I will never get this.
I have been locked in my room for hours now trying to study for my upcoming anatomy exam and I'm getting nowhere.
Maybe I should have taken Summer up on her strange offer to help me study.
"You know, Mariana, I could always take the time out of my day to help you as Mr. Akram said!" Summer exclaimed, making me jump in fear from my seat after our Anatomy class had been dismissed.
I look up at her wearily since we haven't even spoken since the beach day when I practically smacked her in the face with a volleyball.
So excuse me if this random offer of her time and generosity was rubbing me the wrong way.
I throw my bag over my shoulder, "Um, I thought you hated me?" I asked honestly, wanting to cut to the chase.
She laughs at my comment and waves it off, "Don't be silly, Mari! I know you attacking me with a volleyball was an accident. Plus, I got to spend time with Aiden," she whispers, "something we have been needing for a while."
I felt my stomach drop at her comment but smiled anyway, "That's good for you... and Aiden but honestly I'm fine, I don't need help." my voice sounds strained.
I have always been too prideful to ask for help, anyway. I have always just counted on myself when it came to my school work. I'm the only person that is in charge of my success.
Her smile drops slightly from her face, "Oh. Okay. Well, good luck on the exam, Mari. You'll need it."
With that finally condescending comment, she walks off.
And now I'm wondering if I should have swallowed my pride and just accepted her off-putting offer.
Because I am so lost.
How am I supposed to become the doctor I need to be if I can't even understand the basics in this anatomy class. There is just so much information.
"You should really eat something, Mari," I hear Lexi saying from her bed. While I have been studying, she has been relaxing and watching Netflix all day and I have never been more jealous.
"I'm not hungry," I say back absentmindedly while opening a new mint, trying to figure out a way that I can effectively memorize the location, function, and organs that are part of the different systems in the human body.
My brain is on overload.
I hear Lexi sigh, "Well, I'm gonna go to the dining hall, wanna come?" she asks hopefully. She knows how I get when I'm in study mode, I stop eating and start sucking on my LifeSaver mints.
I hear her move towards my desk, "You sure?? There's mac and cheese.." she teases, knowing I love mac and cheese from the dining hall. It's like the only good thing they serve because of its breadcrumb topping.
Yum.
I almost give in before reminding myself that I don't know anything about Anatomy and I don't deserve the mac and cheese anyway, "Nope. I'm good. You go ahead, Lex." I state, my voice is confident in my decision even though my heart and stomach are whining.
"Ugh. Fine. I'll be back later," with that, she throws on her Adidas slides and walks out the door leaving me in complete silence to study.
I have been studying the parts, functions, and possible diseases that have to do with the heart. I feel like I was finally understanding it. Okay, Mari, you got that one... now onto the lun–
Knock, Knock
Who the hell is that? Maybe Lex forgot her keys and came back for it.
The knock continues, excessively, confirming that it was Lexi even more since that's something she would do. Impatient, ass.
"Calm down, Lexi. I'm coming," I walk to the door annoyed, "you always forget your ke–"
"Hey, Torres."
My face drops once I open the door to reveal Aiden, not Lexi.
"What are you doing here," feeling the nerves seep in once again. I really don't need this right now.
He smiles at me and walks into the room and straight to my bed, jumping onto it with his head against my pillow, and his arms stretched behind him to support his neck, "I wanna hang out! It's like I haven't seen you in forever."
My brows furrow at his statement, "I saw you yesterday, Grey..."
He rolls his eyes at me, "Well yeahh. But that was in class so it doesn't count as hanging out."
I scoff and make my way back to my desk, "True. But I can't right now, Grey. I have a huge Anatomy exam to study for and... I can't have any distractions," I say tentatively, hoping he will take that as his cue to leave.
Or stay, whichever.
He quirks his head at me, "Anatomy? Summer's in that class."
Oh so he knows her whole fucking schedule too, I guess.
I give him a strained smile, "Yeah. I know," my jaw tenses as I am officially distracted.
