I Won't Give Up (Teacher/Student)

Chapter 13

Thirteen

Nothing would prepare me for what was on the other end of his classroom door. I could only handle so much of Faith in a day and I was sure I would reach my capacity after five minutes. I wanted to say no and leave Caden to fend for himself, but he wouldn't stop asking and insisted that he'd give me detention if I didn't volunteer my help.

Faith was already in the classroom. She looked up from the sheet of papers spread across Caden's desk when I pulled the door open. They were both seated at his desk. Caden was in his regular chair and Faith was right next to him. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that she got all dressed up for this tutoring session, but Faith always looked nice. She never wore baggy shirts or sweats, and I had never seen her put her hair up unless it was intentionally styled that way.

Instead of going to them, I walked to the back of the room and pulled out my homework for the day. If he was going to force me to sit through this, I'd at least make the most out of my time here. I was far enough to avoid hearing their conversation but put headphones in to further block out any noise.

I finished my homework within twenty minutes. This week's assignments were pretty light because some students had to retake their state exams and teachers were dedicating all their effort to preparing them. I glanced toward the front of the room and watched as Faith turned her body toward Caden, tossing her hair over her shoulder to reveal more of her bare chest. She was subtle in her movements but effective. If I had been sitting across from her, I would have had difficulty keeping my eyes away from her body, but Caden's eyes were glued to the paper. I could see it in his body that he was painfully aware of her every move. His legs were turned away from her, his eyebrows pinched together and jaw set, and he rubbed two fingers across his forehead as he walked through the lesson.

His eyes met mine and for a moment his shoulders relaxed, and his chest moved up and down in a consistent and controlled manner. That chest had been pressed against mine hours ago as he held me tightly against him: strong, desperate, anything but controlled.

"Work on this problem while I confirm that Ms. Reynolds is being productive," he said and leaned forward. I could feel Faith's eyes on us, and they made me nervous. She spent all that time making a move and he didn't respond favorably at all, yet here he was, taking time out of his lesson to talk to me.

"Would you like to join our conversation?" he asked.

"No thanks. I already know the lesson topic."

"Diem, that is a great idea." He spoke loudly, and a smile stretched across his face as he smirked down at me. I squinted at him, unsure of what he was doing but knew that it wasn't anything good.

"What is?" Faith asked.

"Diem just offered to help you while I grade assignments. She knows the topic very well."

Faith eyes zeroed in one me. She bit her bottom lip and held her pencil tightly, her thumb pressing against it hard enough for it to snap if she so desired. I stood up from my desk, resisting the urge to bang my head against it until I was unconscious, and pulled up a chair. Caden went into his back office and left me completely alone with her.

"Are you really that jealous that you had to interrupt us?" Faith leaned forward and whispered to me. I flipped through the papers on the desk, wanting to ignore her, but she made it difficult by refusing to pay attention.

"Faith, believe me when I say my plans were not to explain AP Biology to a brick wall."

I spent the next thirty mintues trying to explain the Krebs Cycle to her, but the more I talked about it the more I began to confuse myself as well. Luckily Caden came out of his office again and approached the table. He leaned over and looked down at us as I talked through the cycle. At one point, I paused, unsure of myself, and Caden jumped in to help the both of us.