Shame (Ruin #3) (18 page)

“Fine,” I relented, sending a sideways glance at Jack. “But I want to be early to class.”

“Ah, so that’s how it is.” He nodded knowingly.

“What?”

“You and the professor. Keep getting in trouble, and he’s going to keep making house calls. Smart.”

“I’m not—” I shook my head. “Whatever. Let’s just talk about the project.”

“Sure.” He grinned and held the umbrella higher over me. I ducked farther under it and collided with his left hand; the umbrella teetered a bit, so I steadied it with my right, gripping his hand in the process. I felt cloth and grimaced.

A large bandage was covering his entire hand and knuckles; it was an ace bandage, and I hadn’t noticed it before.

“What happened?”

“Pizza ovens.” He shook his head then winked. “Don’t try to fight them. They fight dirty, and apparently I lost.”

I scrunched up my nose. “Sorry. Burns suck.”

“Pain sucks.” He shrugged. “But sometimes it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Except for this time,” I corrected.

He swallowed convulsively, his eyes darting back and forth before he offered a kind smile. “Except this time.”

The rest of our walk was easy. He talked about himself, and I listened while I tried desperately not to think about Tristan. I think I did a good job nodding my head and smiling. But my thoughts were consumed with the previous night, with what he’d said, how close it had hit home. How had he seen what Gabe even had trouble seeing? That just breathing in and out was hard for me, that I tried so hard to compartmentalize the person who I was, with the person I am. It was exhausting, not to mention stressful, since my past seemed to keep haunting me at every turn. I still had that stupid website to worry about. I just hoped people wouldn’t recognize me in it, though I didn’t think they would. I mean, who would imagine a normal girl like me starring in my own sex tape? Then again, you can’t really be starring in something if you aren’t aware it’s happening.

He’d ruined sex for me.

He’d made it painful.

He’d made me want to vomit every time he touched me, but the guilt had been worse than the sex, the guilt that I’d been a horrible person to him, the guilt that he would take more pills if I didn’t do what he wanted.

Tristan might be right about me trying to fight who I was, but if he truly knew how horrible I’d been, he wouldn’t be encouraging me to try to discover my true self. No, he’d be helping me bury that demon or, as he’d said last night, kill off that personality for good.

“So, anger…” Jack sat opposite me in the booth and shook the rain from his jacket. “Why don’t you write out different facial expressions while I go grab us some coffee and food?”

“Okay.” I pulled out my notebook and went to work cataloguing things I’d learned in class, like tight lips, narrowed eyes, clenched jaw — things that usually revealed a type of anger or repression. Funny, I had those memorized because Taylor was rarely happy. Anger was his companion. Then again, most of the time he was so numb I wondered if he ever truly felt anything; I wondered if he ever wanted to.

“No,” Jack said after reading my list. “Some of these are wrong.”

“Well, according to the Internet and our textbook, they’re all right.”

“Wrong.” He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Anger can be a smirk, sure… but I think the most intense anger is the type of anger that people rarely see on the surface. It boils beneath, getting hotter and hotter until finally one day—”

He slammed his hand against the table. I almost spilled my hot coffee.

“—they just explode.”

“So…” I swallowed and suddenly felt very uncomfortable that we were some of the only people in the coffee shop. “How would you describe that, then? In a nonverbal cue?”

“You can’t.” He leaned forward. “Because anger has too many faces, too many masks. This type of anger is the kind you don’t recognize until it’s too late.” His nostrils flared as he brushed hair away from his face.

The movement was familiar, oddly so. I narrowed my eyes, truly looking at him, examining Jack, because something about him didn’t make me feel safe; it made me feel… wary, afraid.

“What?” He smiled, his big toothy grin making me feel a bit better. “You think I’m speaking from experience?”

“Are you?” My throat went dry at the question.

“Maybe.” He nodded slowly. “Then again, how would you know?”

I reached into my satchel and gripped my mace tightly with one hand.

