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You listlessly scribble in your notebook while the teacher drones on and on about one of Edgar Allen Poe’s poems. A poem you’re already way too familiar with, which is why you don’t even bother in paying attention. Heavy fatigue from the night before bunches up tightly in the center of your chest. You’d gotten little to no sleep last night, so you stayed up well into the rising of the sun.
Class ticks by rather slowly, but as soon as the bell rings, you nearly leap out of your seat, bounding toward your locker. An obscene sight of the school’s hothead Paul Lahote practically sucking faces with some poor girl two lockers down from yours makes you internally gag. Your face scrunches involuntarily.
“Mr. Lahote and Ms. Lewis, please refrain from any sort of PDA on school campus or you will be expelled.”
The principle’s overly reprimanding tone filters down the halls and, in the corner of your eye, the pair finally let up. Paul reluctantly backs away from her, hands detangling from her frizzy red locks, lips pulled into an impish grin.
Attempting to focus on shoving your chemistry book inside your already cramped locker, you can’t help but let your gaze wander back over toward the two.
Grin still intact, and without having glimpsed the authority figure just down the hall, Gracie Lewis reaches up on her tiptoes and whispers something in his ear. Whatever she had said must have been less than appropriate for even her standards because she pulls away with extremely dark cheeks. Paul gives her a shit-eating grin before nodding his head and holding out his hand. The expression on Grace’s face is nothing short of giddiness as she hastily scribbles down, what you assume to be, her number on his forearm.
The eyeroll comes naturally. Ever since Paul Lahote came back from his two-week hiatus, he’s been nothing but broody and promiscuous and everything in between. The boy doesn’t know how to stop, honestly, and it’s a little exhausting being one of the many bystanders in witness to his shameless shagging. Thankfully, he hasn’t even stopped to look at you twice.
Slamming your locker shut, you make sure to keep your head down and make a break for the doors.
You get about four paces until you ram into something rock-solid. The momentum has you scrambling back and, in a hasty moment, arms shoot out to steady you on your feet.
“ Whoa . You okay?”
“Fine,” you mutter irritably, hand going up to your pulsing forehead. Jesus Christ—had you slammed into concrete?
The hands slowly remove themselves from your person. You look up in a feverish haze, eyes finding dark brown attached to a beautifully sculpted face. When your vision clears, you realize, as your heart shoots all the way up into your throat, that you had bumped into none other than Paul-fricking- Lahote .
You expect him to level you with one of his infamous brooding expressions, but you’re disconcertingly surprised to see that his face has gone completely slack. It’s as if someone had pulled the plug on his brain functions.
Even students passing by can’t help but notice the shift.
You try to form words, mouth spluttering pathetically. Paul seems to be too engaged with whatever inner turmoil you’re experiencing, because the second your mouth opens, his eyes follow the movement with unerring focus.
Distinct chatter fills your ears. The mention of your name and Paul’s is what springs you into action, and you hastily flee to the doors. You had chickened out on asking him if he’d been alright—clearly, he was confused, if the downright look of emotional constipation on his face had been any inclination.
You make it out of the doors in a mad-dash and give the parking lot distressed scan.
“Hey, wait!”
A hand gingerly wraps around your forearm, preventing you from taking that first step, and whirling you around.
Paul still has that glazed over look in his eyes as he surveys you with a warmth that doesn’t sit well on his sharp features. Somehow that statement doesn’t sit well with you. The look, although unfamiliar, seems to fit him sublimely. In fact, it takes all the air right from your lungs in that very moment.
“Are you okay?” He inquires softly, hand still attached to your arm.
You nod once, maybe twice, or three times. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
He scrutinizes you momentarily, features twisting into an ardent concern. It feels like he’s staring straight through your soul.
Suddenly overcome with unease, you frantically yank your arm out of his grip. He lets you, but you can’t help but notice the small flicker of anguish in his dark eyes.
You don’t know what to say to him. This is Paul Lahote , for Christ's sake—there tends to be an unusual amount of flirting in the majority of his conversations. You don’t even know how to flirt let alone with someone as ruggedly handsome as Paul .
