Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
LUCA
Everything is so messed up.
I messed up.
I’m messed up.
And the worst thing is, it’s not even me I’m worried about. I could get over it—I can get through it. But Professor Levine doesn’t deserve to be in trouble.
I can’t imagine him being in trouble because of something I did—from something I wanted. Over the last month I’ve been so selfish that I’ve started to wonder if maybe just maybe I could figure out a way for him to be something I could keep.
I don’t even make it out of the building before I end up feeling that dizzying, struggling to breathe sensation. Numbness crawls along the side of my face, tickling at my jaw and making my lips feel cold, prickling at my scalp like a thousand tiny-needled pinpricks of warning.
Panic.
Everything is crashing down around me and I need to dissolve into the ground.
I need…
I need…
I don’t realize that I’ve stopped walking and nearly collapsed against the wall until a hand on my shoulder makes my entire body freeze. Instinct tells me it’s wrong before I hear Professor Hilman’s voice behind me.
“Are you okay, Luca?”
This isn’t good. I can’t look up at him—he doesn’t need to see the way the world is ending, playing out behind my eyes in HD. He doesn’t need to see the guilt I’m feeling reflecting back at him. I need time to figure out how to explain what I was doing with Professor Levine.
Maybe if I say I came onto him? But something tells me he wouldn’t let me take the fall.
And now…
Now I can’t think at all because that hand hasn’t left my shoulder and I want the earth to open up and swallow me. My body settles on starting to tremble so violently that it makes my muscles ache.
“Are you hurt?” It’s even worse because there’s actual concern in Professor Hilman’s voice.
I think that’s what always made it so terrible—he’s the kind of man who thinks that what he did wasn’t wrong.
He’d pressed me against a wall and tried to force his tongue down my throat, he’d shoved his hand down my pants.
He’d tried to make me do things, and the only reason I’d gotten away was because someone had interrupted him.
And then the next day he’d tried to smile at me and act like everything was normal, fine. Like he hadn’t done anything wrong. The concern in his voice now is real because he still thinks he’s not doing anything wrong.
“Don’t.” I manage it through chattering teeth, but just that word takes all the oxygen from my lungs. My vision is flashing, bursts of gray at the edges of everything. I kind of want that darkness to swallow me up… anything would be better than being here.
I need to not be here.
I need…
I know who I need, and I messed all that up.
“Come on. Let me get you somewhere so you can sit down.” The hand on my shoulder tightens, and I want to fight like a wildcat. I want to tell him no.
No.
No, no, no.
But I can’t breathe.
I can’t do anything.
And I need—
“I’ve got it.” Professor Levine’s sharp voice cuts through the thick, syrupy cloud that’s slowly threatening to make me faint from a lack of oxygen.
I barely manage to raise my eyes so I can see him move himself bodily between Professor Hilman and me—the warmth of his proximity, the familiar scent of him, overrides everything else.
“I was going to take him to my office so he could catch his breath. He looks like he’s ill.” Professor Hilman’s offer sounds so sincere, so innocent. His blue eyes are wide innocence behind dark-framed glasses that I know he doesn’t really need.
I don’t think when I reach out and grab Professor Levine’s wrist, a silent plea for him to let anything but that happen. I know I might have ruined his life by climbing into his lap where people could see us, but I can’t go with Professor Hilman.
I can’t.
I—
“I’ve got him.”
Those three words do something to me—melt through the violent pinpricks trying to tear me apart and let me know…
It’s okay.
I’m safe because he’s here.
The tears that didn’t come earlier fill my eyes and I take a deep, trembling breath. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, even though I can’t say why. I know he knows.
“It’s okay, Luca. You’re okay.” Maddox Levine’s voice could put an angel to shame with the way it spills along my skin.
“I can really—” Professor Hilman doesn’t get a chance to finish whatever he was going to say, because I’m moving then.
Not toward his office, or even the dorm rooms. I don’t know where we’re going. There’s just the jingle of keys and the sound of a door opening and closing… locking. I can’t concentrate past the way my lungs are still trying desperately to suck in air, but I notice it’s cooler here.
