Teachers Pet

78: I Will Be Okay

        Words could not describe what I was feeling right now. Probably because I wasn't feeling just one thing. I was happy and relieved. Sad and reminiscent. Angry and regretful. I think above all, I was conflicted. I'm not sure how much time has gone by, but my phone has long died. I didn't bother asking David what time it was, it didn't really matter. I didn't have somewhere to be and it's not like I had a bedtime. The only thing I wanted to do was continue to lay here in the bed of this truck with him.

       When the suns light was gone, David told me to lie down and get comfortable. I didn't argue, I did exactly as he said. The pillow beneath my head was cold, but I didn't mind. And when he laid beside me and covered me with the second blanket, I didn't mind that either. I don't think I would have minded sharing the blanket if I were being completely honest with myself. I didn't offer though because I didn't want to make him uncomfortable.

       After a little more time passed, I started to see the stars coming out. It started off as a handful, but it wasn't long before the stars became a blanket across the sky. They were more bright than I'd ever seen them. I think I even gasped when more just kept appearing. The constellations were visible, making me wish I knew more than just the big dipper and the little dipper. Occasionally David would point up to a collection of stars and say what they looked like. I kept squinting and turning my head to see what he saw. He laughed when I lied about seeing anything he pointed out.

       When he leaned closer to me so that my line of sight was lined up with where he was pointing, I stopped breathing. I stopped hearing him and just nodded. I hoped he wouldn't ask me anything and would just keep talking because I stopped listening. David smelled amazing. He was wearing the same cologne he wore to my dinner party. The familiar warm and almost sweet scent was maddening.

       I hated myself for thinking it was attractive. I didn't want to think of him as attractive. I didn't want to see him that way. David was my friend and there was a line. I crossed that line with Jake and look where that got me.

       But...

       I hated thinking that there was a but. There shouldn't be a but. I shouldn't be entertaining the idea of a but.

        But David wasn't Jake...

       I couldn't compare them. I'm not even sure anything bad would come out of me being with David the more I thought about it.

      No! Don't think about it!

       I tried to not draw attention to myself when I sucked in a deep breath. The cold air burned as it rushed to fill my lungs. David didn't notice. He just kept pointing out funny shapes in the stars. One of them apparently looked like a man with a cane. It looked like a fish with a hat on to me. The stars were enough to distract me for a minute. Only a minute. My mind wandered back to the place I tried to stay out of.

       Don't think about him that way...

       But what would happen? It's not like it was illegal or anything, right? I was going to be eighteen in five months anyway. I was going to be a legal adult. Who would say anything about an eighteen-year-old and a twenty-one-year-old? Especially when that twenty-one-year-old wasn't my teacher. My imagination was starting to get away from me. David was only four years older than me, just like Jake. But unlike Jake, David would keep his job and he wouldn't go to jail. The backlash received wouldn't be as bad. We wouldn't have to hide...

       The more I tried to not think about it, the more my mind made the idea of me and David possible. I was crossing the line with the way I was thinking about him. I turned just a fraction to see his face better. He was smiling as he spoke. He wasn't talking about the stars anymore. He was telling me a story. A memory of when he was younger. I was still having a hard time paying attention.