With a thin smile that feels way too forced, you mosey around him and walk down the steps. You nearly groan out of exasperation when you hear the distinguished footfalls of your stalker chase after you.
Your eyes rake anxiously over the parking lot a second time, halting just before the hustle and bustle of departing vehicles. Paul comes to stand beside you, intense gaze drilling into the side of your face.
“Do you need a ride?”
“No,” you respond thoughtlessly, focus unwavering, centered on anything but him. Doesn’t he know it’s not polite to stare?
“Are you sure?”
You give him a wary sidelong glance. “Positive.”
At your brief attention, he perks up like a Golden Retriever—his sloppy, moony grin nearly has you choking on air. It seems Paul Lahote can do more than just smirk . In a swift movement, he holds out his hand expectantly.
“I don’t think we’ve properly met,” he starts, all in puppyish charm. “Paul.”
And now he’s a gentleman?
You turn slowly to face him, hesitant by his motives. He seems oddly persistent, but then again, you suppose that’s how most high school boys are these days. Although, Paul doesn’t just seem like the type to actively try to be anything but presumptuous toward girls your age. If anything, you might be mistaking that gentle gleam in his eyes for something utterly artificial. You eye his outstretched hand, catch the scraggly drawn digits etched into his russet tone.
He goes frighteningly still at your hesitance and, without falter, curses under his breath and yanks his hand away. Interestingly enough, he starts scrubbing at the ink marked into his skin with an almost maddening desperation. He glances at you every possible second.
“I don’t know what I was thinking ,” his voice is practically a sneer. “I don’t—I mean, it’s not like—”
“Paul.”
His gaze snaps over to you, hand falling away from arm as a look of brazen awe lights up his features. “You know my name.”
You pull a funny face on him. “Look, I’m sorry for bumping into you, but I have to go home now.”
He takes a clingy step forward. “Wait, no—”
The sound of a rumbling engine brings your focus away from Paul’s kicked puppy dog look and over to the parking lot. At the sight of a familiar black Toyota truck, you let loose one big sigh of relief.
You leave his side and rush down the steps, already feeling lighter. “Sam,” you say, voice carrying over to the looming figure leaning casually on the tailgate. He gives you a brief loving smile before his gaze drifts to a place just over your shoulder. Still, you wrap your arms around him the second you reach his side and nearly swoon he returns the gesture in routine.
When you pull back, he has a strange look of contempt on his face. You follow his line of focus and feel yourself clamp up when you realize he’d been aiming that look at Paul of all people. It’s difficult to tell, but the boy looks about ready to tuck tail and bolt.
As your eyes fly back and forth between the two, you’re finally starting to get the feeling that they know each other. Noting the tick in your boyfriend’s jaw, you place a gentle hand on his bicep, not yet used to his freakishly fast growth spurt.
“Sammy?”
He snaps out of it pretty quick, reaching out for your hand before protectively dragging you over to the passenger side. He nearly shoves you inside with how much of a hurry he’s in and practically stalks over to the driver’s seat. You fiddle nervously with your thumbs, flinching when he slams the door closed.
As he tears out of the parking lot, you watch the side of his face worriedly. Yet, you can’t find it in yourself to open your mouth and ask what has him bothered. He clearly is, if the labored breathing and locked jaw are anything to go by. His tightly wound fists around the steering wheel only seem to highlight his unwarranted anger. The sight has your heart stuttering anxiously in your chest.
Sam glances at you sideways before releasing a deep breath and dragging his focus back to the road. “How do you know him?”
Your face scrunches up involuntarily. “I don’t. We bumped into each other in the halls, and after that he just wanted to apologize, I guess.”
“Did he say anything unusual or weird to you?”
“No,” comes your immediate answer. “Why would he?”
His features set into his sternest expression. “Doesn’t matter. Did he touch you? Follow you? What else did he say?”
Your mood dampens at his constant badgering and pestering about Paul. Through clenched teeth, you say, “Why are you so concerned all of sudden? You avoid me for two days and then pop up out of nowhere and demand answers from me when you still haven’t told me what’s going on with you. That’s not right.”
