Enemies with Benefits

Chapter Thirty-Two

- Caleb -

My hands were shaking; my knee was bouncing. I was fully dressed yet felt more naked than ever, having spent the entirety of the last day and a half holed up in my condo with no plans to move. The time had been hell on my nerves and my mind, and while I figured going outside would be good for my sanity, the moment I stepped foot in this office, my brain was shot to hell.

The office—my desk and chair specifically—reminded me of Rachel. I shut my eyes to remember the way her ass looked bent over the surface, or the way she rode me in the very chair I was in now, but fuck if the first image that struck me instead wasn't the pained look in her eyes when I'd asked her to leave.

My knee started to bounce harder, hitting the underside of my desk.

She'd tried to stay. I knew she wanted to, but the thought of being near anyone, the knowledge that she'd want to hug me, touch me, pity me—I couldn't take it. Not yet.

I wasn't even sure I'd fully processed the words I'd finally said aloud a day and a half later. Maybe I never would. Maybe closure was something I'd never find, and knowing I'd have to see Leah again to find any sort, I was okay without it.

The thought of her sent a shiver down my spine and up my limbs. I'd take the lack of closure if it meant I'd never have to look her in those manipulative eyes again.

My door burst open, not even the slightest knock to accompany it. I shot out of my chair—shaky nerves and legs be damned—and felt my face pull into a scowl.

A scowl that was quickly wiped away by the face marked with the same shock that I knew mirrored mine.

"Le—" I cut myself off. Rather, the closing of my throat did it for me.

"Caleb," Leah whispered, her face draining of color almost as fast as my heart rate had spiked. "W-What are you doing here? Where's Dean Williams?"

At such a question, my backbone resurfaced. That, and the fact that Rachel stepped in the room, her face red and eyes wild.

I kept my face as level as I could manage and ignored the fact that my palms were sweating and shaking grew worse than ever. I wondered if I might collapse and hoped with everything that I had that if I did, it could at least be after I was alone again. I'd spent nine years re-learning to breathe and move through my own shit. Now I'd been shoved into the ignorant realization that I'd never moved past it at all—I'd merely side-stepped it.

"Dean—"

Bile rising in my throat cut me off. I cleared it and restarted.

"Dean Williams was fired after multiple allegations of sexual assault from both students and employees finally came to light."

"He what?!" Rachel screamed, shoving her way around Leah, who still looked as shell-shocked as when she'd first seen me behind my desk.

I saw her stepping closer and closer towards my side of the room in my peripheral vision, though I couldn't force my eyes away from Leah if I'd even wanted to. With each and every movement she made, no matter how small, I felt myself flinch. My jaw was wound so tightly it could've fractured a tooth or two, my hands so roughly bound into fists that I felt my knuckles crack and whine against the force.

I heard Rachel whisper my name. She still stood feet away, the three of us in an uncomfortable triangle on opposing sides of the room. Maybe I'd only imagined her voice, floating so softly through the air that it settled comfortably over my shoulders and too-tight muscles.

I was panicking, breaking. I was ready to collapse. My knees began to buckle, my palms still quaking and sweating.

"Caleb," Rachel whispered, and this time, I knew I'd heard her.