Of Literature & Kisses (Forbidden Romance)

Chapter 36 - Graduation

In a million years I would never have thought that I would be that man, enraptured and awed by a single female that was wrapped in delicate strings of forbidden gold so pure I was afraid to ruin. Since the age of twelve I had been reading and analyzing Shakespeare until my eyes were sore from staring at old, coffee-dripped pages I had borrowed countless times from the same library. I would criticize and idolize his characters, from Romeo to Macbeth to Iago. Juliet, Desdemona, and Ophelia. And here I was, a man no better than Romeo, and with less control than Othello. 

I craved her, a fruit so forbidden but so tantalizingly in reach. Celia Cedric. My own personal Juliet. 

I had been waiting for tomorrow since that very first month. But who was I kidding? I had been waiting from the very first week. She would officially be a high school graduate, no longer my student, in less than twenty-four hours. 

I took a drink from a glass of scotch, which I had been nursing for the past fifteen minutes with a view of the Boston skyline just within reach. It was two in the morning now, but I couldn't bring myself to stop thinking and get some rest. I was too tormented. She had been here, just a few short weeks ago I had held her right here, looked at the same harbor and seen the same stars. God, her mouth had been so delicate, her slim and gracefully curved figure a midnight dream in my hands. I had never wanted anything so badly in my entire life, and bless her, neither had she. 

I had been so close to snapping, to losing any ounce of the tightly held control I had left. That entire night had been purgatory, the perfect form of punishment for my sins as I imagined her, dressed in plum, stealing the hearts of poor young men with those steel gray eyes and beckoning, perfect lips. But after purgatory had come heaven, when she came here unannounced and just about ripped my heart out of my chest with a single look. Again and again. 

It wasn't just her looks. But her mind, her ways, her person. 

I shouldn't feel so culpable, I told myself, to have fallen in love with someone five years younger than me, who bore the grace and poise of a woman far beyond her time... And yet here I was, asking for forgiveness to whatever force was out there in the sky.

"Tomorrow", I murmured. Tossing back what was left in the glass. 

***

Today. The very last moments of high school would be born and gone and today. I was very nearly ready to leave the house with my brothers, but I went to a dresser drawer and retrieved a red velvet box. Inside it were the jewelry my mother had worn and left for me, a few treasured pieces that had adorned her graceful neck on the best of occasions. She had made every occasion wonderful, just so she could wear her jewels. 

My hands knew where they were going, and I picked out a silver necklace with a single sparkling sapphire and clasped it safely around my neck. I took the matching earrings and donned them, and a tiny silver bracelet. It matched the simple blue lace dress I wore, which gave the gray of my eyes a sort of shine. I laughed a little when I slipped on my glasses, because no matter what jewelry I wore I was still who I was; a nerdy valedictorian with a slight anxiety problem that presented itself whenever public speaking was involved. No amount of chamomile, and I had been drinking the thing since I had woken, would take the nerves away. I was quite certain nothing would. 

In fact, the speech I had to make as valedictorian wasn't the only reason for my anxiety. It seemed I had been thinking about today for weeks now, wondering if the misty cover of perfection that had enveloped me since the winter would soon evaporate. Would I lose my appeal for him, when the four walls of our classroom were gone and in the place of books and coffee stood the reality of... well, me?

I knew how I felt about him. For me, there was nothing but Jamie. 

It would do nothing in my favor to dwell on what I had no control over, or no foresight. I would have as much of him as I could for as long as that cover of perfection remained.