Your sudden regression plows right into him. Only, he doesn’t react to it the way you thought he would. His open palms smack harshly against the steering wheel, and a low, guttural growl rumbles deep in his chest. For a split second, you could’ve sworn you saw heat licking at the collar of his shirt.
Now, you’ve never been given proper incentive to feel uneasy around Sam, but in this moment, the uneasiness suffocates you.
“Stop the truck.”
Sam’s knuckles tighten. “No.”
“ Sam ,” you warn lowly, heart in throat. “Stop the truck right now .”
He watches the road wordlessly.
“I’ll jump out,” you challenge, tone threatening.
An animalistic snarl tears from his lips. He slams his foot down on the break abruptly, sending you lurching forward in your seat. His arm shoots out in front of you right before you have the chance to face-plant into the glove compartment. But you flat out ignore his protective tendencies and hurriedly unbuckle the seatbelt before wrenching open the door and stumbling out onto the rocky pavement. You continue to walk straight ahead, tucking your arms underneath your armpit in a childish act of defiance.
Sam follows right beside you.
“Get back in the truck,” he orders.
“No.” He starts to say your name as a final warning, but you stubbornly cut him off, “No. Leave me alone.”
An inarticulate noise of frustration lodges in his throat. And then he sighs heavily. “Please, get back in the truck. I don’t want you walking home by yourself.”
“I really don’t want to be around you.”
He huffs irritably through his nose. “Fine. Walk home. I don’t care.”
Your heart gives a harrowing twinge at his lack of affection. “ Fine ,” you sneer, feeling the torrential sting of tears. “Then leave.”
“You’re acting like a child.”
You snap your head up and glare at him through the blur of tears, unaware of the way his face falls in rebuttal to this. But you plow forward. “And you’re acting like a dick.”
His face twists into a scowl, all gentled lines now fully erased by your childish remark. A tick in his jaw as he levels his narrowed eyes back toward the road. “Call me when you’re done throwing a tantrum.”
He leaves you there on the side of the road.
You hate to admit it, for fear of sounding like a child, but you stomped the rest of the way home. Sam’s words cut deep. Too deep. They had you stewing relentlessly in your anger, thinking up so many ways that you would disobey him and avoid him like he avoided you .
A sharp ring! from the living room startles you out of your internal monologuing. You trudge over to the telephone before it has the chance to ring again and press it firmly to your ear.
“Hello?”
No answer.
You lift an imperious eyebrow. “ Hellooo ?”
A breath. You barely catch it, but you can hear the faint intake of breath on the other line. The eerie silence has the hair on your arm raising.
You hang up. Odd .
It happens again. You’re in the middle of eating your dinner when the ringing of the house phone blares through the droning static in your head. You pick it up with your fork dangling out of your mouth.
“Yeah?”
Again, nothing but silence. You yank the fork out of your mouth, swallowing the rest of your mashed potatoes. There’s a stutter in your chest. “Look,” you huff impatiently. “I can hear you breathing—so, you might as well talk or stop calling me.”
The connection cuts, leaving a dull buzz behind. You pull the phone back to stare at it incredulously. “Weirdo.”
It isn’t until half an hour later that you hear the rustle of branches and trees in your backyard. The sound is barely above audible, but since you have your bedroom window open, you can hear it distinctively.
You’d been doing your homework for ten minutes when the sound wafted into your room, echoed in your ears. Since those weird phone calls have been happening, you can’t help but be paranoid. At every little whisper of wind whistling through trees and leaves, you look up from Chemistry book, eyes immediately gazing fearfully out of your window.
Fed up, you push your chair back, and march down the stairs, snatching up a poker stick from its place near the fireplace. Twirling the poker stick in your hand, you open the sliding glass doors that lead to your backyard and step out, slitted eyes surveying your surroundings.
You breathe in and release it shakily. “Listen, creep, ” —your fingers curl and tighten— “I know how to make murder look like suicide. If you don’t leave, you’re going to find out that I am not the woman you should be messing with.”
Another step forward.
The bushes rustle.
You freeze, breath held.
A crow caws loudly, bursting from one of the trees, startling a yelp out of you. The poker stick slips from your hand and drops, nicking one of your toes before crashing completely to the grass beneath your bare feet.
