So what exactly are we supposed to do here, Mr. G?" another student asked.

  "I'm so glad you asked, Grant. On the board I've written one of my favorite passages. What I want you guys to do is, use the next fifteen minutes and find a poem or quote that is a rebuttal for this one."

  "What do you mean by rebuttal?" Leah asked, with her brows furrowed.

  "I want your response or interpretation to this. It can be something similar or the the complete opposite. The choice is yours."

  "Can we like, use song lyrics and quotes from movies and stuff too?" asked the girl in front of Charlie. She rolled her eyes at the girls question and glanced up in his direction. Anger washed over her face and she stared down at her desk again. He had to force his focus back to the girls question.

  "Yes, you may. Whereever you draw your inspiration from, use it. Now get started, you have until ten twenty-five and I will start calling on you."

  Sam moved from the front of his desk and walked around the room. Phones were out on desks, some students flipped through the poetry books and jotted down what they liked. He walked past Charlie and she slammed her notebook shut and shot him a look that screamed "go to hell." Even when she was mad, she was beautiful. Sam walked back toward the front of the room and saw a female student texting. He noticed the message before she realized he was behind her.

  Mr. G is so hot! I wonder if he has a girlfriend

  The message pissed him off. Could this girl be for real? It made him sick to think about the way they acted and then a sick feeling really set into his stomach. All he heard in his head was hypocrite. He didn't want to make a big scene about it so he cleared his throat. The girl jumped in her seat and hid her phone. He wasn't sure who she'd sent it to but she looked mortified. Sam sat down be
hind his desk and watched the clock.

  "Times up," he announced, and grabbed his roll call sheet to announce names.

  "Sarah what do you have for us?"

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  Charlie wanted to skip his class that day. She didn't think she'd be able to handle seeing him everyday. As soon as she saw the quote he'd written on the board, she knew it was meant for her. She wanted to tell him right then that he was a heartless asshole and a giant hypocrite. She thought about how it felt when he'd whispered into her ear and the way he tasted. How gentle and amazing he felt when they were together. He said it was over and that she was a mistake. He said it would never happen again and then he wrote a love quote for the whole class to see for the first assignment. She didn't know what to think and wanted to tell him to go to hell.

  Once he explained the rules of his little game she knew exactly what her plan of action would be. She wrote down a quote from memory to fire back at him. She guessed he'd hoped she'd read one that confessed her love for him. Boy is he wrong. Sarah's moronic quote pulled her from her thoughts and it disgusted her.

  "Tis better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all — Tennyson."

  As far as she was concerned, that quote was the biggest load of shit she'd ever heard.

  "Good, how about you, Thomas?" Sam asked.

  "Love cannot save you from your own fate... Jim Morrison."

  Charlie rolled her eyes and thought Thomas was just as ridiculous as Sarah's. It was obvious to her neither of them had ever experienced love or heart break before. Sam's eyes met hers and she knew what he was about to do

  "Good. Charlotte, what about you?"

  He stared back at her and other students turned in their seats to look at her.

  "The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.- Thomas Hardy"

  Charlie stared at him while she recited and watched his face as he tried not to react to what she read. Looking away, he picked a few other people and she didn't care what they had chosen.

  Bored, she pulled out her phone and sent Jules a message.

  Hey, you want to spend the night tonight?

  No sooner than she'd hit send a large palm appeared in front of her. She stared at his hand, the same hand that had brushed her face and caressed her body. Charlie snapped out of it and glared up at him.

  "What?"

  "Put it away or it's mine."

  She glared up at him and shook her head as she slipped her phone into her bag. Walking behind her, he called on a few other people and she was fuming.

  "That's all we have time for today. Your homework is to find a complete poem that you feel connected to that is either similar or opposite to the one I have typed out. There are copies on my desk. Take one on your way out and have it ready for class tomorrow." His voice was as smooth as silk and it pissed her off even more how sexy he sounded.

  He walked to the front of the room and leaned against the white board behind his desk as the bell rang.

  Waiting in her seat for the room to clear out, she made her way up to him with her face set in stone.

  "Are you going to make my life a living hell or what?"

  "No. But I can't let you get away with texting in the middle of class because of us."

  "Us? What us, Sam? You've made it perfectly clear that there is no us."

  "I'm trying here."

  "Trying? If you think your mixed signals were bad before, what the hell do you think you're doing to me now?"

  "Look I told you, I wish I could take back everything I said before. I was wrong."

  "Just stop. Stop putting shit like that up. I know it was directed at me and it makes this even harder. I need to get to my next class before I'm late...again."

  Charlie wanted him to know that she knew it was about her. She needed him to know that he was killing her inside. She remembered half way to her next class that she'd forgotten to pick up the homework assignment off his desk.

