He'll have to break all the rules to keep her, but first she has to break just one and let him in...
It's taken four years, but Anna Fray has finally put the past behind her. Mostly. She fills her days working in a bar and her nights watching bad ro...
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I took a breath and exhaled slowly. I tried to ignore the way my body shook. The last time I'd said these words, I was sixteen years old, sitting at the large round kitchen table in my childhood home. My parents had sat opposite, and the distance between us had felt unsurmountable.
"He was my biology teacher. Mr R... Mr Rettie..." My breath flew out of me, like his name was a noxious gas I had to expel.
Call him by his fucking name instead of hiding behind some nickname.
"Christopher Rettie."
My diligent and dutiful biology teacher. He used to walk through the common room in his crisp white shirt, tight black trousers, and day-old stubble. He was a god to every girl in there.
Me and my—is friends the right word?—'friends' used to call him Willoughby, like that guy from Sense and Sensibility. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. With thick wavy hair and brown brooding, seductive eyes.
"When I was fourteen, he put me in detention, and he..." I steeled myself as the memory stepped forth from the darkness. I slipped my hands from Atticus', picking at my fingernails. "Let's just say he had a thing for short skirts and knee-high socks."
I ground my teeth as I felt my heart hammer in my chest. I could remember it like it was yesterday. The way my blood had rushed when he told me how special I was. How he said he wanted me so badly he could hardly make it through a lesson without thinking about kissing me. As a teen so heavily devoted to rom-coms and epic love stories, it was like fantasy had been brought to life. Regardless of how twisted it really was.
Within moments of starting detention, I was under his desk unzipping those tight trousers. My innocent mind being led blindly by his coaxing words.
Olivia had been right: good girls fall the hardest. I was, back then, and I did. It wasn't just that he'd showered me with compliments and attention, it was that he made me think he saw the girl I wanted to be. The fun, bubbly, beautiful creature that walked into a room and was noticed for more than her grades and academic accolades. After what had felt like a lifetime of being loved for my achievements, and the bright future I could have, I'd fallen hard for the idea that I could be loved for nothing more than being 'me'.
"For two years I thought he loved me. It took two years for me to realise he didn't. Not even close."
Each week my skirts got shorter, and the number of detentions rose. It was months of screwing around before anyone found out. I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person, my supposed best friend of the time. She betrayed that trust the second she thought she could barter my secret for a boost in social status. My 'friends' soon turned on me. It wasn't long after that when the rumours seeped beyond the school. They crept like ivy over stone, crumbling the foundations of the life I'd known.
I could have stopped it all. I could have said no to Teacher, but he was so persuasive, so nice.
As nice as he was at times, there were times when he wasn't so nice. Times when I would want a little more than he was willing to give. Or he took more than I was willing to part with. Foolishly, I didn't realise it was only sex to him. Like all young girls I thought he actually liked me because he liked my kisses and gave me touches. Even when he called me a dumb bitch and shoved me away, I thought it was my fault, that somehow, I'd angered him. It only got worse when everything was revealed when I was sixteen. I was imagining freedom, a new life with him. Instead, I got bruises and scars I thought would never heal.
