These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

For a weird second I think that she’s here to see me.

But how did she even know that I was going to be here?

I know that she knows about this place, because I told her in one of our sessions that I love to go here when I want to get away from things. And Miss Halsey must be the only guidance counselor at St. Mary’s who didn’t even bat an eye at this information; she thinks self-care is as important as reformation.

Even though I can’t think of a single reason as to why she’s here, I feel like it must be something important that brought her to these cottages, to this hiding place.

I should go ask her, see if I can do something to help.

And I do take a step toward her.

But then I stop, because she’s not alone anymore. We’re not the only two people in this part of St. Mary’s. There’s someone else here.

Someone else who’s emerged halfway down the strip from between two cottages.

A man.

He’s not only emerged from out of nowhere, he’s also over taken my entire focus now. He’s hijacked my line of vision to the point where everything else disappears.

Except him.

His broad shoulders and rippling back are covered in a navy blue hoodie, his powerful legs in a pair of track pants as he strides toward her, where she stands. And when he reaches his destination, the dogwood tree, my breaths halt.

Because he turns, revealing his profile, revealing that strong line of his jaw that always stays smooth and clean-shaven somehow.

Not today though.

Today, there’s a five o’clock shadow.

A dark scruff.

Even his hair, that short cropped mass, looks ruffled. Like he’s been plowing his fingers through it.

He looks how I feel.

All ruined and agitated.

And for a second I let myself foolishly think that maybe it’s because of what happened between us. That it’s cutting him to be so cruel to me as it’s cutting me to take his cruelty. That walking around campus unaffected was just for show.

But that can’t be it.

Right?

If it was then he wouldn’t have been so mean that day.

Even so, I can’t help but wonder. I can’t help but take a step toward him like a pathetic idiot. But I stop again, because in addition to be able to see him, his profile, I’m able to see other things as well.

Things like her, my guidance counselor.

Who turns toward him and cranes her neck up. As if she’s a flower and he’s the sun. And she needs him to bloom.

Which she does – she smiles.

A small, sad sort of smile that I notice swells up her pretty cheeks.

He doesn’t though.

He doesn’t smile. Instead that sharp jaw of his tics. It throbs like my heart is throbbing.

But then it stops.

Both my heart and his ticking jaw, because she touches him.

She reaches out and takes his hand, his fist really, by his side and brings it up. Not only that, she brings it up to the point where he’s touching her, her cheek.

I watch that hand, big and strong, dusky, on her delicate, soft-looking cheek, and something painful happens in my chest. Because those fingers latch onto her cheek. They hold on, the tips of them, digging, and she goes up on her tiptoes and whispers something to him. And whatever she says makes him swallow.

Thickly. Harshly.

And then after that, after that swallow from him, she reaches up and puts her lips on him.

On his scruffy jaw, her light peck leaves a red lipstick mark, faint but unmistakable. Before throwing herself at him and hugging him.

And then it’s like a blast from the past.

From eighteen months ago.

When I saw him at the party, standing in a dark corner, looking all still and frozen.

Lifeless.

That’s what he looks like right now, and a broken laugh escapes me then. Because I’ve always wondered why.

Why did he look like that?

I even asked him that night but he never answered.

Now I know why though.

It’s because of her.

Whose red lipstick mark sits so proudly and conspicuously on his stubbled jaw. Although if it were me, I would leave my lipstick stains on his heart, on his soul. So he can never erase them.

Her.

It’s her.

And this… this is love, isn’t it?

It has to be.

Painful and intense and blazing. Stinging.

So much so that I can feel it in my own chest. I can feel it in my own body. Especially when those eyes of his somehow, Jesus Christ some way, travel across the space and land on me.

Helen Halsey.

That’s her full name. Miss Halsey’s, I mean.

Helen. Or H.

She’s the one who thinks he’s a good man and that’s why she can’t stay away from him. That’s why she wrote him that note.

Didn’t she?

The note I’ve been trying to forget but haven’t been able to.

The note that he so dearly holds on to.