Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
FALLON
I open my desk drawer, fingers diving into my purse with urgency.
My hand closes around the familiar cylindrical shape—a tampon from my stash in the side pocket.
I pause, then grab my birth control case too, needing to check because I could have sworn I had another few days before my period would start.
The plastic case flips open in my palm. I'm on the right day—Thursday. The little pill presses back at my thumb, real and present. But I shouldn’t have started yet.
My stomach tightens with something that feels too much like panic.
I shove the pills back into my purse, lock the drawer with shaking fingers, and make my way back toward the bathroom. The clock on the wall tells me I don't have much time—five minutes at most before the bell rings and I'll be late.
I push through the teacher lounge door and rush toward the bathroom, my heels clicking against linoleum that suddenly seems too loud.
The miscarriage probably just messed me up.
That's all this is. My body isn't right yet from that—from losing a baby.
My cycle must be off. It has to be off. I need to keep better track of this, write everything down, set reminders, something.
I can't end up pregnant again. Not when I'm stuck in this marriage.
I force the thought away, wash my hands under water that runs too cold, and rush back to class even though the bell has already rung.
When I walk in, I feel his eyes on me before I even look over to his spot in the first row.
When I do glance that direction—trying to seem casual, trying not to single him out—he's looking at me with concern.
His eyes track my movements, read everything I'm not saying, see too much the way he always does.
"Sorry I'm late," I say, moving to my desk. "Let's continue our discussion about Frankenstein. Who wants to start us off?"
Sarah raises her hand immediately—thank god for Sarah, always prepared, always engaged. "I was thinking about what you said yesterday about the creature being more human than Victor—"
My phone vibrates in my pocket but I ignore it, focusing instead on Sarah's analysis of sympathy and monstrosity.
The discussion flows naturally from there, students building on each other's arguments, debating whether Victor or his creation deserves more blame.
They're engaged, passionate even, and for these precious minutes I can almost forget the weight of the phone in my pocket, the pills in my locked drawer, the counting of days that doesn't add up.
Before I know it the bell rings, sharp and final.
"Okay, tomorrow is the last day of our dive into British literature and then we're moving on to American Romanticism," I say as they all gather their books and bags, conversations continuing as they flow toward the door.
Everyone except for him.
God, it's so hard acting like we're just student and teacher at school when this whole week I've been at his house. Touching him. Kissing him. Fucking him. My body remembers the weight of him, the heat of his skin, the way he makes me feel alive in ways I'd forgotten were possible.
"Everything okay?" He walks over to me once the last student disappears down the hallway, his footsteps quiet and deliberate.
"Yeah, it's fine." The lie comes automatically, years of practice making it smooth.
"You sure? You were late." His eyes search my face, looking for cracks in the facade.
"I just needed to—" Oh god, why am I acting so weird about this? He knows what a period is. He's eighteen, not twelve. "I started my period. I was in the bathroom."
"Oh. Okay." He says it so easily, without any of Daniel's disgust or Daniel's lectures about TMI and appropriate conversation topics.
Kade just accepts it as fact and leans against my desk, close enough that I can smell that intoxicating scent that's purely him.
"Well look, I want you to stay with me the rest of the week. "
"I don't know. It's so risky. If I keep staying over, we're really pushing our luck." Even as I say it, I know I want to stay. Want those stolen hours in his bed, in his space, pretending I'm someone who gets to be happy.
"Have you talked to him?" The way Kade says 'him' carries weight—he never uses Daniel's name anymore, like speaking it might summon him back early.
I nod.
"And? Has he mentioned coming home early or anything to give you that idea?"
"No, but honestly he doesn't tell me much. He just texts asking about me. Checking in." Making sure I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to do, being the good wife even when he's states away.
"When I take you to drop your phone off again today, grab more clothes." His voice drops lower, more certain, leaving no room for argument. "I'm keeping you until the weekend."
"Are you sure?" Heat creeps into my cheeks, makes me feel ridiculous and young. "I just started my period."
