I Won't Give Up (Teacher/Student)

Chapter 10

Ten

I spent the rest of the week at home. After work, Caden would force me to sit down at the dining table where he went through the biology lesson for that day. Luckily, he decided to give the entire class a break with assignments for the week, but I had a feeling he did this so that I could relax and catch up on missed work from other classes.

Cassie came to visit when she found out why I was missing school. She wouldn't stop laughing when she saw my chipped tooth and forced me to let her take a picture of it, reasoning that I would think it was funny years from now and that I'd be bummed when I had nothing to reference.

I was happy to be done with Dustin even if he wasn't done with me. Breaking up with Dustin marked the end of my pursuit of relationships in general. I had no interest in finding love. So far all I've ever witnessed was what love wasn't. What my mom and dad had wasn't love. She never paid any attention to my dad unless she was stuck in a room with him and my dad's love was desperate; he only tried so hard to make it work because I was in the picture.

People get married for a lot of reasons. Some rush into it, others do it because they've already been with the person for so long that signing some paperwork didn't really make it any different. Some didn't have a choice. There was an unexpected pregnancy or the person offered them a better life. Marriage was just another transaction, love just happened to be a part of it occasionally.

Sometimes I wondered where my mother was. She hadn't tried to contact me or my father since she left so I assumed she must have still been fucking her boss. They weren't bored with each other yet, but I was sure the excitement would die out soon. What made that relationship exciting was that it was forbidden. Spending time with that man instead of her husband and child let my mother escape from the life she had and gave her a new one she could enjoy.

She was the only person I ever hated and I would hate her until the day I died.

I had fully recovered from my injury. The bruises on my face were still there but mostly faded. I went to the dentist a few days ago and he managed to fix my tooth. It was slightly crooked compared to how it was before it chipped, but I was happy to see a full tooth rather than half of it.

I spent the day cleaning the house while Caden was at school. He was mostly neat but for some reason, he managed to leave the bathroom a mess every time he used it. Toothpaste was always left in the sink and splattered on the mirror and he refused to cap the toothpaste and put it back where it belonged.

When Caden came home, he pulled me over to the table again and walked me through today's lesson. I didn't want to admit it, but he might have been the best teacher I ever had. How many would take time out of their regular, unpaid, day to help a student who couldn't make it to class?

Caden was definitely special and I was lucky to know him. I found it difficult to pay attention to his lecture when these thoughts were swarming my mind. His body was close to mine. His right arm rested against the back of my chair as he leaned in and pointed at a chart in my binder. Our thighs were pressed together and his familiar smell filled my nose as he spoke.

I wondered if he realized how close we were. Was I so affected by him while he had no interest in me at all? Was I just another assignment handed to him by my father? Was his interest in looking after me only to please the man he grew up around?

"Are you alright?" he asked, pausing his lecture.

"Just tired," I said.

"Do you want to stop?"

I nodded, closing my binder. It was a waste of our time to sit here and pretend that I was listening. Caden was ruining my plans to avoid all things romantic and meaningful. He wasn't even my boyfriend, he meant nothing, and yet I couldn't escape the blood drumming in my ears due to his closeness.