I have spent most of the past two hours being furious at Nathaniel, but now I realize that was misguided. Lotus was the one who went to the principal to complain. That is so low, especially considering her recent attempts at friendship.
“I’m so sorry.” He places his hands on my cheeks, drawing my face to his. “I should have fought for you. I was just scared that the second I said your name to the principal, she would see through me and know how deeply I cared for you.”
Despite everything, his words warm my heart. He cares for me—deeply.
“It’s okay,” I finally say. “It’s not your fault. I understand the position you were in.”
“Oh, thank God.” His shoulders sag. “I thought you were angry at me and would never forgive me. I was going out of my mind, thinking that when I got here, you might not be here.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
He presses his lips against mine, and it makes every part of me spark with electricity. I never knew that kissing another person could be like this. I bet Nathaniel never knew it either. He talks a lot about how hard it is being married to somebody who he never felt any connection to and how being with me is like something he has never experienced before.
“You have become so important to me, Addie,” he breathes when his lips separate from mine. “We love with a love that is more than love. With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted.”
“Annabel Lee” has been my favorite poem for many years, but I’ve never felt the words so deeply. After all, I have no other thought than to love and be loved by him. It almost frightens me how head over heels I am for Nathaniel. He’s already my first thought when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about as I’m falling asleep. When I write poetry these days, it is always about him. I am so in love with this man.
“I only wish I could’ve met you back when I was sixteen,” he murmurs. “How unfair is the universe? I finally meet my other half, and I am two decades older than you.”
“At least we’ve found each other now,” I point out. “That’s more than a lot of people get.”
“Very true.”
We don’t have a lot of time before both of us have to get home, and there’s always the fear of being discovered, so usually we get right to it. It doesn’t last long, and Nathaniel says that’s normal when you like somebody as much as he likes me. I think of how happy I’ve been making him and the fact that he is so miserable at home, with his wife. She can’t make him happy the way I do. And she’s always nagging him to get home, so we can’t stick around and talk like we want to.
Not that things would be super easy even if he weren’t married. My mother would still get suspicious if I got home too late, and nobody at school could find out, of course. But if he weren’t married to Mrs. Bennett, I could go to his house and we could have sex in an actual bed instead of this uncomfortable darkroom. The idea of having sex with Nathaniel in a bed seems so exciting and grown-up.
Plus, eventually I will graduate from high school, and I will get to date whoever I want. But if Nathaniel is still with his wife, he will be trapped.
If only Mrs. Bennett weren’t around. It would be so much better.
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Chapter Forty-Two
ADDIE
WHILE I AM SITTING in the cafeteria, all alone as usual, Kenzie spills my entire lunch on the floor.
To somebody not watching carefully, it looks like an accident. She passes by my table and knocks into my tray, and it falls on the floor. But that’s not what happens. As she’s walking by, Kenzie grabs my tray, slides it out so it’s sticking off the table, then lets it drop to the floor.
And the worst part is that lunch today is chili. French fries and hot dogs would’ve been bad enough, but now there’s a big pile of ground beef and soggy beans all over the floor that I have to clean up, because absolutely nobody will help me.
“Oh my,” Kenzie says as her friends giggle. “Sorry about that! But, Addie, you really need to be a little bit more careful about putting your tray so close to the edge of the table.”
I glare at her as I jump out of my seat and snatch my tray off the floor. I have some napkins on the table, but it’s obviously not going to be enough.
As I’m crouched on the ground, Kenzie picks up the notebook I had on the table. She is reading a piece of paper on top of the notebook, and my stomach sinks. That piece of paper contains the poem that Nathaniel wrote just for me. I had a hard morning, and I knew I wasn’t going to see him later because Mrs. Bennett is making him come home early for some stupid dinner, and it makes me feel good to have a piece of him with me. So I was reading it over and over and over until my eyes felt like they were going to bleed.