Forbidden (BoyxBoy)

Chapter V: Wuthering Heights

Alaric.

"Now, enough small talk. I assigned that you read Wuthering Heights over the summer, and I expect that you have. So, everyone open up to page 57." The english teacher ordered, her pretty face as cold as ice. The minute I'd seen her she'd reminded me of Marie Antoinette: she had the same tall, upright posture and elusive gaze. 

I hadn't liked Marie Antoinette very much, but Kathleen had adored her. The traits I saw as fickle and excessive, she had seen as spontaneous and fun-loving. 

I did as Miss Piston asked, turning the worn pages of my copy of the novel. To my right, Jason puttered through his things, pulling out a notebook and a pen. I noticed the way he tightly clutched his pen, and bit the inside of his lip mindlessly. 

Just by looking at him, the way he had strided up to me with casual confidence in his voice but glistening anxiety behind his eyes, I was immediately curious. He had the kind of face that was handsome enough to be memorable, but unique enough to be ordinary, with a razor sharp jawline and high, fine cheekbones. His hazel eyes flicked from his notebook to his pen and back. He didn't pull out a copy of the novel.

"Here, you can share with me." I offered, sliding my copy between us. Jason looked at me with wide, surprised eyes. Looking at them now, I could see that their irises were a mosaic of green and gold and brown.

"Thanks," He mumbled, his cheeks pink. I shrugged in reply, offering him a comforting smile. 

"Uh, you wouldn't happen to know what this book is about, would you?" He asked me beneath his breath. I couldn't help but smile. 

"It's kind of hard to explain... It's kind of unique because the characters are constantly looking back on the events of their pasts, namely at the love story of Heathcliff, the gruff old man living in the moors, and Catherine, his first love that now haunts the house of the narrator." I did my best to explain it without giving too much away or getting to caught up in the miniscule details that I loved so much. Talking about it to Jason reminded me of an evening I'd spent in Yorkshire in September 1845 sitting by a fire, my dear friend Emily's face glowing in the orange light as she told me about a story she had stuck in her head. 

"Sounds complicated." Jason replied, looking at me with warm eyes. 

"The best love stories are." I responded simply. I would know, I thought to myself, I've seen them unfold before my eyes many a time.  

Miss Piston had written a quote from the book on the board in white, and underneath it in big red letters: Why is Heathcliff considered an outsider?

The section she had chosen was one of my personal favourites, where Heathcliff weighs himself against his opponent, Linton, in his quest for love with Catherine: "But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him less handsome, or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!"

There was something about the way Jason's eyes lingered on the words that made it seem like he was really absorbing what was written there. I watched him shuffle in his seat as though unsettled, but his eyes remained fully attentive. He looked at everything so intently that it was hard to believe that he was thinking about anything else but what or whom he was looking at.

The teacher was talking now, about the suggestion that Heathcliff, although not explicitly described in the novel, is alluded to as possibly non-caucasian, and of a lower class than the other characters in the novel. When she asked students questions, most of them turned bright red before fumbling through generic answers, clearly having not read the novel. Miss Piston was undeterred, pressing them with in-depth questions that no doubt had everyone planning to plough through the book before the next class. Then, she turned her feline eyes to Jason.