Forbidden Fruit

Chapter 8

NORMANI POV

I've never experienced this feeling before. Emptiness. That is the only way I can describe it. After Lauren left, I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling the entire night. I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't know if I was allowed to cry. I didn't know if I was allowed to hurt. Lauren had made it clear that we couldn't be together, and I understood. I understood because I wanted her to be happy. Me? I was totally devastated when I heard those words fall from her beautiful red lips. Those lips I'd had on my own only moments before. What exactly did I expect when she came back to my home? I know she had asked if we could have one night together, but I would never have slept with her. No way. A woman like Lauren deserves to be wined and dined. She deserves to be shown, true love. If I'd have brought her back to my place and rolled around in bed with her, what kind of person would I have looked like? Would she have expected me to ask her to leave after I'd gotten what I wanted? Would she have expected cold sheets the next morning? I don't know. What I do know, though, is that I miss her. I miss her scent. I miss her smile. I miss those eyes that could melt my heart.

The rest of the weekend had been spent with me kicking myself for not getting her cell number outside the club. Outside the club when I thought that we could have been something. I needed to speak to her. I needed to hear her voice. Selfish, I know, but I was going out of my mind and I had so much I had to say to her. It hadn't felt right on Friday night. Not when she was so determined to stand her ground. If she didn't want to be with me, whether it was because she had realised her feelings were nothing, or whether it was because of my job, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that Lauren was in control of the situation, and if that meant that I couldn't be with her, then that was something that I had to deal with myself.

No matter how much I wanted to take her in my arms and never let her go, I couldn't. I'd already abused my position as her professor, and in my opinion, she had just given me a chance to be a better person, a better teacher, and one day...a better friend. Did I care about my job right now? To a degree, yes. But I cared about Lauren more. If she walked into my office right now and told me she had made a mistake, I'd drop to my knees and give her whatever she wanted. I'd give her the world if it would mean I could spend my life with her. Two weeks, yes, only two weeks since we had met, but I find her fascinating. I'd wondered if the connection would still be there between us. I wondered if it would lessen over time. Surely that kind of spark doesn't just disappear. I cannot believe that for one second. If there is anything at all left for me to hang on to, it is that connection. The connection that told me that no matter how wrong it was for us to be together...it meant something. It meant...everything.

I'd managed to drag myself out of my bed this morning and make it into work. Last night I'd attempted to drown my sorrows, and now, I was paying for it. A headache between my eyes growing by the minutes, I wanted to curl up under my desk and wait for the storm to pass. The storm I'd created. Why did you even come to Miami? A change isn't always best, huh? Head in my hands, I took in the aroma of the strong coffee sitting in front of me. The coffee I'd struggled to bring to my lips since I bought it twenty minutes ago. Had I gone to the cafeteria to see Lauren? Of course, I had. Unfortunately, the universe was still laughing at me, and my luck wasn't in. I had thirty minutes before I had my first class of the day, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to run off campus and lock myself away from the world. Would she even come to class today? Would she come to class ever again? Knowing that it wasn't my place to wonder right now, I sat back in my seat and closed my eyes.

What did she spend her weekend doing? Did she go home and get over this whole mess? Did she cry herself to sleep like I had? She's probably told all of her friends and now I'll get those looks. Those looks of disappointment and disgust. Oh god, what if she's told, Dinah Hansen? I couldn't imagine trying to live my life with the knowledge that she, of all people...knows my personal life.