I woke up this morning with the epiphany of a hurtful insight. It was as if the rain that crashed upon me furiously as I found my way home after being kicked out of Kylo Ren's house, had washed my eyes and conscience clean enough to ensure sudden clarity.
The weight upon my shoulders had shifted, but it was still anchoring my heart down heavily – It felt like someone was sitting upon my collarbones with their legs wrapped tightly around my neck and their hands are forcefully shoving into my mouth to pry their fingers down my throat and into my chest, only to tear my heart out of its place brutally.
Even my movements were stiff as I walked into Mr. Ren's class that chilly day. No longer was I wearing a summer dress in the middle of winter, but instead I was wearing my casual jeans – Though, I still presumably look like an idiot for not wearing my jacket, for once again, I had managed to leave it in Kylo's hands, after forgetting it was hanging on the back of his dining chair. It's probably hung up in his closet already, collecting moth-dust and swinging to the side as he rummages through his shirts to find the right one – Today it was a black button up, where the pale flesh of his neck seems to glow against it.
When our eyes meet, I look away with hesitation swimming around my irises and trudge over to the back desk, returning back to the spot I would sit in when he first arrived to campus and I was trying to avoid his eyes turning upon me, because they would leave me to scorch beneath the heated observance of his.
Sitting down with a huff and throwing my textbook onto the desk, I only catch the knitting of his dark brows once and even from here, I can see the deep crease between them as the tension begins to rise from the floor and up to our mouths like a thick fog, leaving only our eyes to watch each-other and inspect what could be causing the smoke to be so smothering.
But then, he begins the lesson.
After all this time, it is only now where I wonder if the pain and struggle of hiding my desire for my Professor, is really worth it. I had enough problems before he came anyway – I'm failing college, My Father's still an asshole and my heartbreak was enough to ensure a life lived in depressive misery – And despite the fact that Kylo had manage to coax all the heartbreak out of me with his warm touches, I am terrified of the day where that heartbreak returns with a raging vengeance.
I want to click the ink of my pen out of the plastic like an assassin would flip the hilt of their dagger and retract the blade, and then I want to throw it in the air to embed it into the back of Rachel's head of blonde-curls. But even when Juno Steele – Her quiet friend – pretends to stretch and makes eye-contact with me, all I do is look away like the weak person that I am.
The clarity from earlier had followed me here the way blue water would fall downhill, it gathers around me and I am drowning beneath it, and just like the moment when one sinks to the bottom of a pool, I am glancing upwards to the light above, only it seems to be him – But I can't help but feel like he was the one to push me into the water in the first place.
With my jaw painfully tense as I grind my teeth together, my pen is nearly snapping in my grip, although my palms are sweaty. As I watch Mr. Ren up there, at the front of the class in front of the board with a piece of chalk in his hand, the white words upon the black only seem to shift and shape into the memory of his eyes yesterday night.
He looked so agitated, so frightened – And I can't help but think that the whole time we stretch this secret affair out, deep down he will be that scared and I will forever be this anxious of being found and the consequences which will follow.
He glances back and meets my eyes, but his move away again before mine do. I swallow dryly, but ever since last night I haven't been able to wet my paper throat.
I haven't felt this type of anxiety since I was fourteen when the girls at my school decided one day that I wasn't good enough to be their friend – And the feeling I am enduring now, is just the same as back then, on those days where I would come home crying and beg not to go the next day, only this feels worse.
There's a clarity – Yes. I can see it all perfectly now, no longer am I wearing my rose-coloured glasses because it seems I had left them back at his house, along with my jacket. I was frightened too. I was scared, agitated, terrified, petrified! I was frightened because I know Kylo Ren could break my heart back into two – And he will one day, after-all, this cannot last forever.
