Page 68 of Private Tutoring
We shook hands, though it irritated me to no end to do it, and walked single file from the office. No one spoke until we stood outside, alone beneath one of the pavilions meant for the employees to use during breaks.
Stephen halfway tore his hair out from the constant scraping of both hands across his scalp.
Regret for the problems we’d put on Harmony drove me down onto one of the seats around the perimeter.
Roberto sat across from me, on a matching bench in front of the metal table. “What now?”
“We talk to Harmony.” I ran my hands down my thighs to stop the prickling sensation my anger caused.
Stephen turned a slow circle. “I don’t see her around here. She probably went home.”
Home to the sorority house where everyone there would try and overhear our conversation.
“How did this happen?” Roberto stood and stalked to the rail. Gripping it with both hands, he cursed loud and long. “We have to fix it. We promised to protect her.”
“We need to find her.” I pushed up from the bench and headed down the sidewalk. It twisted between buildings and would eventually spit me out near the parking lot where Harmony usually left her car when she drove.
Stephen and Roberto fell in step alongside me. We had nothing left to discuss. Nothing left at all except a deep, burning pain in our hearts. We’d made a mistake by not fighting harder.
Dean Carpenter was too ambivalent toward our confession of fault. How dare he let an innocent student go down for us.
A dozen cars were parked in the lot, and I recognized Harmony’s right away. The dented fender and scratched paint were impossible to miss amid the newer models her peers drove.
We hadn’t asked about her life or her past. We barely asked about her dreams for the future. I planned on remedying that too. It was time we learned everything about Harmony. She sat in the driver’s seat, her arms across the steering wheel and her forehead on her arms. The defeated posture was everything I’d been afraid of.
I knocked on the window, anticipating her shock. What I wasn’t prepared for was the cold mask she slipped on when she saw me. I’d never known Harmony to hide her emotions behind a wall like I did. It deepened the hurt as I realized we’d pushed her to this.
She reached for the keys, and I opened the door, halfway surprised when it gave way beneath my hand.
“Wait.” I didn’t touch her, but the pain in my voice cracked the exterior of her hard shell. “We feel terrible, Harmony. Please just talk to us. Tell us what’s going on.”
“Why did you do that?” Roberto stood at my shoulder. He held the door open with one hand and dropped into a crouch.
“Please don’t.” She swept her hair away from her face and stared straight ahead. “I’ve made up my mind. You all promised that if I said stop, you’d listen.”
When she tilted her head to look up at me, I lost the ability to do anything but stare. She’d called us out, right then and there. “We meant it, but this feels wrong. This feels bigger than you saying no.”
“It isn’t. What we had was great. But it’s over. I’m going home.” Hands locked around the steering wheel, she gave us all a searching look. “You need to let me go. It’s over.”
“Bullshit.” Roberto stood. “I know we agreed to stop if you were uncomfortable, but Matthew’s right. There’s more going on here.”
“No.” She squeezed the steering wheel tighter. “This is me saying goodbye. We had fun, but college isn’t for me.”
“I thought you were taking a semester off,” Roberto challenged.
I almost told him to stop, that he was bordering on sounding more like a control freak than a lover, but he had a point.
Harmony kept changing her story. She wanted nothing to do with us, but then she protected us when she could have let us take the reprimand.
Who knew what Dean Carpenter would have ended up doing if we’d all denied the rumors.
“This was never supposed to be anything more than sex.” She cranked the car and jerked her head toward Stephen. “That’s what we all agreed to.”
“What if we changed our minds?” Roberto was the first to say what I was sure all three of us were thinking.
I’d given up trying to control my heart and the love that I held for Harmony. Would it make a difference if I told her? She’d never given any indication that she cared about us like that, and her cold stance now made it harder to admit I’d fallen in love.
“You haven’t. You feel guilty for what happened, and you’re trying to make it right.” She reached past Roberto to grasp the door handle. “Let it go. Let me go.”