  Making it to her next class just as the second bell rang, she was technically late but the teacher didn't say anything. She laid her head down on her desk, nothing in that class mattered. At lunch, she grabbed a bagel and orange juice and sat on top of the same table in the courtyard. She put her headphones in and turned on "Play Dead" by HIM. Laying her head back against the wall, she closed her eyes and surrendered to the lyrics.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  Sam stood in the doorway that led to the courtyard. He saw Charlie on her table tucked over in the corner. It was a beautiful day out and he wondered why the courtyard was always so empty. Walking over to the table, she opened her eyes, watching him as he closed the distance between them.

  Wanting nothing more than to pull her into his lap and kiss all of her hurt away, it killed him to watch the look of defeat in her eyes. He sat down on the seat in front of her as she pulled out her head phones.

  "You forgot this when you walked out earlier, thought you may need it," he said with as much affection as he could. He handed her the assignment and hoped their hands would touch again but she made sure that didn't happen.

  "Thanks."

  He was in shock that she'd thanked him, it was the last thing he thought he'd hear come out of her mouth.

  "I want you to know, I heard you loud and clear with your choice of quote today... but I need you to know every second of it was real, is real," he said, as he searched her face and watched her anguish grow, the same anguish he felt.

  "I don't know what you want. You tell me its over, you tell me it can't happen again. And then you tell me shit like this and write what you did. What do you want from me?"

  "I don't know, I'm struggling with this as much as you are."

  He wanted to reach for her but then stopped himself when he noticed someone walking toward them. Looking up to dark, curly hair framing a delicate face. It took him a minute to realize the chocolate eyes belonged to Sarah.

  "Mr. Greyson?"

  "Yeah Sarah, what's up?"

  "I wanted to ask you about the assignment." She looked unsure of herself.

  "Sure, take a seat. Charlotte and I were just discussing it." He looked at Charlie with pleading in his eyes. She rolled her eyes at him knowing she'd play along.

  "Were you confused about it too?" Sarah asked Charlie.

  "No."

  "Oh, well I guess my question is, this poem is kind of sad and it ends with the guy telling her that he can't be with her. Are we supposed to find a poem with the same kind of ending?" Sarah asked.

  Sam watched Charlie's face before he answered her. She snatched the paper off the table and read it.

  ♥♥♥♥♥

  Panic started to rise as she read the poem.

  I loved you by Alexander Pushkin

  I loved you, and I probably still do,

  And for a while the feeling may remain...

  But let my love no longer trouble you,

  I do not wish to cause you any pain.

  I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,

  The jealousy, the shyness- though in vain-

  Made up a love so tender and so true

  As may God grant you to be loved again.

  Oh my God. Sam was watching her and she locked eyes with him. At that moment Sarah being there didn't matter. She wondered if he really did love her and he felt like he needs to let her go. What the hell do you want from me? Sarah broke the silence

  "Are you okay, Charlotte?"

  "Yeah — uh I'm fine, I just connect to this poem on a deep level."

  "Oh had you not read it before just now?"

  Charlie tore her eyes away from Sam and looked at Sarah who looked concerned.

  "No, I forgot it and he brought me a copy." Charlie felt the need to cover both of their asses as to why he was sitting there with her.

  "That was nice of you, Mr.Greyson. One of the reasons I enjoy your class is because you really seem to care."

  Charlie scoffed but she l
iked Sarah. She seemed like a genuine person. Not catty like most girls. She hadn't noticed her hanging around with anyone and wondered if she was a lone wolf like her. Sam brought her out of her thought when he spoke.

  "To answer your question, Sarah, no it doesn't have to have the same kind of ending. I just want you guys to find something that speaks to you. Find something that has a contrast of love and loss."

  Sam caught her eye for a moment and she saw the pain behind his eyes. It was going to be harder than she ever thought.

  "That makes sense, thanks," Sarah said, with a smile. Sam stood from the table and hesitated.

  "Ladies, I'll leave you to it. Until next time," he said, with a small smile. Charlie read the silent conversation between them loud and clear and she knew the conversation wasn't over between them. Sarah didn't get up from the table and she looked like she didn't want to leave.

  "Do you mind if I sit out here with you? I'm not really welcome in there anywhere." Sarah tilted her head toward the cafeteria.

  "Why aren't you welcome? I don't mind, not sure if I make for good company though."

  "I'm usually just the invisible one that gets good grades. No one pays attention to me unless I'm in their way."

  "People suck," Charlie said, as her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out, and had a message from Sam.

  This conversation isn't over. I really need to talk to you later.

  She sent him a message right back.

  Where?

  Her phone pinged right back almost immediately.

  My place? Around 4?

  Ok

  Charlie sat there in shock and stared at her phone. Sam wanted to talk, and they'd actually be able to have a discussion without worrying who saw them. She wasn't sure if it was good or bad but she needed it to be resolved one way or the other. Sarah must have picked up on the shift in her body language