Realizing his mistake in bringing her up, he lifts himself from my bed and walks over to me, putting his arms on either side of the back of my chair, effectively encompassing me within his arms.
"Let me help."
I turn my head to look at him, "Have you taken anatomy, Mr. Engineer?" I ask, already knowing the more probable answer is no.
He looks at me sheepishly, proving me right, "Well, no but I can still help you study!"
I turn back to my textbook staring at the human anatomy diagram, "It's about memorizing the different functions and purposes of the organs. I just need to rehearse it multiple times and try to get it to stick," I say, feeling slightly hopeless but knowing that this is how I am used to studying.
After a small moment of silence, he speaks up, "Use me to study."
Once again, I turned to him confused, "What? How?"
He seems to think a little at my question, obviously not thinking this through before making eye contact with something on my desk.
My marker.
"Draw on me. It will help you with the location. Then once you finish drawing, read to me the functions and all the rest of the crap you have to memorize about that organ. Maybe you need to become a visual learner, Torres."
He's smirking slightly.
Draw on him? Which means I have to touch him.
Well, that is a terrible idea.
"Okay."
He looks a bit shocked as I agree with his advice on how to study the material. Trust me, I'm shocked too. I meant to say no but then just said okay.
Damn it.
He reaches behind me, slightly brushing against my shoulder, and grabs the blue marker before stepping back.
"Let's do this, Torres."
Then he takes off his shirt.
And I practically choke on my own spit.
"What are you doing??" I ask with wide eyes. He gives me a confused look and holds out the marker.
"What did you think you were gonna draw on my shirt? I want you to pass Torres but that shirt costs 50 bucks," he laughs at me before moving closer to me, inviting me to grab the marker from his hands.
I blush feverishly at his words before grabbing the markers, "Yeah okay."
He takes that as his cue and makes his way to my bed, laying on it as he did before, but just without a shirt. Oh, God.
I grab my textbook and make my way over to him, sitting on the side of the bed with my legs crossed behind me; I uncap the marker, "Okay," I take a deep breath, "I've been working my way down so I got the parts of the throat and everything plus the heart," God, I'm freaking out internally.
I lean forward placing one of my hands out next to his body to hold myself up, "So I'll start with the lungs," I start drawing the outline of the lungs where it would be on his body causing him to squirm slightly, "You okay?" I ask.
He looks at me, since he was following the outline of the marker before, and smiles, "I'm good it just tickles."
I giggle at that before continuing my labeling of the parts of the lungs, "The right lung has three lobes: Upper, middle, and lower," I start diving the lung according to the textbook I keep glancing back at, "The left only has two: Upper and lower," I continue on the other side of Aiden's body.
"The lungs' main function is to help oxygen enter our red blood cells," I explain, avoiding eye contact with Aiden who I can feel is staring intently at me, "It also helps us eradicate CO2 when we breathe out."
I continue to explain the breathing process as Aiden lays unexpectedly quiet as I close my eyes to recall what I have been studying. I hate to admit it but looking at my drawing was helping me remember it, weirdly enough.
I take a quick glance at Aiden when I finish with the lungs to see him smiling, "Perfect. What's next, Torres."
Liver.
"Next is the liver," I start drawing a liver on Aiden more comfortably this time, I even place a hand down on him to get a better drawing.
He inhales sharply when I do that and I immediately retract my hand from him, "Sorry, did I hurt you?" I ask worriedly. I didn't think I leaned on him too heavily but...
He shakes his head fast, "N-no, Torres. You're fine. Just... keep going," He lets out, obviously affected in some way since he isn't looking at me anymore but rather at the ceiling.
I purse my lips but continue anyway, placing my hand back. God, he is so muscular. "The liver contains two lobes: right and left, with the coronary ligament separating the two," Instead of drawing the ligament, I run my pointer finger down slowly to where it would be.
I hear a groan come from Aiden and I look up at him, keeping my finger on him. Is he getting turned on by this?
