Page 32 of Break Me
Eight
“When areyou gonna let me meet this mystery guy?” Tess teases me as we walk out of Dumont’s class.
“Well,” I start to say, knowing Benji will be in the foyer, walking Riley in. It’s been a few days since we first had sex. Fucking anal sex, because Benji doesn’t play.
We did end up seeing a movie together over the weekend, with Riley and her friend Tyler, who has gone home now. I still haven’t met her fiancé.
“Maybe um, now?” I continue to Tess.
But I hear someone clear their throat behind me.
James Dumont.
We haven’t spoken, save for texts, since right before I went to Benji’s.
I freeze, my body going rigid. I don’t want to deal with this. Just like I don’t want to deal with Mom. She’s no longer responsive and maybe I should be spending all of my free time at her bedside, but I can’t do it. I feel like when I walk in that bedroom, the life is sucked out of me, because it’s literally being sucked out of her. And I can’t watch it. Not for her. Not for Dad.
“I’ll catch up with you,” I tell Tess.
She narrows her big brown eyes, hand on her hip. “Ava,” she says, her tone full of warning, “if you don’t want to meet with—”
“No, it’s fine,” I insist, knowing Dumont is at my back and I don’t want to start anything in the classroom as students are still filing out. “Really, I’ll meet you tonight. At the gym.”
So much for seeing Benji in the hallway.
I turn around and face Dumont. He’s got his arms crossed over his chest, and he’s leaning against the podium at the front of the classroom. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a while, his grey eyes narrowed on me.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says quietly. The last student walks out, but the door is still open.
I look down, gripping the straps of my backpack. “I know,” I agree, “it’s just, my mom isn’t…” I force myself to meet his gaze. This isn’t me: being sheepish. I’m not doing anything wrong spending time with Benji. Benji and I are just having fun. He already told me he isn’t here for long. Told me, too, that Riley will move when she graduates next summer, to move in with her fiancé.
I’m just fooling around.
Which is exactly what I was doing with Dumont.
“I know,” Dumont says softly. “I know you’re having a hard time, Ava. But don’t shut me out.” He straightens and steps closer to me, holding his hand out to mine. His wedding band is gone.
I take his hand, aware someone could walk in at any moment and he could lose his job. I might be suspended. Expelled.
I drop his hand and clasp my own together.
“Let’s meet tomorrow night?” I ask him carefully. I don’t know if I’ll end it or if we’ll just end up fucking, but I can’t keep putting this off. Even if it’s the latter, I can at least clarify that this isn’t serious. That as happy as I am that him and his wife are officially divorced, it doesn’t change this. And it doesn’t need to. It shouldn’t. He needs to heal. He’s not in love with me, he just doesn’t want to be alone.
He nods. “I’d love that. My house?”
As if we can go to mine. As if we can go anywhere public. The last time we were together in public was the first time we met, at the bar, before he knew I was a student and I knew he was my professor. And before I knew he was fucking married.
“I’ll be there at nine,” I tell him, giving enough time for me not to blow Tess off again at the gym.
He smiles, slips his hands in his pockets, which reminds me of Benji. But nothing else about him reminds me of Benji. Benji is distant, self-assured, commanding.
Dumont is becoming needy.
“See you then.”
Then I turn to go, hurrying out the door, hoping to see Benji before I try to find Tess in the cafeteria.
I see Riley push through the doors to the English building, smiling over her shoulder, and my heart leaps as I hope to find Benji trailing in after her.
