Chapter 38
Ididn’t dare turn around as footsteps entered and then the door swung shut with a soft clang. If it was really him, I wasn’t sure I was ready to see him. There was a twinge in my heart, begging me to look. After all, it had been three years since I’d left, and he was asking for me.
Of all the days for him to show up…
If it was him.
Footsteps cautiously came a little closer, and I remained frozen forward, my hands braced against the table.
Maybe it was Mrs. Wallace, but she usually came dancing in here as loud and vibrant as could be. Whoever this was, was quiet.
Patient.
Slowly, I stood up straight, pushing off my desk, and took a small step sideways. I drew in a deep breath, steadying my racing heartbeat. Confused with what I was feeling, what I wanted. I wasn’t even sure.
There was so much time, so much change, maybe he wouldn’t want me anymore.
Lifting my chin, I glanced over my shoulder, and there he was.
Standing quietly, looking nearly the same as he had when I’d left.
His hands were shoved in his pockets, a pair of black cargo joggers on his legs that were maybe a little thicker than before.
He’d definitely filled out a bit, a little more muscled but still as lean as before.
His broad shoulders seemed ready to snap out of his black t-shirt with his band’s logo printed on it.
Earrings coated his ears that weren’t quite as hidden. His hair was similar in style, just a little shorter. And his hunter eyes, so intense, were filled with unreadable emotions.
I faced him entirely and wrapped my arms around myself. I definitely didn’t look the same. Weight that I’d put on during that first year after leaving just never seemed to have left. His brows lifted as his body filled with… relief?
“Hey, Princess,” he softly said. (25)
I nearly collapsed.
Tears brimmed at the edge.
What was he doing here? And still calling me princess? I was not that girl. I hadn’t been in too long. Not by choice. But there was something that drummed at the back of my mind.
“How’d you… How’d you find me?” I choked out, fighting the urge to rush toward him and wrap myself in his arms.
“I never stopped looking,” he replied gently and took a hesitant step forward.
“Why?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what I wanted his answer to be, because everything in me was swirling in confusion. My emotions were so wrecked, I just didn’t know. Plus, there was so much more to think about now.
He took a deep breath and looked around my classroom. His eyes draped across the chairs in rows, the whiteboard to his left, even the desk that I was standing in front of. “Are you okay?” he finally asked.
“Am I okay? You spent three years looking for me to ask…that?” I was even more confused and maybe feeling a little something of hurt. A feeling I’d not experienced in a while. Not this kind of ache.
“Well, yes. I mean, no.” He ran a tattooed hand across the back of his neck, stuffed it in his pocket, and then shook his head. “No. But honestly, I’d spent so much time just trying to find you, I never exactly planned what I was going to say when I did.”
I blinked, shocked. “I’m… I’m okay,” I quietly replied, and he sighed.
“That’s good,” he muttered and scanned my classroom again. “So, you finally became a music teacher.”
I furrowed my brows as he pulled his hands out from his pockets and tipped his head. The dimples in his cheeks deepened with a cautious smile. “Is all of your time sucked into this that Duvaldi has been on a break for three years?”
My mouth fell open. He’d been following, waiting. But I hadn’t heard a single note in my head for three years, so no. Duvaldi wasn’t on a break.
Duvaldi died the same day my old life had.
“No,” I whispered.
“Then what?” he asked and took a few more steps toward me.
Every wall flared up, wrapping around my heart that wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be scared that my past was catching up with me or relieved that only Asher was here.
Asher was here.
“You can’t just show up after three years and ask for things like that.” Defensive mode. I wasn’t going to fall putty in his arms that easily. Not again. No matter how much I wanted to. Wasn’t this dangerous?
Or maybe…
“So, three years of searching, three years of wanting nobody but you doesn’t account for anything?” he asked and walked directly up to me. I took in a shaky breath as my butt bumped against my desk, and I blinked rapidly, trying to dam up the tears.
“No one else?” I whispered, and he gave me a pained smile.
“No one else,” he softly replied. “You haven’t been listening to my music, have you?”
I shamefully shook my head.
“That’s fine. I understand why.” His voice was so quiet, I barely heard it.