A strangled hiss leaves you as you curse under your breath. Hoping over to the back porch, you flop unceremoniously down on the steps and investigate the damage. The pointer on the poker stick struck your pinky toe, and now it’s bleeding.
The rustling in the trees grows stricken.
When you look up, you can feel the blood draining from your face. There’s an outline of a body just beyond the coppice of trees, shrouded in moonlight. Tall, chiseled features that you recognize upon first glance. The sight fills you with an odd contentment, and without really meaning to, every bone in your body relaxes.
You tilt your head. “Paul?”
Wearing nothing but a pair of cut-offs, Paul staggers over and drops to his knees in front of you. His eyes are carefully monitoring your injured foot, brows furrowed in a deep concern. His presence sends consistent waves of bliss through you.
“Does it hurt?” A simple question, really, but because his voice sounds throatier than usual, your heart skyrockets. When you take too long to answer, his eyes flit up toward you, watching you with such an open and gentle worry that your eyes nearly well up with tears. His copper brown eyes widen at you and his brows seem to furl impossibly more, giving him that heart-clenching puppy dog look.
Distractedly, you shake your head.
His eyes had chased after the sound of your voice, eyes moving to watch the soft movement of your lips as you spoke. They flick back up to you as he tries to find any spark of hesitation. He must have found something in your eyes that he hadn’t liked, because his features grow tight in disappointment.
“Liar,” he murmurs, eyes subtle in their soft transition into a keen alertness. As he gives his focus back to your foot, you gratefully and greedily take in air without coming off as obvious. But when he lifts your foot gingerly above his knee so he can get a better look, his touch sucks the air right back out of your lungs.
Under the dim lighting of your front porch, you catch sight of a mottled bruise on his chin and, eyes traveling up further, the blood vessel in his left eye socket ruptured.
“You were in a fight.”
Paul goes still. His hand, where it hovers over your foot, now rests gently on your calf. He suddenly looks withdrawn and convicted. You fear, for a heart-thudding second, that you might’ve been too forward in your claim. But it’s obvious that he had been beaten to a near pulp. Even as he crouches down beside you, you’re able to pick out multiple fading bruises already.
An inborn urge to cradle his cheeks in your hands. The urge is so strong that there’s a noticeable twitch in your hands—you have to clasp your hands together to refrain from touching him.
Paul watches you with a smoldering eagerness. The tightness in his jaw slackens, and you can almost hear the raging war of inner turmoil. Before he has a chance to speak, you avert your eyes.
“You should go.”
In your peripherals, Paul’s eyes shoot over to you in unrestrained panic. “You want me to leave?” He sounds utterly dejected.
Gulping, you slowly drag your gaze back over to him. His puppy eyes bore into yours with an intense longing. His jaw tightens. It looks as if he’s fighting back a swarm of emotions. His sudden attachment confuses you. What are his motives for wanting to stay by your side?
“Why do you want to stay?”
He hesitates, choosing his next words carefully. “I like being around you,” he replies with absolute certainty.
Before you have the chance to retort, he gives you a goofy, lopsided grin, one where the lump in his throat gives a visible bob. He holds out his forearm for you to see. “Look.” His eyes twinkle as he brushes his eyes over his smooth russet skin. “I got the it all off.”
He sees the confusion on your face and repeats himself, looking a little too like an oversized puppy, “The number. I got the number off.”
“Oh.” You stare inordinately perturbed down at his arm then flick your eyes back up to his expectant ones. “Good for you, Paul.”
The look on his face melts into one of cheeky triumph. Pft . A look so unnaturally kinder on his features that it turns your insides to goo. But you can still feel his eyes intently on the side of your face as if he’s content to be in your presence.
His thumb brushes absently over your calf.
Your tummy does a funny little flip. He doesn’t even realize he keeps doing that.
When you chance a peek over at him, the beautiful brown of his eyes utterly lost to inky blackness as they watch you with an unerring hopelessness. Transfixed by your gentle focus, he inches just the slightest bit closer.
“Can I come in?” He asks, voice oddly strained.