The rain may be pouring down the windows to my right but there is beauty in it, that same clarity as the kind of thinking which lets me notice small details, like how his fingers curl into his palms whenever I act as if I am eying the clock above his head, instead of meeting his gaze – Or the way that I had completely, utterly and foolishly, fallen for someone who truely didn't care for me, unless I was wrapped around him.
Professor Ren was fiery hot and would lay his heated hands of burning passion upon my cool flesh, warming me right up. Maybe, all along Kylo Ren was like a candle to me, he illuminated my melancholy life of grey with his pale light, though with only a light blow of wind, he would be gone – Leaving only a thin smoke to become the evidence of the once burning fire.
I don't want to feel the heartbreak of my own foolery, the day may be dimming but he still has the power to light a flame in the pit of my soul, always burning for more of him, always ready to set this whole city into a blaze, if that was what he had asked from me – And like back when I was fourteen, I knew that there was something wrong with the emotions that I was feeling.
He walks over to me slowly once the bell had rung and everyone else had fled out of the classroom – Rachel turns back before leaving out the door, to give me a sly smile and a mischievous wink. Despite my inner conflict, my heart seems to have a mind of its own when it skips a beat as he sits on the edge of my table, causing it to wobble above me, thanks to the shorter leg on the right.
I closed my eyes when he sighs, the heat rising in my cheeks as the nagging ache coiled in my guts and a pulse began to beat down my thighs. I'm nothing but a love-sick teenager and I need to smack that ignorance out of me before this innocence shifts into something regrettable.
"What did your Wife want?" I break the silence and ask.
"Ex." He reminds me, his large hand moving to flip my textbook closed, "And she just came over to get the last of her things."
I nodded and as he shifted closer upon the desk, I got a whiff of his aftershave and cologne – It was strange, Kylo's house seemed impossibly empty from a woman's touch, where did he keep the rest of her things? Probably in the attic to collect dust – As will my heart when one day, he or I, ultimately lose it.
"Do you have any other classes today?" He asks me, to which I chuckle and shake my head.
"I can barely keep up with one class, let alone another." I say, my voice tinted with a sarcastic chime.
"Right – Right," He hums as I watch the way his fingers play with he corner of my textbook – His long, porcelain fingers which I want to interlock my own between. He clears his throat and lifts his hand away, "Did you ever get around to that poem from yesterday?"
Running a hand through my hair, his words only add strength to my growing anxiety, "Ah, no and it's really starting to stress me out." I say, leaving out the real reason as to why it was causing me this great deal of mental wrath.
Suddenly, he fills the emptiness of our conversation with his low chuckles which could even make the low rumbles of the thunder from outside, jealous.
"One minute, you don't even want to participate in the competition, the next, all you can think about is winning..." Kylo laughs but as I glance up from the table and back to his face, his features are etched differently to the way he would usually smirk above his chimes.
He furrows his thick brows but his lips are still slightly upturned, "If this is about your grades – You do know that I will help in anyway that I can?"
Always startled by his bounty of good-looks, I stared now, open mouthed at his face and the knowing smirk upon his lips. I could see my own desire mingling with his own in the reflection of his glassy, dark eyes.
Passing is the least of my worries now.
"T-Thank you," I stuttered as his hand now reached for my own, interlocking his fingers with mine as if he could read my thoughts from before, to which an electric shock ran up my arm and struck my heart – I knew exactly what he meant by his touches, after-all, they only meant one thing.
I smile weakly to him and repeat his question from earlier, "– Do you have any other classes today?"
He lifts my hand to his face and as I feel the heat of his breath fan upon the back of my hand, I feel that same warmth speed through my veins and coax my blood back to reverie.
He brushes a kiss over my knuckles, a delicate and longing kiss which was slow across the flesh as if he didn't want to damage the wings of the butterflies which fluttered in my stomach.
Kylo blinks slowly and nods his head as if he is disappointed with his own answer, "Hm. Yes, I have one in an hour."
"And, after that?" I slowly add with a nod.
He shakes his head, "I have nothing."