But the thing was, I couldn’t do this. Not again. The control that I had now was slipping away the longer this man stood in front of me. Too much had changed, and new secrets swirled around me, making his confession of desire for me after three years even more painful.
Because I still wanted him.
“You should leave,” I choked out.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Wh-what?”
“It’s been three years, Asher. My lawyer said…
I couldn’t just… And… A lot has changed,” I quickly stammered and gestured at myself.
“I’ve changed. Look at me and then look at you.
My body is… is…” I choked, unable to finish what I was going to say.
I ran my fingers over the subtle scars still left around my wrists and then attempted to smooth down the dress over my belly.
“Is…what?” His gaze narrowed, eye raking over me. “Beautiful? Desirable? Filled out in ways I hadn’t imagined it would in three years? I mean, you were stunning before, but now, you look like a hot mom who would pack me fruit snacks for my lunch.” He drooled, and I giggled.
For the first time in three years, I let out an involuntary giggle. I quickly slapped a hand over my mouth and looked away from the knowing smirk spreading across his lips. Lips that I wanted to kiss so badly.
It was like no time and all the time had passed between us.
Which terrified me.
“So, what? You spent three years looking for me so you could fuck me one more time?” I hissed, quickly turning defensive, and jabbed at him.
“I mean, yeah, but—”
“Oh, awesome,” I snapped. “It’s so good to know that your dick led you to me. That all I was good for, was that. Well, go on then. It’s not like I’m allowed to have any say when someone wants something from me. So, go for it.”
His eyes widened, and he stumbled backwards as my shoulders sagged. That was so uncalled for, but I couldn’t help myself.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, and he clenched his jaw for a moment.
“Don’t apologize,” he softly replied.
“I didn’t really mean it. I just—”
“You were used for so long that now, you’re not sure what you really want. What you need,” he finished for me, and my bottom lip trembled.
I nodded, unable to speak, and he cautiously stepped back into my space. His body brushed lightly up against mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop it. That I wasn’t able to protect you from all of that.”
Tears rushed down my cheeks, not because he needed to apologize for anything, but because it was simply him.
Wait… Did he believe…?
I swiped the tears from my cheeks. “Is that what you’ve been thinking this entire time? That I left because I blamed you? Because I didn’t feel safe with you? That I stayed away all this time because it was your fault?”
He nodded slowly.
“It was never your fault. I left because the lawyer said I needed to for my safety. I stayed away for my safety and yours and— and to get away from the-the-the dickhead who r-r-raped me,” I stuttered.
Saying it out loud to someone who wasn’t my therapist for the first time in three years was more difficult than I’d imagined, yet also kind of freeing.
“You’re a public figure. It protected you from any retaliation or blackmail someone might take on you or the band.
And the lawyer said cutting you out completely kept me from the girls who pretended to be my friends and then violated me in a way that I-I-I—”
“You don’t have to explain it, or describe it. I was there,” he inserted gently, saving me from pain that I wasn’t wanting to relive. I nodded rapidly, my vision blurring with tears once more.
He lifted a hand. Slowly.
Amber eyes bore into mine as his fingers trembled.
I placed my palms against the desk behind me.
His gaze so innocent and soft, silently begging me for a fresh start that included him.
It had been three years, and maybe that was enough time…
Maybe I was safe, and it would be okay… Because even if they came after me again, I was stronger now than ever before.
So, why was I acting like that same girl who died all those years ago? Especially around Asher. He had never once used me. He had never once made me feel less than or as if I had to do whatever he wanted.
And a faint note hummed in the back of my head. (26)
“What do you want now, Cosette?” he whispered, and his fingers finally connected with my cheek. He gently brushed some hair away from my face and tucked it behind my ear. “I like it, by the way. It’s shorter,” he muttered.
I closed my eyes, sinking into a touch I hadn’t realized how much I’d been missing.
Another bow pulled across a string, and every defensive wall that had been built around my heart crashed down.
Him. I wanted him. Because when he touched me, I heard the music again.
“What do you want?” he asked me once more, and I opened my eyes, locking onto his.
The answer was so simple, though everything that I needed to tell him, that he deserved to know, that I could no longer justify keeping from him, wasn’t.
But, as his gaze remained locked with mine, filled with not a single expectation, for the first time, I felt complete control over something that had been stolen from me.