He wants you to say yes, you can hear in his voice, see it in his half-lidded gaze. You want to slap yourself for even considering this. What are you doing? You have Sam. You love Sam.
You pull back, startled. It ends up taking Paul a little bit longer to recognize this, but the second it registers, the light he fades out in his eyes. Then he, too, pulls back, looking all the more miserable. You almost feel bad.
“You should go,” you repeat firmly.
Paul’s lips part in reply, but then closes it quickly as his eyebrows narrow into a slitted glare and his entire body goes rigid. His shift in demeanor twists a jagged blade through your heart.
“Paul,” a voice barks warningly.
Off in the distance, your eyes make out the appearance of another body. Taller, bulkier.
A crease forms between your brows. “Sam?”
In a move entirely relied on by his instinct, Paul shifts impossibly closer to you. You can feel the sweltering heat of his skin intermingling with your own.
“I’m not leaving,” Paul remarks. Defiant. Unfaltering. Defensive.
“You aren’t?”
His head snaps over to you, enough to give one whiplash. “Not unless you order me away,” he mumbles carefully, warily, like he’s afraid you’ll say no .
A noise that sounds all too much like thunder reverberates deep in Sam’s chest. He growled. Growled . Like a dog.
He levels his challenging gaze on you a little expectantly.
And Paul is still watching you, preparing for those exact words.
You all but splutter at the attention. “I-I-I—”
“I just wanted to talk,” Sam clarifies impatiently, then adds while obviously hinting at something, “ Alone .”
Without a word, you stand to your feet. Interestingly, both Paul and Sam move with you, purely of instinct. As if coming to, each share a meaningful look, although neither are subtle about it. For a moment, you can’t help but take note of their semi-rigid postures, or how Paul seems to angle his body toward you, while also glaring at Sam out of the corner of his eye.
Sam doesn’t look too happy about this. And you don’t point it out.
You whirl around and make towards the door, uncaring of who follows and who doesn’t. When you get about three steps ahead, you hear the echo of Sam’s heavy footsteps follow after you.
Paul stays behind. He no longer appears rigid, and upon locking focus, his entire body relaxes, and his expression goes from guarded to downright placid.
Then Sam marches in, blocking your view, and what feels like a solid block of cement sits uncomfortably over your chest.
“Hey.”
Your eyes zero in on Sam, holding your breath as he gives you a faster-than-a-bolt-of-lightning scan, from your head to your toes. The worry grows tenfold as the tension melts.
“You okay?” His voice soft, eyes even more so. In the short time that he’s shown up, he’s gone from edgy, dark and pensive to the complete opposite. No more hardened veneer, just that slow burning fondness.
“’m fine.” You clear your throat. “What did you want to talk about?”
Within seconds, he’s grown detached. He won’t even properly look at you, opting for staring down at the ground. He tries to keep a poker face as he speaks in a near-painful whisper. “We can’t be together anymore.”
Devastation flares to life like ice inside your veins. And Sam looks as if he’s preparing himself for some sort of verbal backlash, arms tightly wound over his broad chest, eyes intent on you, tracking every movement. Before there’s chance for him to see, you force up that mask of indifference and jut out your chin.
“Who says?”
He rears back as if baffled by your reaction . “ I say.”
“Give me a better reason,” you say pleadingly.
His arms slip out of the tight fold over his chest. “I can’t.”
“Is there someone else?”
“I wouldn’t want anyone else,” he admits feebly, expression crumpling into a smoldering desperation.
“You don’t want us to be together, yet, no else is good enough for you? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” he argues in a feeble attempt to calm you down. “You don’t understand it, now, but you will.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“I can’t .” He backpedals, unbudging. “It’s not my place to say.”
“Then who?”
He averts his gaze downward, at anything but you.
“Sam, please...”
“We’re done,” he repeats. “I’m sorry.”
“But I love you.” Your chest constricts with a fierce longing. “I want you .”
“Can you honestly tell me that you don’t feel anything for him?” His assumption feels like a slap across the cheek. Without meaning to, you grow defensive.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you feel attached to him at all? Anything, even if it's small."
You make a face. “Wait. This is about Paul ?”
He seethes, a complete one-eighty, and watches you with an air of expectance. “Well?”
