Chapter 8
She wanted to skip class. Ember wasn’t one to put herself through humiliation if it could be avoided, and she wasn’t ready to see him. As the clock ticked off the minutes until it was time to leave, she vacillated. In fact, the decision wasn’t made until she was standing at her front door with her bag in hand and her jacket slung over her forearm. She dropped both to the floor and slunk away to her bedroom. It had been nearly a week since she’d seen him, but she missed him. She barely knew him, but she missed him as though she’d lost a long-held dear friend that meant the world to her. She didn’t understand her feelings, but she didn’t like them.
She remained in bed all evening, sipping wine and trying to watch TV, but she kept thinking about him. He would be lecturing, and she could hear his voice in her head purring out his inadvertent seduction. He oozed appeal, and she had fallen for it. He’d hooked her and pulled her in, but he was no pariah. He had wanted her, but his actions had never been so lascivious as she was trying to paint him in her anger. She just didn’t understand what had happened.
Her night was plagued by images of him—making love to him, tasting him, the feel of his cool touch against her superheated skin. The same unknown images from another life kept pace with her memories of the week before, and occasionally, the image of the monster came to mind, the image of Todd and the high school party flittered through her brain, and finally and most sad of all, the image of her mother’s death.
When her phone rang at nearly ten, she ignored it. She didn’t know the number, and she wasn’t interested in speaking to anyone anyway. Waking the next morning, she listened to the message … and she cried.
“You weren’t at class tonight, and I can only assume it has to do with me. Ember, I’m sorry. If I could undo what happened and let you go back to your life without me in it, I would. You would happier, and that would be enough for me. But I can’t fix what I’ve done… All I can do is apologize. But don’t miss class again. I don’t want your attendance to suffer just because you’re mad at me. Yell at me, ignore me, hate me for the rest of your life, but don’t hurt yourself. It isn’t worth it. I’m not worth it.” And after a long pause and an equally long sigh, he finished, “I’m so sorry, Ember.” Click, and she cried some more.
Her next week passed as it always did. She worked at the café, she interviewed for a few jobs in her field, and she tried her damndest to put him out of her mind. Her job hunt was a good distraction—the best she could find aside from a bottle of wine to drown her ridiculous sorrows. Not graduating on time forced her to continue working in the café, rather than finding a legitimate job. She’d finished her internship with a local youth shelter just before graduation, and this should have parleyed into an actual career, but instead she left the internship to return to her waitressing gig for the summer, unable to accept any positions.
She would be graduating with a BA in psychology with an emphasis in childhood development. She intended to go into child psychology and hoped to work with traumatized children, either through the city’s child protective services department or through one of the hospitals. She interviewed that week alone with two local hospitals and the city, and she’d thought the interviews had gone well. Quite frankly, keeping her eye on her diploma and a job was the only thing keeping her mind from going insane. She didn’t want to see him again, but at the same time, she couldn’t stop thinking about him and wanting him. Desiring a man that did not desire her in return was the most excruciating part. The rejection was a painful punch to the gut that left her barely able to breathe if she allowed herself to think about it for too long. Being forced to see him again was just added torture, and as the night approached, even her incessant job search failed to push it from her mind.
When she dressed that evening, it was with a strong need to be confident. Ember didn’t have dressy or sophisticated clothing. She’d always been casual, and even her nose ring and youthful looks had helped her bond with the kids in the youth shelter. It was who she was and who she’d always intended to be, but tonight, it just didn’t seem enough. The last thing she wanted was to look overdressed and out of place, but she wanted to feel powerful, beautiful, and in her need to show her emotional strength in her appearance, she settled on a pair of shorts that fell high on her thighs. They weren’t inappropriate in any way for summer, but they were perhaps a bit shorter than she would normally wear. When it came to shorts, there were two kinds of women in the world in Ember’s opinion—Bermuda shorts women and short shorts women. Ember was usually a Bermuda shorts gal, but on this night, she opted for the short shorts. They were khaki and had a cuff that hit mid to upper thigh. She paired the shorts with a sleeveless navy tank top and salmon-colored wedge sandals. Her long hair was pulled up in a high ponytail with wisps falling down around her face. Grabbing her white cardigan and book bag, she actually made it out the door this week.
She likely still looked demure compared to other women, but it was the best she could do. When she entered, he wasn’t yet there, and her heart that had been pounding since stepping from her car slowed marginally. It did not return to normal as she sat and waited for him to arrive. She took her normal seat and tried desperately to remain calm. She crossed her legs and then uncrossed and then eventually she crossed them again. She opened her book, and then she closed it, and then she fidgeted, and then she fidgeted some more. When the door finally opened and he walked in, she held her breath. He ignored her as he walked to the desk and sat, but his jaw was tight and set, and he looked unhappy.
As a pretty young freshman approached and tried to flirt with him, he answered her questions politely and then sent her on her way with little more than a curt nod, but he still failed to look at Ember. As he stood to lecture, he glanced out at the class and still managed to avoid her completely, and as her anger built and her hurt burned through her wounded heart, she found her voice again—the voice she’d stifled thanks to her puppy-dog, love-drunk, pathetic nervousness.
As he spoke, Ember raised her hand, and she questioned. In fact, she questioned every last detail of Colonial American history, and as he patiently answered every last question that she spoke, his gaze moved from her quickly, desperate to escape it would seem. Amazing how he could go from so intently watching and studying Ember in one moment to avoiding her as much as possible in the next. He looked miserable, and she felt miserable. She was angry, and more than that, she was hurt, and she wanted him to see it.
When he gave the class a fifteen-minute break, he still refused to look at Ember or acknowledge her in any way. She expected anger and irritation after she’d incessantly put him through her own personal brand of the Spanish Inquisition, but she got nothing in return for it. When Josh approached and sat next to her, she smiled as kindly as she could muster in her current state of misery, and when he again asked her out, complimenting how she looked, her heart lurched at the sound of his unwanted proposal, but then she saw his eyes on hers once again. Not Josh’s—his were a given. It was Truman who watched her now, and for the first time all night, he studied her without being forced to.
“Sure, Josh. That sounds nice. Dinner and a movie… Why not.” Why not? Because she didn’t want to! But she said the words anyway as Truman continued to focus on her, and as Josh stood to return to his seat, Truman’s eyes followed him, seething with what could only be hatred. His jaw was clenching and releasing over and over and over again, and as she studied him, his nostrils flared, and he returned his eyes to her. She’d gotten to him, and she was enjoying this little victory for her heart’s sake. As he continued to glare, she gave him one last dose of his own medicine. She winked at him once and then looked away, refusing to look at him again.