Tainted Love (Sweetest Taboo #2) (4 page)

“I missed you too,” I said softly. “And yes, I do know how rare it is. I went all the way across the country and still couldn’t forget you. It was like I was fleeing from a life I knew I couldn’t have with you and I went as far as I possible could. But you know what? I couldn’t find anyone else who would listen to me the way you do, or take me seriously, like you always have. No one else talks to me like you do. I’ve been just as lonely, Tom. Why do you think I came back to find you?”

He smiled faintly then leaned closely toward me. “I have a secret, Izzy. I have decided to buy a house here. You know, away from Hillside, and the rumors there. It’s so hard for me to be there, where everything happened, and to face all those people every day. All I do there is think of you. That whole place is filled with our memories, but you’re not there anymore. I want a house away from of all that. I want to start over again. I want to be someplace where I can feel comfortable and at ease to live my life.” My eyes widened in surprise. He was moving? That shouldn’t have come as a surprise, though. After all, I had left the town where we’d had so much drama, but he had stayed behind, living day to day with the discernable looks of contempt and whispers when he walked down the hallways. If that weren’t enough, Tom was still living in the house he had shared with his wife and kids, and that had to be difficult. I understood his reasons, but the idea that he was moving to a new place made my heart stop. He was buying a new house? Just for himself?

“Move in with me,” he said, reaching out to grab my hand again. His voice gained an intensity I had not heard in years, and his eyes looked like they were burning with excitement and anticipation. I gulped. “Say you’ll do it, Izzy,” he murmured. “I can’t stand to live without you, not anymore, now that we’ve found each other again. You, me, being here, it feels so right. I can only liken the feeling to having lived without a part of my body, and now feeling whole again. I know you’re in school right now,” he said, waving me off when I parted my lips to speak, “but you could stay with me during summers and holidays, when classes are out. Then when you graduate, we could make it permanent.”

I almost choked on my own saliva, though my heart felt like it had swelled five times its size in the space of thirty seconds. Tom wanted me to move in with him? He was buying a house here, so that I could move in and we could live together without the judgment of our hometown? His thoughtfulness and his desire to just be with me at all costs brought tears to my eyes, and before I knew it dozens of tears were streaming down my cheeks. I had been overjoyed when we reunited, of course, but I hadn’t managed to think beyond the two weeks we were getting to spend together. And there he was, planning our entire future together, willing to buy a house and make it a home for the two of us, so that we could start over in a new town, as a legitimate couple.

A small part of me became overwhelmed suddenly, and I almost felt resentful that he was planning out the rest of my life for me. What if I didn’t want to come home during the summers, and what if I just wanted to spend that time with my parents and Tony instead? I suppressed that small, gnawing voice, though, and allowed my heart to take over. Tom loved me so much that he wanted a life with me, and he was actually going to turn that desire into reality. It was the most romantic, thoughtful and caring thing anyone had ever done. My heart fluttered in admiration for this man I once doubted. How could I possibly love Tom more than I do right now?

“You want to live with me?” I whispered, the words barely making it past my lips.

“Of course, you goof,” he answered, smiling. “You’re the one, Isabel. The one I’ve been waiting for my entire life. How many times do I have to tell you that until it sinks into your thick head? I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you, sweetheart.”

“But what about school?” I asked, my mind reeling with questions. “What about everything else? I have to go back in a week, for the internship, and then I’m on in DC again until next summer –”

“We’ll work around it,” he said enthusiastically. He rested his free hand gently across mine, and looked deeply into my eyes, his expressive hazel eyes taking me in. “It’ll be part time at first, of course, but then later, we can make it more official.”

My lips parted, but I found my throat too dry to speak. Was he asking what I thought he was asking? Saying what I thought he was saying? He couldn’t actually be saying that we should get married – make things permanent, as he said – could he? I gulped, trying to find words, trying to assess how I felt about any of this. It was all happening so fast, and though it all sounded terribly romantic, something in my mind was begging for it to slow down, so I could have time think, to process these events.

Suddenly my phone buzzed next to my plate, and I jumped. I grabbed it, glanced quickly at the number, and gestured to Tom that I had to take this call. I rose, hurrying out of the dining room, outside to the foliaged and shady courtyard. The phone call gave me a chance to step away from the life-changing conversation Tom had instigated. Maybe with some fresh air, I could figure out how I felt about everything he had just shared.

Besides, this wasn’t a call I could take in Tom’s presence.

Chapter Three - Vision of Love

I
sabel’s buzzing phone jarred me from my thoughts of our future – of the house we would share, the bedtime routine, our mornings together – as she quickly pulled away from me to glance at the screen. Whoever it was, she’d evidently been waiting for their call. She excused herself haphazardly and rushed out of the door toward the courtyard, talking into her phone. She didn’t mention who it was on the phone as she walked away, nor did she tell me how long she would be, as I frowned lost in my own thoughts.

I’d been afraid that I was going to come on too strong, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself. The moment had been so perfect, with her there in front of me, telling me how much she’d missed me…But perhaps I had rushed things? She was only a sophomore in college, I reminded myself, and still in the midst of making plans for her future. She probably didn’t even know what she wanted to do with her life after college. Sometimes I forgot that she was so much younger than me, and still facing all of the turmoil of youth and an undecided life. Talking about buying a house – and what I had said about being more permanent – had probably scared the living daylights out of her. I bit my lip, chastising myself. Always rushing forward before you think, Tom. She was going back to the East Coast in a couple of days, and here I was asking her to move in with me.