"The liver's job is to filter the blood from the digestive tract before passing it along to the rest of the body," I say without paying much attention, too focused on Aiden's tense jaw, "It also purifies chemicals and metabolizes drugs," I whisper, my voice suddenly taking a lower octave.
Aiden glances at me and licks his lips. Once he sees me staring back at him he quickly throws his head back and starts breathing heavily, "What's next," he whispers.
The intestines.
"The intensities include the small and large intestine and the rectum," I focus my eyes at the lower part of his abdomen before starting the outline with my finger where it would be, completely forgetting about the marker at this point.
He sighs heavily at my outline, "The absorption of nutrients and water happens here," I mumble, surprised I'm even able to continue stating facts when I'm this distracted.
"God, Torres,"
Too caught up in this moment, I move my legs to straddle Aiden on my bed, making his eyes shoot open and grab onto my waist, "The small intestine is 20 feet long and an inch wide and the large intestine is 5 feet long and three inches wide," At this point, I'm just running my hands from the top of his jean's waistline up to his shoulders.
I'm leaning over his body and every part of me is on fire as I make eye contact with him, inches away from his face.
His greenish-gray eyes are sparkling with anticipation at what could happen in a few moments, but they also look... fearful that it might.
Even though I can barely breathe at the proximity between us, I manage to choke out, "The colon absorbs water from the waste–"
"Please stop talking about my digestive system."
"Okay."
And before I could stop myself, we both moved toward each other and placed our lips on the others.
I hear him breathe in relief as our lips melted into each other.
I bring my hands up from his shoulder and cradle his neck, pushing him closer to me to deepen the intoxicating kiss.
I have never been kissed like this.
I have never been kissed like I was the one supplying air for the other person like I was the only thing that was important at that moment. Like I deserved to be ravished.
Aiden desperately wraps his arms around my waist in attempts to get rid of any space between our bodies as he licks my bottom lip.
A moan escapes the back of my throat, surprising me while making Aiden more excited as he gently flips us over so he is on top now. His tongue is exploring my mouth as his hands run up the side of my body brushing past the indent of my hips and up past the side of my breast.
Seeing as how his fingers burned the parts of my skin that he skimmed across, I decided to move my hips in a forward motion, wanting more of him.
He lifts himself slightly from my lips, breaking contact for the first time and breathing out a moan, "Fuck, You're driving me crazy," He whispers before moving his lips to my neck and grinding himself on me, following my previous movement.
I have never felt this way during a kiss before. This was intense, obviously due to the built-up tension between us for weeks.
And we just exploded.
I start whimpering as he continues attacking my neck and I become restless as I wrap my legs around his waist from the pressure he was creating.
This is a bad idea. We shouldn't be doing this. Friends don't do this. This is why I created the rules in the first place because now I'm officially distracted in the best way possible.
"Mari! I brought mac and cheese!!!"
I quickly push Aiden off of me with wide eyes causing him to roll onto the floor with a loud thud. But it was pointless because Lexi was already staring at us, her eyes popping out of their sockets as I tried to regain a steady breath.
I can hear Aiden groaning in pain from the floor.
"OH," Lexi starts, obviously at a loss for words which is saying something because it's Lexi, "Actually, I heard they also had tacos today so... I'm gonna go... check that out. Bye!" and she slams the door closed leaving me to digest everything that just happened as Aiden continued his grumbles of pain from the floor.
Here is chapter TWENTY-ONE of "Because Of You"!!!
Ahhhh they kissed!!! Finally! I know we have been waiting for this moment that they would just go for it and it has arrived!
Did you all like how it happened? I was waiting a while to write this chapter and this kissing scene. It's been in the works!
ALSO, added a #Hessa gif for this chapter because it a bit of what I imagined :) and I love them!!
VOTE AND COMMENT predictions, reactions, questions, ANYTHING! I wanna hear what you all thought!
Be back tomorrow with more, get EXCITED!
A million thanks,
Leticia ❀