The Teacher(47)

Then she

Young and alive

With smooth hands

And pink cheeks

Showed me myself

Took away my breath

With cherry-red lips

Gave me life once again

When he finishes the last line, I can barely breathe myself. It’s such a beautiful poem. Nobody has ever written anything like that for me before. Hudson was my friend, but he was no poet. Even if something had happened between the two of us, he never would have written anything like that for me.

“I love it,” I whisper. “So much.”

“I mean it,” he says softly. “You gave me my life back. You have no idea how dreary my world was before you came along.”

He laces his fingers into mine, and we just stand like that for a moment, staring at each other. I can’t even bear to show him what I wrote for him after hearing his beautiful verses. It seems so stupid and immature by comparison. I’ll have to keep working on it. Until I write something worthy of him.

“I think about you all the time.” He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Do you think about me?”

“Every moment of the day,” I answer truthfully.

He kisses me again, and he starts tugging my shirt off. He did this last time, so I expected it. But what I don’t expect is the way he attempts to unbutton my jeans. I take a step back and smile apologetically, but he doesn’t catch my eye—he is wholly focused on getting my jeans open. I take another step back, this time bumping into the table behind me, and now there’s nowhere to go. Nathaniel successfully gets the button open and then lowers the zipper as I suck in a breath.

He raises his eyes to look up at me. “You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, Addie.”

I hold in that breath as he tugs down my jeans and then my panties. But I don’t tell him not to do it, because…well, how can I? Yes, he told me he didn’t care about sex, but I knew on some level it couldn’t be true. I’m not totally stupid.

I lose my virginity to Nathaniel in the darkroom that afternoon, and the whole time, I recite his poem in my head, written just for me.

Life nearly passed me by

Then she

Young and alive

With smooth hands

And pink cheeks

Showed me myself

Took away my breath

With cherry-red lips

Gave me life once again



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Chapter Forty-One

ADDIE

EVEN THOUGH ENGLISH is my favorite class, it’s gotten harder and harder to pay attention.

When I look at Nathaniel—who I have to call Mr. Bennett when we are in class together—all I can think about is how it feels when he touches me. I am counting down the seconds until we can be together in the darkroom.

It used to be that when we were in class together, Nathaniel would smile or wink at me. It made me feel like he thought I was special. He’s careful not to do that anymore, and even though I understand why, it still drives me wild when he winks or smiles at other girls. We don’t communicate at all during school hours anymore, except in the most professional way. If there’s something he wants to tell me, he sends me a message through a Snapflash, which vanishes after sixty seconds.

I can’t wait until we’re alone. It’s been over three weeks since we began sneaking off together to the darkroom—nearly every day. On the days he works at the school newspaper, I go to the library and do my homework while I wait for him to be done. I suggested joining the paper myself, but Nathaniel said it was a bad idea. He said the more time we spend together in front of other people, the more likely it is that they will catch on.

Ever since that first time we made love in the darkroom, we have done it every single time. Pretty much the first thing he does when we get inside the room is start kissing me and pull down my pants, sometimes before we’ve even said two words to each other. It was stupid to think all we would do is kiss. It makes him so happy. I enjoy it too, but it thrills me most how much he likes it. He says that he and Mrs. Bennett don’t have sex anymore. That they haven’t in a long time.

While I sit in English class, struggling to focus on the lesson, an announcement blasts over the loudspeaker. I recognize Principal Higgins’s voice.

“Attention!” she calls out. “I want to offer a big congratulations to the winner of the Massachusetts poetry award, from our very own Caseham High…”

I sit up straight, my heart pounding. That is the poetry contest that Nathaniel entered me in. The one where he chose my poem out of all the others to feature. He was only allowed to choose one, so if the winner is from our school, that means that I won. I actually won a prestigious statewide poetry contest!

The principal continues, “We would like to congratulate Mary Pickering!”

What?

Mary Pickering? That’s Lotus. But he didn’t enter Lotus in the competition—that’s why she was so upset. So I don’t understand. How could she have won if he didn’t even enter her?

I look over at Nathaniel, but he is looking away. It’s like he’s refusing to catch my gaze.

If I couldn’t concentrate before, it’s about a thousand times worse now. I don’t understand what happened. He told me he entered me in that contest. Was he lying?

No, Nathaniel would never lie to me. We know each other too well for that. Except I can’t come up with another explanation.