He steps closer into my space, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. Close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his body, see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes.
"I don't want you to stay with me just to fuck you.
" His voice is low and serious, each word deliberate.
"I like you being with me. I like talking to you, watching TV in my bed, getting drunk and you beating all of us at poker.
" A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"I love sleeping with you and being able to hold you all night. So yeah, I still want you to stay."
I stand there frozen, can't seem to form words or thoughts or any coherent response.
Hearing him say that—that he wants me for more than sex, more than my body, more than what I can give him physically—makes something crack open in my chest. Something that feels dangerously like hope.
Daniel never wanted me for anything beyond appearance, beyond what I could do for his image, for his career.
I was an accessory, carefully selected to look good at political fundraisers and charity galas. But Kade—
I realize I'm just staring at him, standing here mute like an idiot while he waits for me to respond.
"Okay," I whisper finally, my voice barely audible. "I'll stay tonight and Friday. But I need to be home Saturday to get the house ready before he gets back."
He smiles, and god, that smile does things to me. "Good."
"We need to go to the shop so I can put your part on since it came in yesterday."
He starts walking toward the door, movements easy and confident.
"Oh, and Peaches?"
I look up at him, suddenly nervous without knowing why.
"I'm not afraid of a little blood."
Then he disappears through the door just as the next period's students start entering, their voices a sudden burst of noise and normalcy.
I stand there frozen, face burning hot, pulse hammering so hard in my throat I can feel it. Can't seem to move, can't seem to think past what he just said and what it means.
I've never had sex on my period. Never. Daniel would never—even if I wanted to fuck him, which I haven't wanted to do in years. The thought of his hands on me now makes my stomach turn violently, makes me want to scrub my skin raw until I can't feel the phantom touch of his fingers anymore.
But Kade's hands? Those are different. Everything about him is different. The way he touches me like I'm precious instead of property. The way he looks at me like I matter beyond what I can provide.
I move to my desk on shaky legs, arrange papers I don't actually need to arrange, straighten the stack of essays I've already graded. Try to compose myself, try to look professional and put-together before my next class starts filtering in and taking their seats.
My phone vibrates again in my pocket. I pull it out, already knowing who it is before I see the name on the screen.
Daniel: How's your day going, baby?
Daniel: Are you busy?
The endearment makes my skin crawl, makes my stomach clench with familiar nausea. I type back quickly, fingers stiff with tension.
Me: Fine. Class just started.
Three dots appear immediately, disappear, reappear. He's thinking, editing, crafting his response.
Daniel: Okay well I Love you.
The capital L sits there on my screen like an accusation. I respond with a quick "Love you too" because that's what I'm supposed to say, what I've been trained to say, what happens if I don't say it. Lock my phone and shove it back in my pocket like it might burn me.
It's just three more days until he comes home. Seventy-two hours of freedom before I have to go back to that house, that life, that man who systematically destroyed everything good in me and rebuilt me into something small and scared and obedient.
Only two more nights with Kade. Two more nights of feeling human, feeling wanted.
Students settle into their seats around me, pulling out notebooks and copies of Frankenstein, completely unaware that their teacher is breaking apart at the seams. I take a deep breath—one, two, three—and force myself into teacher mode.
Push away thoughts of birth control and early periods and the eighteen-year-old man who wants me for reasons that have nothing to do with image or control.
I'm really trying to concentrate on the papers I'm grading, but who the hell could concentrate when Kade's greasy and sweaty and shirtless while he's working on my car?
Every time I look up from the red-inked essay about Victor Frankenstein's hubris, my eyes find him bent over my engine, muscles shifting under sweat-slicked skin as he reaches for another tool.
I should have stayed in the office he offered, should have closed myself away in that small, windowless room where I could actually focus on participial phrases and thesis statements.
Instead, I'm at this little desk tucked in the corner of the garage with classic rock playing through speakers mounted to the exposed beams, and I have a perfect, unobstructed view of every movement he makes.
God, I'm never going to get anything done.