“And that…” he chuckled and took a sip of coffee. “…is my point. Geez, stop looking so serious. I just want an A, okay? And if lover boy wants us to dig, then we should dig, cool?”

I released the Mace, feeling a bit stupid. My spider senses had always been off when it came to people. I mean Taylor had been Exhibit A, so I really shouldn’t suspect a guy like Jack was anything but nice and studious.

“Right.” I took another sip of coffee, feeling better. “Let’s do it your way.”

His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

We worked for the rest of the hour, and then I made an excuse about needing to stop at the mail room before class.

I still had an hour, but I wanted to check and see if I had any more threats. My hands were shaking by the time I turned my key and unlocked the little box.

Nothing but spam.

I released a tense breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and quickly shut my box.

“Boo!” Someone gripped my shoulders.

I screamed and reached for my Mace again.

“Whoa!” Jack reared back. “Was totally not planning on you getting ready to karate my ass!” Laughing, he shook his head. “I think my stories about pizza wars and coworkers getting beat up are going to give you nightmares. You just forgot your notebook, that’s all.” He held it out.

“You could have given it to me in class.” My heart was still hammering against my chest when I took the notebook from him and shoved it into my bag.

“Right.” He winked. “Maybe I just wanted to see you again.”

I gave him an annoyed look.

“Or maybe I want to get impaled by one of your sharp nails.” He grimaced. “Alright, see ya later!”

He ran off.

And I was tempted to slump against the wall. He was right. I was being ridiculous and jumpy, and it wasn’t his fault I’d left my notebook.

With a huff I vowed to go decaf for the rest of the week and slowly made my way toward the social sciences building.

I made it to class with twenty minutes to spare. When I walked into the room, Tristan was already sitting at the desk reading some brown book. He still hadn’t looked up, so I slowly made my way toward him.

The book appeared to be a journal. It had angry red writing on the pages and a few things crossed out. There were pictures, but I wasn’t close enough to see what they were of.

“Didn’t take you for the type to read your own diary,” I joked.

Tristan swore, dropping the journal to the floor, then bent and picked it up and shoved it into his desk. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“I would apologize, but I kind of like the fact that I caught you unaware and out of control.”

His sexy grin had me wanting to both retreat and maul him.

“Lisa, if you want to see me out of control, all you really need to do is crook your little finger. I’ll be at your mercy in seconds.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Hell yes, it is.”

“I never back down from challenges.”

“I hoped you’d say that.”

“I could lock the door.”

“I’d really appreciate the door being locked.”

I grinned as he took a step toward me. The room was thick with tension. He held out his hand. I took it.

“Then again, if we leave the door open, there’s always that rush you get when you think about getting caught.”

“You want me to get fired over you?”

“Like they’d fire you.” My smile was so wide it hurt. “My guess is your company donates just as much money as Wes’s does.”

“Ah, and she puts puzzles together well. Damn. I love that smart mouth of yours. The mind’s not so bad either.” He tilted my chin toward him. “But, sadly… now we only have fifteen minutes.” He released me from his hold and stepped back. “And I would really hate to rush anything that has to do with my mouth on your body.”

I gasped.

“You’re not shocked.” His eyes narrowed. “But I can damn-well tell you’re a bit excited, which, in turn, gets me way too excited if I’m supposed to be talking about sociopaths today.”

I giggled.

He reached into his desk and pulled out an envelope. “Open it after class when you’re by yourself.”

“What’s this?” The envelope wasn’t really heavy, but there was something rattling around in it.

“Guess you’ll find out after class.” He nodded. “Now go find your seat. It seems today you’re so early you can get a head start on pulling out your notebook. I imagine it’s the first time you’ve had that exciting feeling.”

“I’m seriously shaking with nerves at the thought,” I said dryly.

