Page 13 of Tomorrow Belongs to Us
“This could be your chance to get together with him.”
“Are you crazy?” I squawk. “I don’t think of him like that anymore.” The idea is insane, just like Arla. But the truth is, I can’t stop thinking about Lance Turner even if I tried. My thoughts have wreaked havoc ever since I discovered he was here. My imagination has wandered down treacherous paths. In my daydreams, Lance is there, haunting and teasing me with possibilities I should not even entertain.
My family would hate me if I ever considered it.
“But you always said—”
“I was a stupid teen then, with a dysfunctional family. I would have been happy if a stranger gave me some attention.”
“You are happy when a stranger gives you attention.”
I scratch my throat. “I don’t want complications, or baggage,” I say in my defense. Arla doesn’t like my short-lived, twenty-four-hour relationships. I don’t like the word ‘hookup’. I’m not seeking spiritual peace and love. I just want to feel desired and many men have satisfied that need for me.
“You were in love with him.”
“I was not.” I frown, relieved that we’re having this conversation on the phone. I can’t remember what I’ve told Arla now. Time has blurred the edges of the specific truth. My family doesn’t know the entire truth either, and it’s better this way.
“You talked about him all the time. It was bad enough that you were both the talk of the school—”
“Nothing happened.”
“Plenty happened in the classroom, even if you never so much as touched one another. We remember, Megan.”
“It was all in my head. And I blame my teenage hormones. I needed some escape and Mr. Turner gave me that.” Consumed by my misery, my angst, my familial drama, I’d poured out to her my fragile dreams of infatuation.
“But you’re not in school anymore and you’re older now and you said yourself you would—”
“I said a lot of things a long time ago.” I’d been a tangled mess of nerves at the time. News that Mr. Turner had left the school spread faster than rumors about Tillie Mullins’ sexual exploits. Tillie was the class gossip and Superbitch, the one who’d helped spread the lies when everything came to a head.
His departure devastated me. He’d used me. He’d abandoned me when I needed him the most, during one of the most traumatic times in my life and now his sudden reappearance affects me more I want to admit.
It wasn’t only his looks. I never fell for them the way the other girls in school did. Girls constantly fawned over Mr. Turner but not me. No. Mr. Turner grew on me slowly.
I was in the town library, squirreled away in a corner in the math and science section when Mr. Turner showed up out of the blue.
He called out my name softly, but I heard him, I could recognize that voice anywhere. I remember turning around, my heart doing that crazy little thing it does whenever he is around me.
He wanted to know what I was doing there. It was late. Sometime after eight and he commented on it. I told him I was studying for a test.
“In the library?” he asked, speaking in whispers. He seemed surprised that I was there at this time of night.
“It’s quiet here,” I whispered back. “Not now it isn't. Now that you're making all this commotion.” I made a hand movement between us, but he moved closer. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“I’m studying science today.”
“In which case I most definitely can’t help you.”
We laughed. It wasn't funny, but the laughter broke the tension in the air. He hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. “You understand the math, though. Your understanding of the concepts is solid. You’ll be okay.”
I got up and walked away, needing to put a book back on the shelf. He followed me. I could feel him behind me. The scent of his cologne wafting through the air. I lifted up on my tiptoes to put the book back but I couldn't quite slot it in place because the shelf was too high. He was so close behind me I could feel the brush of his body against my back. Towering over me, he pushed the book back into place, our fingers lightly touching for the briefest of seconds before he moved his hand away. But it had already branded a searing imprint on my skin.
I turned around, and he seemed caught off guard by the movement because we were almost flush, chest to chest. I could sense the warmth of his body, and smell his cologne again, this time stronger and more potent.
He took a step back, but our gazes held. It was too late to erase the moment and pretend it didn't happen. I think it was then that I felt it first. A tingling in my core.
His gaze dropped down to my lips, a move so sinful and forbidden. To this day I can remember how my insides were in turmoil. I was dating Shaun, but my boyfriend didn’t make me feel what Lance Turner did.
We made small talk, because neither of us wanted to move away. We spoke softer than usual, different than how we did in the classroom. Maybe because we were in the library and trying to be quiet, but it felt like we were co-conspirators, even then, that we were doing something mildly wrong. It was just a conversation, but his concern for me, and the subsequent reassurance that I would be okay was a reassurance I so badly wanted and needed.
