Matches | √

Chapter Seventeen

burst | to be so full as almost to break open

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3/13/17

"YOU AVOIDED ME all weekend," I hear Asher's deep rumbling echo from behind me. My whole body pauses at the sound of his rough voice. His voice hits me in ways that still confuse me. He never affected me before and now it's like he owns pieces of me I didn't even know existed. Ignites parts of me that I didn't know could feel this way.

I continue to stuff a few folders and my textbook into my backpack before turning to face the dark eyes I've refused to let myself get lost in the last few days.

"I did," I easily agree holding my head high as I hoist the strap of my backpack onto my right shoulder. I went as far as to lock my bedroom window so when he tried to climb in after his date with my best friend he couldn't. He couldn't slide into bed next to me and whisper lies in my ears. Lies that I'm beginning to desperately want to become the truth.

My eyes squeeze shut as I take a deep breath. I can still hear the knocks on the window. The way he called out my name as quietly as possible in the dark midnight air, urging me to let him in. But I pushed it all away, pushed him away and stuffed headphones into my ears. I turned the volume up as loud as it would go and blocked him out. Because I have to stop this, I have to end whatever we are.

"Why?" Asher asks a bit harshly. His words force my eyes to flash open and focus on him. He's mad I realize in one look at his clenched jaw, narrowed eyes, and balled fists. Mad I ignored him. Mad I pushed him away. Mad I'm not letting him into my heart so easily anymore. Mad I'm not being the fun, new, shiny toy he can play with whenever he chooses.

"Because this is over," I say with a shrug as if it's that simple. But my heart, oh how my heart beats with angry protests. My heart doesn't want me to stop. My heart wants me to continue to fall for a man who isn't good for me. My heart wants to burn for him until it becomes the ash that feeds his very soul. Because my heart wants to give him a chance to change, to become the person I need.

But my head knows the truth, and she's fighting back.

"Why?" he pushes whilst taking a step away from the front door of the classroom.

"I'm not doing this," I tell him as I begin to walk towards the other door across the classroom and away from Asher. Away from his heat that I know once it's near I'll drown in. I need to keep this resolve. I need to stay away from him. I need to think of my best friend and of my future. And my future doesn't involve Asher Lawton.

"Like hell Maeleigh," he growls his loud footsteps resonating from behind me. "You're not walking away," he says and before I know it my backpack is torn from my body and chucked aside and I'm being dragged towards the small storage room in the classroom. A small crowded space, dark, and lined with shelves filled with supplies and old textbooks.

His fingers burn into my skin as he pulls me along with him. His strength scares and turns me on at the same time and in some twisted way I want more of this. Of his fingers bruising the pale skin of my forearm and his nails pricking my soft skin. I want his anger, because I'm angry. I'm pissed that I want him. I'm pissed that I can't have him. And most of all I'm pissed that I'm letting myself fall for someone who's only going to hurt me.

He won't, my heart whispers.

He will, my brain protests.

The door slams shut behind us as the overhead lights flicker on. The motion of the door activates them. School is over, but that doesn't mean we won't be caught. The thought excites a dark side of me that only awakens when Asher is near me. A side that has grown to like the rough edge he gives my once mundane life.