Swallowing my pride, which only scratches down my dry throat as if I was choking on glass, I ignore the screaming voices of anxious revelations from the back of my mind as I say,
"W-We could go back to yours?" My voice is weak and the stuttering never helps, though, he does bite back a smile every-time I do so, "But we don't have to spend the whole time trying to write the poem, I don't want to waste–"
"I have to grade papers." He cuts my rambling short.
My heart sinks to the acidic depths of my stomach and dies in the bubbling of disappointment, "Oh." Is all I am left to say and as the silence begins to taunt me, Kylo saves me once again by that soothing chuckle of his.
He shakes his head and smiles to his hands as if he is uncertain of uttering the words in which, he wants to so desperately say, "It seems that with all my time spent with you, I have forgotten that I have duties too." His eyes shift back onto me, pulling my heart back out of my stomach and hanging it upon my ribcage to dry, "I'm sorry, sweetheart."
"No – It's okay!" I quickly brush the crimson embarrassment off my face and laugh with a roll of my eyes, "I guess, I was just being silly. Of course, you need to do work."
I don't partially know if he was cutting my words short again or he just couldn't hold onto his patience any further, when he suddenly leant down and pressed his lips to my own. It was delicate at first, but soon, he began to kiss me as if he was hungry for more – Which, he always was.
I only responded like I always do, with no sudden hesitations as my mind begins to spin like a flat tire and my clarity vanishes in the burnt rubber. I offer myself up as if I was upon a plate, and he never turns me down.
Our tongues dance over one another in a sensual tango and his hands begin to curl into my hair and twine around my shoulder, trying to pull me closer but the edge of the table is our barrier.
Just when I attempt to pull away to regain my breath, I only suck a sharp burst of oxygen in before Kylo pushes my tortured lips back to his and ravishes my mouth with his tongue, possessively.
He moans into the kiss and the sound vibrates through my whole body. Professor Ren's hand upon my shoulder then slides like a sly snake, down to my left breast and cups it eagerly, his thumbs brushing the line in my shirt from the material of my bra.
I pushed into his hand as if I wanted his long fingers to push through my skin, to pull the heart beneath my bust out, only for him to stomp onto it violently.
My own hands now reached out for him and I scraped my fingernails down the skin below the nape of his hair, feeling every bump of his spine as I do so.
The classroom has become more than a place where he teaches and a room where I fail – And it only cracks another piece of my heart as I realise that this is all we will ever do, kiss behind closed doors.
Despite the privations of our intimacy and the clandestine nature of what is to never become a real relationship, I find myself always willingly allowing him to have fun with me – With my body.
I had become accustomed to everything about him – Brooding and stern. I craved him like an addictive drug, cocaine and heroine have nothing compared to the rapture that was Kylo Ren.
There was no love spent in our kiss, only lust – Two very different things. This murky and dusty classroom was the place that we had met and eventually, I will most likely be the one to leave and he will move onto the next girl who falls into the trappings of his gravity.
As his taste floods my senses, I think back to the very day that Mr. Ren had first walked through the door. When my finger met the paper in my hands, before I would have even ever considered a brief love affair, and it took my blood as a trophy. The blood of my paper cut, resembled the way the scarlet flooded to my cheeks upon one look of his rosy lips. It stung but with him staring that deeply into my soul, his honey-brown eyes numbed me completely, as would morphine to a screaming victim.
And that's exactly what I am to Kylo Ren, I am his victim, but he must be my Stockholm Syndrome for I only anticipate the pain of his paper cut's again, as I seek to find his heartstrings to bandage the wound which only bleeds and bleeds.
Reality intrudes and anxiety is its best-friend. My soul aches and finally, he allows me to pull away. We are left to pant in the empty space of the classroom and when he gives me a small smile, I only give it back to him, my relapse.
I raise my eyebrows and uncurl my hands from around his neck, "Enjoy... Grading?" I chime with a light laugh as I shake my head and begin to collect my things.
