Consequences of Flirting (Teacher x Student)

Chapter 18 - Keep It

"That's the beauty of a secret,
You know you're supposed to keep it"

- Strange Love
Halsey

"Are you sure you don't want tea or anything?" Irene asked carefully, "You've got to be freezing."

I shrugged, finding it was the only thing my body was capable of in that moment. The action managed to knock the blanket off of my bare shoulders, falling onto her dampening bedsheets - water droplets falling from my still soaked hair like ink, staining her pristine white cover grey, as if my very existence ruined anything I touched.

Irene picked the lost fabric up and wrapped it tighter around my frame, and I let her, as though if she pulled tight enough, the warmth would suffocate me and everything would just disappear.

"You can say it, you know," Irene took a seat beside me as I continued to shiver; the blanket didn't warm my bones, leaving my insides cold and brittle. Everything ached under her watchful eyes and she scanned me, likely for any sign of physical injury. I traced a water droplet from my hair down along my thigh.

She picked at her nails, "Say what?"

"I told you so."

Irene didn't reply for a moment.

"I didn't know, Jim."

We fell into a heavy silence, heavier than that in the car to her house. She'd found me in the local park, hidden beneath a leafless tree, with knees pulled tightly to my heaving chest, bare skin only just covered by his coat. I wasn't sure how long I'd been there, whether they were tears on my face or raindrops, but the cold had manifested itself in my brain, and, even for a moment, the pain ceased, and I found myself forgetting why I was there in the first place.

She'd found me there, already sniffling, already half asleep, already half dead, embracing the chill like an old friend.

And she'd picked me up, and taken me home with her, and thrown my clothes onto a radiator. She treated me like we were friends, and perhaps, for some time, I could convince myself that we still were.

At some point, I suppose, I told her why and yet now, I couldn't seem to remember myself.

God, I needed to lie down.

"No one could have predicted this, Jim; he manipulated you-"

"Can we just... not talk about this," I snapped, immediately regretting the harsh infliction of the words, but Irene's 'magic of friendship' speech was pounding my skull as if each vowel was aiming to inflict a migraine, "not now."

She frowned through her layers of lipstick, with perfect eyebrows furrowing angrily, "He abused his power - deliberately chose a vulnerable kid to pursue - we need to get his fucking ass behind bars, Jim!"

"We can't call the police! What the actual fuck, Irene?!" and suddenly I was on the opposite side of the room, whisper-shouting as though someone would overhear, and very, very adamant that getting Irene involved was a terrible idea in the first place, "I can handle this myself!"

"No, you clearly can't; that's why you're here."

"Fuck you."

"Jim-"

My skin was no longer cold, scorching my veins with an anger I didn't know I possessed, "I don't need your help!"

She sighed, small and feeble, as though giving in, yet her eyes betrayed the notion.

"Fine."

Without another word, Irene stood and left. Instinctively, I curled in on myself; the empty air was tight against my sunken frame, adding pressure to the headache like a fan to a flame. I was alone, again.