Sarah stood on my porch just as she had Sunday night, only now, the sun was shining, the sky clear and blue above her. She was staring at her feet when I opened the door, but slowly, her gaze climbed until her eyes connected with my own.
She didn’t have to say a word for me to know she’d been through the same hell I had the past few days.
“I’m sorry I came by unannounced,” she said, voice surprisingly steady and firm. “I know our lesson isn’t until this evening, but I wanted to come by earlier to talk. If that’s okay.”
That guilt that had somehow washed away at the sight of her crawled its way back up, sticking to my throat and making my next swallow nearly impossible as I stepped back, holding the door open for her. “Of course. Please, come in.”
Rojo had been impatiently waiting behind me, and as soon as I moved, she squeezed through, greeting Sarah with a wagging tail and wet, sloppy kisses to her hands.
Sarah smiled, bending a bit to pet Rojo as she made her way inside. When we were all in the foyer, I closed the door behind her, shoving my hands in the pockets of my gym shorts.
“Thanks for coming by,” I said, snapping my fingers at Rojo to let her know it was time to calm down. She sauntered over to the couch, tail still wagging and eyes locked on Sarah, begging her to join. “I’m sorry the house is kind of a mess,” I continued, running a hand back through my damp hair. “I’ve been… busy.”
Sarah nodded. “Oh, it’s okay. I understand.” Her eyes washed over the living room — the empty cans of beer, blankets strewn everywhere, pillow on the couch where I’d tried to sleep since the bed was no reprieve, ashtray on the coffee table, evidence that I hadn’t cared enough to even go outside to smoke.
Then, her gaze turned to me.
She swallowed, the constriction of her throat all I could watch as her eyes took in my naked, sweaty chest. They lingered on my navel, dropping briefly to where my abs met the band of my shorts before they popped back up to meet my eyes.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” I scrambled over to the couch, plucking the sleep shirt I’d worn off it and tugging it on. “I was just about to get in the shower.”
Crimson shaded her cheeks, but Sarah didn’t otherwise acknowledge the fact that I’d been shirtless. “Can we sit?”
“Of course.” I hurried into the kitchen, pulling out a barstool for her like a fucking idiot. I even held it there, like a waiter about to scoot her in and ask if she’d like sparkling or spring water.
Sarah’s eyes softened a little, a smile touching the edges of her lips as she took a seat.
“Do you want a drink or anything? Water?”
“I’m okay,” she answered.
Sarah wouldn’t look at me now, her gaze solely focused on her hands, which were folded in her lap now. I slid onto the stool across from her, throat sticky and tight. Every apology I’d had seemed completely deficient now that I had her in my house. And the sickest thing was, in that moment, with her sad eyes cast down and unable to look at me, I wanted to kiss her just as badly as I had Sunday night.
I was the worst kind of fucking person.
“Sarah,” I breathed, swallowing down what nerves I could. “I am so sorry about what happened.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head like my words had caused her pain, and it killed me when I realized I actually had. A sharp pang of guilt ripped through me, and I winced against it.
“I wish I had more to say, some sort of… I don’t know,” I said, words scrambled as I tried to find the right ones to say. “Reason, I guess. Or excuse. Something to make what I did—”
“Please, don’t apologize, Reese,” she said, eyes still squeezed shut.
I frowned, wishing she’d look at me. My hands reached forward, but I stopped myself before I could touch her, planting my palms on the granite, instead. “But, I am. I am so fucking sorry, Sarah. What I did was inexcusable. I betrayed your trust. I—”
“There’s no one I trust more than you,” she said, cutting me off again as her eyes flew open. Her breaths were labored, her cheeks flushed as she looked behind me at the fridge. “I’m sorry, I think I actually would like some water.”
“Of course.” I popped up, plucking a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water from the pitcher in my fridge. Sarah downed half the glass once it was in her hand, and she kept her fingers wrapped around it like a safety blanket once it was back on the counter.
“I don’t want you to be sorry about what happened…” she said after a long moment. “It’s me who’s sorry.”
I frowned. “You? Why on Earth would you be sorry, Sarah? You did nothing wrong.”
A bawdy laugh left her throat, and she shook her head, eyes still on her hand that wrapped around the glass. “I jumped off you, screaming, and then bolted out your door like a crazy person.”
My stomach twisted at the memory, guilt strangling me like actual hands around my throat. “Honestly, I don’t feel like that reaction is out of place at all after what I did.”
“Stop saying that, stop saying what you did like you punched me instead of kissed me.”
We both quieted at that, at the verbal admittance of what had occurred. It was like skirting around the word somehow kept us in a safe ring, and now we were back in the wild, back where there were no lines or rules or designated areas where we were supposed to reside — me in one, her in the other, never to cross over.
Sarah sighed, her eyes flicking to mine before they fell to her hand again. “I wanted you to kiss me, Reese.”
I closed my eyes, letting out a long, slow breath through my nose to calm the energy that sparked to life inside me at her words. I wanted to pull her into me, to kiss her again, to say to hell with what anyone thinks. But all of that was dangerous — for her, for me. And even if she’d wanted to kiss me, too, she’d been the one to say stop.
I was the older one, the teacher, the one who should have been in charge. And yet it was her who was strong enough to say no, to remind me where we stood.
I’d failed her.
“Sarah…”
“No, please, Reese.” She gripped her glass tighter, pulling it toward her like it was the water she was pleading with, or like it was me she held in her hands. “I came here to explain something…” Sarah shook her head, biting her lip against the tears welling in her eyes. “But it is so, so hard for me to even consider telling you what I’m about to. And I don’t know how this is going to come out, or what you’ll think of me when it’s all done. I just… I need you to just listen to me. Please. If you can.”
“Of course, I can,” I said, and this time I reached for her, wrapping my fingers around her forearm with a squeeze. I willed her to look at me, but she still wouldn’t. “Whatever it is, I’ll always listen to you.”
I couldn’t do anything right, couldn’t comfort her the way I desperately wanted to. She pulled away from my grip like it had burned her, eyes squeezing shut again as she tucked her hands under her thighs. She stared at the ground, at the counter — at anything but me.
And I couldn’t blame her.
I couldn’t find any fault in that innocent, wide-eyed girl who sat across from me, who had trusted me, who I’d betrayed. Now, she was here to tell me something that was so hard for her that she was visibly shaking, and I had a feeling I already knew what she needed to say.