Kylo Ren runs his tongue along his bottom lip, as if he is savouring my taste as do I with his, as I refuse to suddenly swallow.
"I'll try," He says, brushing his thumbs along my cheek only once, before letting me go.
To say that the classroom in which I had just come from, was incredibly quiet – The hallways are a shock to my static induced system. It seems that everyone was trampling undercover, to keep away from the trickling, cold rain – Leaving barely any space to push against the path which is heading away from the main-entry's door.
It's almost so loud, that I didn't hear the phone in my back pocket ring – Until it began to vibrate too. I slip it out of my jean-pocket and squint my eyes to the caller ID, uncaring of each shoulder which bumps into my own as I bite down the urge to scream and throw my phone to the crowded floor of moving feet.
Almost stomping my way to the head office, it takes longer than it should've because of the populated halls – But when I finally arrive, I don't even bother to say a greeting to the blonde receptionist behind her tall desk, for my Father had requested me only seconds ago, through a text.
The blind-curtains rattle against the window of his office door as I flick it shut behind me and huff as I sit in the plush chair in-front of his wooden desk, where he sits with squinting eyes upon the light of his computer.
"There you are." He says in a disinterested and low tone, keeping his eyes trained on the screen, even as he moves his head slowly to face me – But then they spring upon me in a sudden motion, "How are you doing?"
"Fine." I utter, crossing my arms over my stomach as if I was hiding the flutters of the butterflies which still dance in my guts, from the taste of Kylo still lingering upon my tongue. "You wanted to see me?" I ask.
Wearing the same blue-suit which he wore on my high-school graduation day, the tie he had paired with it was the light red one I had gifted to him on Father's Day, many years ago – And the colour is only a laughing stock to my blood of desire for one of his colleagues.
"Yes – I wanted to speak with you about this..." He furrows his brows, the rest of his wrinkling face beginning to follow suit as he bites his tongue to my rude tone and then leans down to his bottom drawer, retrieving an envelope.
Panic rises like a flag would be hoisted to the top of a pole, only to whip and sway violently in the thrashing winds, which weather it back down. I have no idea what is hidden within that white envelope, but the unknowing cannot be good, the unknowing only leaves a blank slate for my panic to fill the slots with fabricated scenarios.
Had Rachel snitched on me by giving it in writing? Is it my Father's formal admission to my expulsion?
I bite the inside of my cheek harshly, opening, once again, the healing cut in my mouth – To which, the blood seeps out of and covers the memory of Kylo Ren's tongue and taste.
"Wha–"
The rattling of the blinds from behind me, echoes throughout the room and causes the pounding of my heart, to only louden above the sound as the receptionist walks in with heeled shoes. My Father flicks his eyes off me and to her, smiling in a genuine way, to which all of the butterflies die in the churning nausea of my stomach.
The space between the sight of the mysterious envelope and the answer as to what it is, is wavering misery to my awakened soul. Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up – I chant in my head as I begin to curl my fingers into my palms.
"Going?" He asks her, but I don't bother to even glance back to her as she begins to speak.
"Yes," She says in a light and feathery tone – One much different to the power in my Mother's, "See you tomorrow." She adds, to which he farewells her and keeps his eyes trained in her direction, until the blinds smack against the window once again.
"Where were we? Oh –" He mutters, then waving the envelope in his hand with that same smile that he gave to the receptionist, but it doesn't hold the power to return my own, the way Mr. Ren's always does.
Speaking of him...
"Professor Ren gave me this, this morning." My Father says.
"And – What is it?" I ask in a trembling tone as my anxiety only quickens to keep up with my pacing annoyance.
With my heart beating so incredibly fast and loud, it vibrates and pulsates even in my ears, to which I cannot truely hear the words that my Father speaks, but my wide eyes can read them clearly around the smile of his white teeth and cheating tongue.
"Your entry into the publishing house's competition."