Unexpected Rendezvous

Chapter 11

Leigh-Anne's POV

I don't know why I grabbed his hands, under the circumstances. A combination of habit probably, even though it's only been a few weeks since we started meeting up outside of class, and the desperate need for some kind of comfort.

I can tell I've annoyed him though, so now I feel even worse. "Sorry," I say, leaning back and fiddling with his discarded straw wrapper. He's drinking something dark and iced, and gives me a small smile as he takes a sip.

"It's all right. Just a very public spot, you know?"

I know. And I know how this looks, all of it.

I never thought I'd be involved with an older man, or an almost married man, or a teacher. It's not like it was planned. I've had a crush on Andre ever since I first took one of his classes last year, but I never imagined anything would come of it. Especially once he got engaged. But when this final year began, I asked his advice about university art programs, and we started talking a lot more. Then he gave me his number, incase I had any questions outside of class. I sat in my room for three hours that night, composing messages until I finally worked up the nerve to send one.

We ended up texting for almost two hours, and every day after that. It went from being all about uni applications, to art in general, to pop culture, and then about hopes and dreams and plans for the future. I got kind of obsessed with him, I guess. I thought about him nonstop, even when I was with Jordan, and I filled my phone with songs about unrequited love. Earlier this month, I was listening to one of them when he called me for the first time.

"Hello," I croaked, my heart in my throat. 

"Hi, Leigh. I was just thinking about your face.'

"Excuse me?" I was positive I'd heard him wrong. 

"It's so interesting," he said. "Such wonderful angles. I'd love to draw you sometime."

That's how I ended up in his studio for the first time. He uses it on occasional weeknights too, so I told my parents I had a study group at the library and took off for London. I don't think I've ever felt so alive as I did that night, every nerve humming while I sat beside him on a wooden bench as he sketched. He kept putting down his pad and pencil so he could touch my cheek or my chin, making slight adjustments to my pose. Nothing else happened then, or since, but it feels like it's only a matter of time. 

I'm not clueless. I know he's engaged, and my teacher, and older. Only by seven years though. My aunt and uncle have a ten year age gap, and nobody cares. I mean, yeah, they met when my uncle was 35 and my aunt was 45, and they didn't work together or anything like that, so I get that it's different. But are people supposed to abandon potential soulmates just because of a few socially constructed complications?

Not that my parents would ever see it that way. Like I said, I tell my Mum an abnormal amount of stuff, but not this. Even if I'd been tempted, I'd have known better after Charlton uni fired that professor for sleeping with his student.

"They're both adults though," I'd said, thinking about Andre, and my own 18th birthday coming up in a few weeks.

"There's a power differential between teachers and students," Mum pointed out. "It's why we have a policy in place." Then her lips thinned. "Even if we didn't, I will always question the judgement and motives of an adult who gets involved with a teenager. Wrong is wrong."

I know that's what everyone would say. And it's how I feel when I pass Coach Purcell in the hall, and she gives me a cheery greeting even though I don't play and sports and she barely knows me. Wrong is wrong, I think. But then I get a text from Andre that makes my entire body flood with warmth and happiness, and I wonder, Is life really that black and white?