Tainted Love (Sweetest Taboo #2) (21 page)

“But I didn’t,” I said. “I remembered what you said to me, and I knew I had to act like I didn’t know anything about his ex-wife and the nature of our relationship. Talking to him about any of that would just make it worse.”

“That doesn’t sound so terrible,” Susie responded, leaning over to hand me my tea. “So what has you coming into the apartment in the middle of the night, sobbing like someone just put down your puppy?”

I nodded. “The problems didn’t really start until he remembered that he had a surprise for me,” I said. “He had been planning it for some time, he said, and he wanted to give it to me now, before I made any plans for Christmas break.” We had two weeks before the holiday break, and I’d been planning to go home and finally face Tom and figure out if and how our relationship would continue.

“It had never occurred to me that Marcus would want anything to do with me during the holiday break,” I continued, “especially since he had been hiding me and his relationship with me from the outside world.”

“Turns out, though, that he did,” I said simply. “He’s been planning a romantic getaway for the two of us to Paris for Christmas and New Years, you know to enjoy the culture and lights of one of the most wonderful cities in the world, as he put it.” I ended there, and looked up at Susie, wondering what she thought about what I was divulging.

She narrowed her eyes in dislike, her dark orange eyebrows furrowing in distaste. “Oh he has, has he?” she asked sharply. “After everything he’s done, and the way he’s treated you, and what we know about him, he thinks you’re just going to blow off your family and head off to Paris with him? If it were me, I’d just tell him to be more considerate and make plans with me rather than making plans for me!”

“That’s what I told him,” I agreed. “Well, in a more diplomatic way, of course. I said I hadn’t seen my family all semester, and I hadn’t really seen them much last year. I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving because I spent the long weekend with him, and I couldn’t justify not going home for Christmas. It’s such an important holiday to my family, and I just want to spend that time with them.”

“Exactly,” Susie snapped. “And he should respect that!”

“Except, he didn’t. He flew off the handle. Completely flipped out.”

“What?” she asked, shocked. “About you not wanting to go to Paris with him over the break?”

“Yep,” I said. “He started shouting and throwing things off the dinner table. I’ve never seen him so angry before. He was calling me all kinds of names, saying the most awful things…” My voice broke and I stopped speaking. He’d been truly awful about it, and I’d been too shocked to do or say anything. I never imagined that my plans to go home during the winter break would be so surprising and upsetting to him. Marcus acted as though my plans to go home for the holidays personally insulted him, as if I intentionally set out to upset and hurt him.

Susie sat back, her eyes narrowed in thought. Then she grinned. “Well, I know what the deal was,” she muttered. “I bet he planned the whole thing for he and his wife, or ex-wife, what ever you want to call her, and when he told her about it, she’d said no. That’s why his day was so awful. She probably told him that she had better things to do, and that got him all riled up. So he marched right home, thinking that he’d take you instead, to make her good and jealous. It never occurred to him that you’d have the backbone to say thanks, but no thanks. That you actually had plans and a life of your own!”

I paused, considering her theory. It certainly made sense, and explained his over reaction. It also made me feel even better about the resolute
no
I handed down to him. I started to perk up, realizing that for once I had had the upper hand in my relationship with Marcus.

“Well he certainly didn’t take it very well,” I said coyly. “He told me that I was taking advantage of him, that I didn’t appreciate all he had done for me, and that he wasn’t even sure we should be seeing each other. He said that it’s clear as day that he takes me more seriously than I take him, and that he’s the more mature and giving person in the relationship. He even threatened me if I didn’t decide to change my mind about the trip to Paris.”

Susie gasped at that, though I could see her eyes starting to glow with amusement at the scene playing out in her head. “Threatened you?”

“Yep, told me that he could get me suspended from school if I didn’t start behaving like the grown woman that I am. He said I was acting like a flakey and undependable teen.”