“Luca, look at me.” Professor Levine’s voice barely manages to cut through the pounding sounds of my heart thundering in my ears, but the warmth of his hands cupping my face finally makes me lift my head. Through the swimming haze of tears, I can see… fabric.
I vaguely remember him talking about a climate controlled storage area for costumes, but I’ve never been here.
“Luca,” he says again, and I feel almost helpless when I raise my eyes to meet his. Even through the tears, that soft blue fills my vision.
The ocean.
The sea.
Depths I could get lost in.
No wonder I feel like I’m drowning.
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” It flies out of my mouth before I can think. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean… I—”
There’s a rustle of fabric as he moves us back until I feel the cool wall press against my shoulders, and then heat as he draws me forward and gently presses his lips to mine.
“It’s okay, Luca.” He murmurs it against my mouth. “Just breathe.”
I can’t, though. I can’t breathe. I can’t think—I can’t tell him how he just saved me from my worst nightmare and I don’t deserve him comforting me after I put him at risk. I can’t do anything but look up at him almost helplessly and say those two words again.
“I’m sorry.”
“Luca.” His voice is sharp enough to cut through the misery trying to swallow me down. “It’s okay. I know Crista. She’s a friend. You aren’t in trouble.”
I blink at him rapidly, trying to take in what he’s saying. My head shakes back and forth slowly. “But she saw us, and you—”
“She’s not going to tell anyone.” His big hands slowly thread through my hair, thumbs dropping down to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “Little lamb, I’m not going to let anything hurt you. You’re okay here. Just breathe.”
Just breathe.
Breathe.
I don’t know if he understands anything at all. I’ve spent so much of my life feeling like I could barely breathe, like the world around me was pressing in and I was just existing in a space that I barely managed to make for myself.
How could he understand that the only time I feel like I can completely fill my lungs is when he’s looking at me?
It’s too soon for me to be thinking that way—too soon for me to be feeling anything like it.
But it’s almost like I inhaled for the first time at Mask when he touched me, and now he’s the only air I need.
“You’re not in trouble?” I finally manage, because that question seems a lot better than whatever weird confession is trying to crawl its way up my throat. It’s only been a few weeks. I’m not confessing anything.
“No. Well…” The corner of his mouth ticks up as he runs his fingers along my arms, along my back, threading them through my hair again in a soft, soothing gesture that’s lulling away the tension in my body.
“Crista is probably going to give me shit for the next few years for not locking the door… but no. No one is in trouble. We’re okay. ”
We’re okay.
“We… we are?”
“Yeah, little lamb. We are.” He puts an emphasis on the word and I can tell what he’s saying without asking, but I still do it anyway.
“We don’t have to… I mean you still want…”
“I still expect you at my place this weekend.”
He still wants me. Even after we got caught. Even though someone knows now.
“Oh. Okay…”
And then I’m crying again, which is embarrassing…
but I can’t help it. I can’t tell if it’s stress or relief or everything catching up to me.
The fact that Professor Hilman was five seconds away from taking me to his office is a pounding terror in the back of my mind, and I don’t have the words to thank Professor Levine.
For saving me.
For always somehow being right there to save me.
“Luca… Luca, it’s okay. You’re okay.” His soft reassurance only makes the tears worse.
“Thank you. I…” I shake my head. I don’t want to think about that anymore right now. I just want…
No…
I need him to understand something.
“We can stay here as long as you need. The door’s locked, so no one is coming in. Just…” Professor Levine looks at me almost helplessly, like I’m spun sugar melting beneath all my tears. “Tell me what you need.”
It’s too much and it’s ridiculous… and I still say it anyway.
“You. I just need you.” I don’t miss the warmth that flashes through his eyes chased by something close to pain.
“I don’t want to lose… whatever this is.
You don’t understand.” I drop my head to his shoulder and inhale the warmth of his scent, wondering if it’s going to be the last time I get to.
“I don’t know why, but you’re the only person I know who makes me feel… safe. I don’t want to lose that.”