"No!” You cry out, mortified. Something inside of you breaks at your admission, and suddenly, it becomes too jarring to look at him. You flounder beneath the heat of his gaze. “Sam, I don’t have feelings for Paul!”
His jaw ticks. Oh, he looks pissed . “Then why is he still here?”
“I don’t know.”
“He hasn’t left because you haven’t told him to leave,” he jabs irritably. “You can’t, because you don’t want him to.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He falters at your indignation, the crease between his brows slowly coming unfurled.
“Doesn’t matter.” He says it like he expects you to leave it be, but if he’s taught you anything, it’s that you never stop at ‘just because’ or some half-assed response. He knows, or, rather, he should know: you’re like a bulldog. And, now, as the bulldog, standing before a wolf, that side of you is breaking through fast.
“That’s a shitty excuse,” you fire back. The tick in his jaw tightens once more, but that’s all the indication you need to draw nearer. A familiar searing heat spills from him like steam, and tickles across your skin. You lock him in and, hands clenched, place them against his chest. That hardened exterior thaws, little by little, beneath the coolness of your touch. You lean into him just the slightest, because you don’t want him to run away. Right now, he’s a spooked horse trapped in a cage. His breath hitches, and you catch a glimpse of blown inky-blackness before they flutter shut. An avalanche of emotion crashes over you. “Please.”
He wilts, face scrunched as if he's in pain. He hangs his head, reverting his eyes to the ground. Then, he steps back, putting distance between you.
The spell breaks. There’s no farewell, no one last kiss. Instead, he walks straight across the threshold without a backwards glance, clipping Paul’s shoulder on his way out. His retreating back is a blur through your eyes.
“ Sam ,” you stagger after him, barefoot and frantic, hiccupping on an inhale, “don’t do this to me. Come back. You come back right now .”
Arms loop around you, caging you in their impossible hold. You call out for him once more, his name a horrible wounded cry on your lips, but he’s already gone, disappeared into the woods. The moment you stop struggling, your knees buckle and, as you sink to the ground, Paul sinks with you.
After a moment, all that surrounds you is silence. A chirp here, the whisper of wind through the trees there.
Your breaths intermingle: Paul’s, deliberately slow and steady, while yours hitching on the occasional hiccup and sniffle. The feel of his knuckles dragging gently between the space of your shoulder blades calms you somewhat, strangely enough. His touch quiets the thunder in your head.
At last, you pull away and turn toward him. He pulls away, too, eyes boring into you with an unerring focus. He reaches out and swipes at your cheeks, your chin, and combs the hair out of your face. All he does is stare with those soft melting Bambi browns.
Dumbstruck, you mutter, “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Because I like you.” He shrugs easily.
“You barely know me,” you say, like it’s the bottom line of things.
He smiles contemplatively, an odd tilt of his lips. His hand drifts to the small of your back. Then, he shrugs. “Do you want me to know you better?”
You frown. “I... don’t know.”
“Well, would you believe me if I told you we’re supposed to be in each other’s lives?” When you don’t say anything, he keeps going, “I can be whatever you need me to be. Whether that’s a friend, a brother, a best friend...” his cheeks darken adorably beneath his russet tone, “...a boyfriend.”
“I...”
"Tell me," he starts, "You feel comfortable with me, right? You know you're safe with me?"
His question sets off a spark in your veins. The sensation buzzes to life the longer you soak up his words filled with such blatant affection and devotion.
Slowly, you nod.
"And you're happy?" he continues, "With me? Being near you?”
“Yeah,” you say, then tack on hastily, “but I don’t understand why.”
His lazy smirk has your heart spluttering manically. He bumps his head to yours and holds it there as he inhales deep, eyelids fluttering, an expression utterly euphoric. “I’ll tell you everything,” he vows, voice now throatier, “but if it’s too much, I can protect you from a distance, for however long it takes. I’ll be content with just hearing you breathe .”
You have the urge to burst out into tears again.
“Does that sound like a plan?”
You can’t help but crack a smile. “Yeah.”
He breathes out in immense relief, laughing breathlessly against your temple. “Good. That’s good.”