“Me too…” He winked. “But it was a different thought.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I had a month before she left. A month to damage her life, a month to plan. Then again, I’d been planning for a while. So really, all I had was a month to enjoy her before things went black. It honestly pissed me off — you have no idea how much it pissed me off, that tiny sliver of a feeling that tried to push through the darkness. I think it was guilt? Or maybe just a bad case of indigestion. I ignored it and pressed on. Funny, because if it was guilt it, just made me that much more determined to ruin her, to ruin a life that had such a bright future, whereas mine had been damned the very second I was born to the wrong family. Dad had called that day, asking about which pills I was taking. Honestly, they all ran together I wrote down any physical symptoms, like getting a rash on my ass, as well as if they made me feel suicidal. Actually, every pill I was prescribed made me feel suicidal, but that feeling was always paired with what I’d like to call a god-complex. Yeah, I may want to die, but, man, in my death I’d still be a god. I was untouchable. Totally untouchable. —
The Journal of Taylor B.

Tristan

I
DIDN’T REALIZE
how hard teaching a class would be with Lisa being that attentive. She’d dropped her pen twice, and stuck it in her mouth at least a dozen times. Her tongue had popped out, touching the tip and my entire body tightened at the sight. I literally had to teach from behind the desk because I was afraid that the students would think talking about mass murders and sociopaths was a turn on for me, when, in fact, it was the exact opposite.

This was the lesson I hated.

Because it was too close to home.

I knew more than I’d like to know about the topic.

“Sociopaths,” I said in closing, “are usually well-liked, good-looking people. They’re people you trust, people that seem like Good Samaritans. Take, for example, Ted Bundy. I think the misconception, especially with TV these days, is that if someone looks harmful, they are harmful. What about a stranger, someone you see on the street? Their hair is messy, they’re talking to themselves, and they’re waving their hands all over the place. They wave a gun in the air, and you immediately think they’re going to start shooting.”

I shrugged and glanced around the room, making eye contact with a few of the students without really seeing them. “Take a similar situation: a nice-looking doctor pulls out a gun and smiles. Are you going to immediately duck? Or will you think,
wow, is he protecting me from something?
Science has proven you’re more trusting of those who appear to be trustworthy, which means those intelligent, attractive people, who are, most likely, well-spoken. It’s why you can’t ever base your judgment on someone solely on his looks or what you perceive her intellect to be. You don’t know their stories, and, for some of these cases you’ll be reading about, the victims didn’t know until it was too late. I’m not saying this to freak out the entire sophomore class.”

Chuckles followed.

Good, I was still reaching them. “But I think it should be fair warning to look beyond the masks and into the person’s soul. Study the nonverbal cue charts, and let that be what you put your trust in. Subconscious movements don’t lie.”

I checked my watch. “Alright, looks like we’re out of time. Be sure to look over the human emotion study sheets. We’ll be having a quiz tomorrow.”

The sound of scraping chairs and talking filled the room. Lisa was rooted to her seat, her eyes glazed over like she was in another time, another place.

Jack waved in front of her face, then shrugged and walked off.

Students piled out of the room.

And finally it was just me and her.

When she didn’t move, I got nervous, so I shut the door to the classroom and slowly made my way to her desk.

Her eyes were wide, her mouth tight, jaw clenched.

“Lisa?” I whispered. “Is everything alright?”

“No,” she said quickly. “But it will be.”

In an instant she was out of her seat and in my arms, her mouth pressed hotly against mine. I wasn’t ready for her attack, so I almost fell backward. Gripping her shoulders, I tried to brace myself, but she held on to me for dear life.

She kissed me hard.

But not with passion.

No. Her kiss tasted like fear.

So, I kissed her back hard enough to gain the upper hand then slowly retreated my mouth so that I could nibble on her lower lip. When she let out a whimper, I rained soft kisses on her cheeks and finally her forehead then pulled her in against my chest. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“No.” She shivered. “I can’t. It’s just… maybe one day, but that day isn’t today. One day I’ll be brave enough to throw all those masks at your feet. I just don’t think I’m ready yet.”

“Kissing me won’t make it go away.” I sighed. “Not that I’m complaining at all about your methods.”

She sighed, her hands wrapped tightly around my waist. “I’m sorry. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”