I took another bite of my omelet and glanced at her through the open doorway as she was speaking comfortably on the phone. I couldn’t help it, asking anyway, I didn’t want to scare her, or frighten her. I knew I was rushing things, but she had turned my world upside down when she came back. She was still somewhat reserved with me, as if she had secrets that she couldn’t quite bring herself to share, but that would change. She’d remember how to trust me again, remember that she could share her thoughts and feelings with me, her dreams, and her hopes and fears. We’d only had a week together, and already I could feel our love growing into what it had once been.

I had longed for Isabel for so long it seemed, I never really could get over her – although it was just under a year since I’d last seen her – and yet one week after our chance meeting, she’d managed to reclaim my heart and soul. I couldn’t imagine a life without her. Not now. I’d lost her once, and I wasn’t going to lose her again.

I hadn’t felt this happy in ages it seemed. We’d spent every moment together for the past week, talking about where we’ve been and where we’d like to go. Sharing the things we hadn’t been able to share with anyone else. And it had been just like the old days; nothing about our love had changed. True, there’d been an added tension, and through the joy and love I felt, there’d been an ever-present feeling of dread or doom. But I was sure that came from the fact that she’d be leaving soon, and going back to her college. I couldn’t bear to think of that – not yet. We still had another week together, and I was going to enjoy every moment of it. There was no way I was going to let that nagging feeling bring my spirits down.

Still, though, I couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something going on, something that she was hiding from me. I felt as though there was a part of her that she refused to share with me. I’d experienced that with Isabel before, when she was younger – that hesitation, the willingness to keep secrets from me when she was afraid she might get hurt, or hurt me in return. I couldn’t blame her, after what we’d been through together, but I desperately wanted her to trust me again. I needed Isabel to open up to me and share her thoughts and feelings with me.

I pushed my food away, realizing that I couldn’t eat while she was outside on the phone. My appetite had vanished with her, though I refused the waiter when he asked if he could clear the dishes. When Izzy came back, I’d no doubt grow hungry again, providing everything was all right. It had always been like that – her presence dictating my thoughts and feelings. I’d never understood how she did it, but her power over me had started the first day I had set my eyes on her.

One day after school, while scheduling the tryouts for the swim team, I had realized that I didn’t have everything I needed for tryouts. I had gone to the gym to find one of the other coaches and figure out how to deal with the missing equipment. This particular coach had instructed other sports teams after school, and usually coached the girls’ soccer team, although he had coached boys’ teams as well. On this particular day, he was running a PE class – something that all the students had to take whether they liked it or not. I was standing next to him, talking about the coming tryouts, when I noticed a girl I had never seen before.  This wasn’t really that unique for me, since I didn’t know every student on campus. But I knew or had seen most of them at some point in time. I’d been a teacher at Royal Oaks for over ten years, and had come to know hundreds of students during that time. Some younger, some older…some in ninth grade and others in twelfth grade, boys, girls, gay, straight…I had known a majority of the kids who attended Royal Oaks and often times, still maintained friendships with students that had graduated. I went out of my way to meet new students every year, and tried to build relationships with them. I enjoyed their distinct and individual personalities, and had made some friends that kept in touch through college and into their adult years. This had been frowned on by some of the other teachers; people who thought that we as teachers should maintain our distance from the students, remember the boundaries, they would say, do not become involved in their lives. I’d never shared that philosophy, though. We were entrusted with these young, unmolded minds, and it was our job to make sure that they grew and developed, turning into the responsible adults they would one day become. How were we supposed to do that if we didn’t make the effort to know them outside of class, through sports or extracurricular activities? Besides, I made friends with the parents as well, as often as not – parents who knew their children so well, and were able to offer me insight into their personalities.

True, I only taught photography and occasionally mathematics, but I took it seriously, and I did everything I could to be successful as a teacher and as a mentor.

So it was surprising, actually noticing a student that I’d never seen before. And what a girl she was! Coach Johnson continued speaking next to me, but he’d lost my attention. My eyes were glued to that girl, that young woman, who was captivating me with her natural – and makeup free – beauty. But it wasn’t just her looks that caught my attention, for there had been plenty of other pretty girls on campus throughout the years. I’d known plenty of attractive girls – both in school and out – and looks alone had never held my attention. Besides, the pretty girls I had seen throughout the years were students, and I was a married man with two little girls of my own.

There was something about her, though, something unlike anything I had ever seen or felt before.

I can only describe it as a presence, an aura, or a force. Something like an electrical current, that ran from her body, through the ground, and straight into my body, or more precisely, my soul. Metaphorically speaking, for some inexplicable reason she grabbed me with both hands, and shook me to the core. It was easy to see that this girl was a leader, that the other athletes looked up to her…she knew exactly what she was doing, and had a plan on how to get there. She had an intensity about her that made me think she was born with the drive to get what she wanted, regardless of the cost.

When she glanced at me, my body froze and I lost my breathe for just a moment. It was like I felt a ZAP; her intensity was making its way into my entire body, her eyes penetrating my inner thoughts as the electricity flowed. At that moment, I knew that I wanted to get to know her, which was kind of funny to me, because for some reason I felt as if I already knew her. I couldn’t really explain why, but she had managed to leave an indelible imprint on my mind, and that imprint never managed to dissipate, in spite of my sincere attempts at shaking those inappropriate thoughts and feelings.

I left soon after, my questions answered, and walked back to my classroom. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was familiar, that I knew her from somewhere. There was something about her that drew me in, and I thought I must have somehow recognized her, felt that familiarity. I couldn’t put my finger on it, there was something about that girl…

While I was in the gym I had heard one of the other students in the PE class call out to her – Isabel – and had stored the name away in the recesses of my mind. It was a beautiful name, so fitting for that delicate, but forceful frame and those soft doe eyes. The name of a princess. I didn’t know her yet, but I was certain that life would bring us together. There was a connection there, I was sure of it. I had never felt that connection with anyone before – not even my wife – and I didn’t think fate, or God, or the universe would let it go to waste.