Page 9 of Twice as Forbidden

Noah.

I don’t mean to, but I lean into him, relief washing over me.

“Curious what you were dreaming about. You were practically panting in your sleep.”

I shove him off me and climb out of bed. “I was dreaming about chasing you down and stabbing you.”

“Savage. You’d thinkIwas the one who broke up withyou.”

I whip around, giving him a nasty glare. “More like the way you’ve been treating me.”

Noah hops out of bed. “Wait—I’mthe bad guy here? I’m not the one who pulled this bullshit.”

“No, you’re the asshole who has no idea how to have a relationship. You don’t know how to treat a woman… outside the bedroom—”

He prowls toward me, pressing me against the dresser. “You keep saying that. And I keep telling you—”

“What’s going on in here?”

Noah jerks back at the sound of his father’s voice, like it startled him out of something darker.

“Nothing,” he mutters, but it’s tight, like the word barely made it past whatever storm is brewing in his chest.

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

I hold my breath. I hate when he gets like this—closed off, tense, a raw edge to every breath he takes. There’s no violence in him, not really, but there’s something else, something wild and restless, caged behind his eyes.

He’s never laid a hand on me. I don’t think he ever would. But there are moments—like this—when I can almost feel the weight of everything he’s holding back. Anger, grief, confusion. A darkness he doesn’t even understand. It’s like he’s always at war with something inside him, fighting battles no one can see, barely keeping it all together.

“We’re fine. Don’t you have morning calls to make?” Noah snaps, turning to his father, looking like he’s about to square off.

“Get ready for work.” His father retreats, catching my eye before disappearing from view.

When he’s gone, Noah shifts his gaze to me. “I’m sick of you acting like I’m the bad guy. You don’t want to be with me? Fine. But stop making me out to be the only fucked up one. You’re right there with me, baby.” With that, he walks out the door, and I collapse back onto the bed, trying to figure out what just happened.

Noah and I sit in silence the entire way to work. If he thinks I’m going to apologize for anything, he’s wrong. I hate that he called me out—calledusout—but he’s right. I’m no less fucked up than he is. He may come from a wealthy family, a rich kid who has it all, but that doesn’t mean he’s not as screwed up as the rest of us.

Unlike Noah, whose financial future is set, I’m buried in loans—loans my mother swore she would help me with. I wouldn’t even have them if she hadn’t married Bill and allowed him access to my college fund.

My dad was the one who provided for our family. He had a stable job with great benefits, which meant we could take vacations, live comfortably, and save for my sister and me. But when I was ten, my dad died, and everything changed. My mom was lost without him. Heartbroken. She’d been with my dad her whole life. Being alone was so unknown to her it scared her. It’s why she clung to the first man who showed her attention. A man who wore this mask and fed her lies, hiding all his faults. They married within a year of my dad’s death, and that’s when everything fell apart.

Lettie was too young to understand. She couldn’t see the kind of man Bill really was. Or maybe it was because he never laid a hand on her. He was a drunk with no money, no ambition, and a job that was always temporary. He managed to convince my mom to give him access to my college fund. And from the fights I could hear, he’d gambled my entire future away. Everything my parents had saved… was gone.

I despised my mom for her poor decisions. For not putting her children before her desperation. And worst of all, I missed my dad so damn much. He was my hero. He took care of me. He was supposed to teach me how to ride a bike, threaten my first boyfriend about curfew, and walk me down the aisle at my wedding. But when he died, everything changed. All the love I’d known died with him. My mom was so consumed by her own grief that she never thought to check if her children were okay or if we felt loved. Looking back, it makes sense how I ended up on that dark path. I just wanted someone to love me, to notice me. And that’s exactly what Mr. Bishop did.

Henry Bishop.

Julian Valley High’s favorite English teacher.

He saw me—reallysaw me—in a way no one else ever had. His smile was warm, genuine, like I was someone worth listening to, someone who mattered. When he sat beside me, patiently absorbing every frustration and every fear I spilled, I knew he truly cared. And when he reached for my hand, when he pulled me into the kind of hugs I’d long since stopped expecting, I felt something I hadn’t in years. Safe. Wanted. Like I finally belonged to someone who wouldn’t just leave.

It wasn’t my plan—to fall into… something with him. Was it love? Or just the desperate need to be loved? I don’t know. Maybe I never did.

But the emotional connection wasn’t enough.

I don’t know whose fault it was, who blurred the lines first. Maybe it didn’t matter. What mattered was the way it felt when we finally crossed that line—like I had stepped into a world where I wasn’t invisible. For the first time, I wasseen. Emotionally. Physically. Completely.

But even that came crashing down. Reality hit hard, unraveling the illusion I had clung to so desperately. The weight of it—the wrongness, the inevitable fallout—sank its claws into me, tearing away the one thing that had ever made me feel whole. And just like everything else, evenhewas ripped away from me.

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