Susie snorted. “Well, I’d like to see him kick you out after he gets fired for having a sexual relationship with one of his former students! After all, he’s the one who got you all liquored up and took advantage of you that first night and you’re not even twenty-one yet. That right there is enough to get him fired, and I for one will make sure the administration hears about it, especially if he’s threatening you.”

I laughed, though her train of thought startled me. If I had to defend myself from suspension, I certainly would, but I would not be willing to point any fingers unless I was being directly targeted or harmed by Marcus. 

I took a sip of tea to calm my nerves, noticing that Susie had prepared my favorite kind and made it just the way I liked it – strong, with just a hint of honey and lemon. “Either way,” I noted, “I know what my plans are for the holiday break. I’m going home. I’m spending time with my family. I need to talk to Tom. I think I’ve made a very stupid mistake, distancing myself from him. I want…I want to feel him again, to see him, to make things right between us.”

Susie frowned, taking a deep breath of her own. “Iz, just don’t put all of your eggs in one basket,” she said. “Just put this Marcus thing behind you. He’s not good for you, and I think he could stir up a lot of trouble. Go home, spend time with your family, don’t think about anything heavy, and just don’t reach out to Tom for a while. Give yourself some
no man
space. It will be really good for you. Trust me. I know what I’m saying.”

***

I dropped my skirt and blouse on the floor on my way to bed and buried my head in my pillows. This had been a terrible night, on so many levels, but two good things had come out of it: the realization that Marcus was a manipulative and mean spirited human being who did not belong in my life, and the fact that no man could compare to Tom.

With Marcus’ image completely tarnished, I was able to really feel again and allow thoughts of Tom to run through my mind and make those all-too-familiar butterflies flutter about in my stomach. Tom made me feel things that Marcus never had. I missed his loving hugs and the way his eyes lit up when I entered the room. He’d bought his house, and started furnishing it with what had been my ad-hoc and uninterested input via email, but I wanted to see what the house was like. More importantly, I wanted to see whether we still had that spark and connection, or if it had fizzled because of the way I distanced myself from him after returning to DC.

The problem was, my heart wanted, needed him, but my mind still had doubts and questions. Getting home and spending time with him would open up a range of difficulties, not limited to my feelings for him. I’d have to face him head on and answer all of his questions about how the semester had gone, why I had been so distant, why I hadn’t travelled to see him, and why I wouldn’t take his calls and opted for electronic communication instead. I assumed that Tom would be very suspicious as to why I distanced myself from him, and I didn’t want to have to lie to him about it. Not only that, but I would have to lie to my parents about where I was going and why I couldn’t always be home. I would have to lie about who I was spending so much time with. I wasn’t prepared for so much lying…I was committed to putting those days of deceit behind me and starting off on a clean slate with both my family and Tom.

I wasn’t worried about what I would tell people here, of course, but the idea of what I would tell people at home was becoming more and more complicated.

There was another part of the puzzle: Marcus. He had been anything but respectful tonight, and had done and said things that could never be forgiven. But for some reason, I did care for him on some level. Maybe it was the physical attraction, the sexual chemistry, that raw and unabridged passion that kept me connected to him. Maybe I felt I deserved to be mistreated as punishment for being unfaithful to Tom? No matter how much it bothered me to admit it, I just wasn’t sure that tonight would be the end of my relationship with Marcus.

Tom, on the other hand, was a man I had an incredible emotional connection with, and who I loved dearly, but was he the man destined for me? Or would he become like my favorite Strawberry Shortcake doll from my childhood – a comforting toy that I would one day outgrow? At fifteen, had I really had the right tools in my emotional arsenal to fully commit to loving Tom for the rest of my life? Or had that overpowering first love just been a product of the dangerous and forbidden circumstances, a product of my intense crush and desire for him? A small part of me felt that I’d outgrown him, but maybe it was distance that was contributing to that feeling? Maybe, just maybe, I felt this way because Tom and I weren’t sharing our day-to-day lives together, the way Marcus and I were.

Then, of course, there was the fact that my heart was telling me – very strongly – to go home to Tom. My heart, at least, was convinced that I belonged in Tom’s arms. I was having more and more trouble arguing with my heart and wanted to just resign to it and give in.

Eventually I got up and went to my desk, thinking I’d draw up a list of pros and cons, like my father had taught me to do when I was facing a difficult decision. I grabbed my favorite journal and the blue parker pen I loved, and turned to a fresh page. ‘CONS’ I wrote on one side of the paper. I followed this up with ‘PROS’ on the other side. Then I flipped to a new page and wrote the two words again. I’d develop a list for going home, and one for going to Paris with Marcus. The lists would simply reiterate what was in my head, I knew, but maybe seeing the words on paper would give me different perspective or reveal something I hadn’t yet thought through.

An hour later I sat back in my chair, staring at the lists. They both held the same set of words, as I knew they would, and included detailed reasons for both going home and going to Paris. The lists yielded one result: undecided.

I leaned forward, though, and turned back to the list of reasons to go home. I made one more slow, steady entry under the word ‘PROS’ –
true love
– and sat back again. That was what it came down to, I realized. That was the deciding factor. Deep in my heart, I still felt that Tom was my true love, maybe not the ideal man by society’s standards, but the man I was in love with and the man I felt most comfortable with. We might grow and change, we might part for a time and then reunite, and there might be a wealth of rumors about either one of us, but he would always be my first love, and a part of me would always come back to him.

With that thought, I slammed the journal shut and got up to call my parents. If they were going to buy me a ticket home, they needed to get started on it now. In two weeks, I’d be in Tom’s arms again.  

Chapter Eighteen - Time After Time

T
wo days before my cross-country flight back to California, I received an email from my brother Tony. It appeared in my inbox first thing in the morning, with the following subject line:
Read this before you pack
. I stared at the subject line for some time, biting my lower lip. I still hadn’t confronted Tony about whether or not he’d seen me that day with Tom, and what he meant to do about it if he had. This was partly for my own protection – if he hadn’t seen me, then I didn’t want to raise any suspicions by asking about it. If he had, asking him outright would force us both into some sort of uncomfortable discussion and subsequent action, and I had no idea how I would deal with something like that. Things had changed so much since that day I saw Tony on the sidewalk, and I wasn’t even sure that this was a battle I wanted to fight with my brother and, by extension, my parents.  I was going home for Christmas and I wanted absolutely no drama. This semester was chalk-full of it and I was ready to put the semester behind me and focus on some steady living.

Finally I opened the email, knowing that I would wonder about its contents all day and would be unable to concentrate on anything else but what Tony may or may have not written. I took a deep breath and started reading. Tony had attached a newspaper article to the email, so I opened that first. It was an exposé, it appeared, or an op-ed written by a staff writer or reporter for the local paper from back home. “Are Female Students at Risk in our High Schools?” the headline questioned. “Male teachers allegedly preying on the innocent,” the byline advertised. My stomach sank and I immediately felt nauseous. I’d read allegations like those before, about teachers having inappropriate relationships with their students, stories from California but also from across the country. Why was Tony sending this article my way? What was the point of sharing this attachment with me?

As I scanned the story, I realized that this article was about Mr. Peterson, our high school band director, and it was based on allegations of his sexual misconduct with female band members. Rather than the presentation of factual evidence, the article read more like a summary of the community’s gossip – he said, she said kind of stuff. The reporter had failed to protect the privacy of those being cited in the article, and he shared many opinions and – no doubt – exaggerations about the allegations. There were details about secret encounters between Mr. Peterson and several juniors during a trip to a band concert in Arizona. Apparently, multiple girls were accusing Mr. Peterson of improper conduct in both the classroom and during band trips. He was touching them more often than he should, looking at them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable, asking them to stay after school for additional practice. Other teachers had reported seeing him leaving campus with several of his female students as passengers in his car.