Author's Note: Thank you, Chrissie 42, for taking the time to leave your thoughts on the last chapter. I highly appreciate that, especially because I thought the last one I wrote rather poorly. So your kind review warmed my heart so much when I read it.
Chapter Forty-Six
The second such words escaped from Lorna's mouth regret instantly overpowered her. Her hands rapidly made their way up to cover over her lips. Guilt formed a rather sharp lump in the pit of her stomach. She knew even just saying what she said wasn't going to do anything but cause her to feel an overwhelming amount of guilt and shame. And that was exactly how she felt now, slouching back in her seat and peering straight ahead into the shining light right above the sink.
Nicky's breath hitched in her throat to hear what just came out from between Lorna's teeth. It didn't take much for her to notice the exhaustion that made up her voice as she spoke those words. She tilted her head, looking softly across at her girlfriend and lifting both of her hands out in front of herself to place gently atop either side of Lorna's shoulders. The tips of her fingers stroked the cloth that covered her shoulders side-to-side for several quiet moments as she formulated what to respond with.
"My doll," she softly muttered out, eyes gazing warmly and directly into the brown eyes of her lover.
Her fingers continued the soothing motion along the width of Lorna's fully clad shoulders. As she kept her eyes focused on those of her girlfriend's, she was effortlessly able to make out the pain and agony that so blatantly filled them. Swallowing a large gob of saliva that formed in her mouth, Nicky massaged her fingers affectionately into the flesh of Lorna's shoulders as best as she could through the cotton sleeves that covered them. How she longed for the comfort to be enough to take every last ounce of the brunette's pain away.
A puff of air expelled from her lungs when she came to the realization that no matter how much comfort or love she gave to Lorna that none of it would magically heal her. The only proper way for Lorna to heal was to allow herself to go through the grief—to feel the pain, to shed all of the tears that so desperately wanted to come out. Yet those were all things, that in Nicky's eyes, Lorna apparently wasn't ready to commit to. And that only made her desire to be there for her stronger.
"I'm so sorry, Lorna. So, so, sorry," Nicky's voice hushed tenderly; the only words she could get to come out. Honestly, she had no idea what she could say to make any of it easier on her girlfriend. All she could truly do was reassure her that she wasn't going anywhere—that she loved her more than anything and would always be there by her side.
Red reemerged from the counter where she'd been cleaning off her face and stood halfway between both girls. She placed a gentle hand on one of Lorna's cheeks, patting it in a motherly manner. "Cancer is absolutely horrible. I'm so sorry that's what took your mom from you, honey. There's nothing harder to watch than watching someone you love have to suffer through an illness like cancer. I sure hope they find a cure for it one day. It needs to be eradicated, that's for damn sure."
Though Lorna wanted to walk to school that morning, both Nicky and Mrs. Reznikov refused to let her do so. With it being over two miles away and still at the wit-ends of a very freezing cold wintery morning. Surely, walking in that kind of weather would only end in Lorna's coming down with some sort of illness or another. And despite the contempt she had for taking up space in the car, she gradually came to the agreeance that she couldn't afford to get sick and miss out on school. Her grades were suffering enough already—she wasn't about to allow them to slip even further by being careless with her health.
The drive wasn't extensive. By the time they pulled into the high school's parking lot, the sun was before now up over the horizon and pouring through the windows of the vehicle. Blinding all three of them quite profusely. The temperature on the dashboard in front of Red, from the squint of Lorna's eyes, read as a meagre thirty degrees. Even only seeing the low number brought a shudder out of her. She pulled the zipper of her coat all the way up to right below her neck as if that would keep her from feeling any of the cold air the second she opened the car door.
Not surprisingly the next minute, when she swung the door open, the winter air smacked itself right in her face and immediately brought a shiver out of her. God how she hated the winter months. Despite it being almost April, the tail end of winter seemed to be holding on for dear life. Lorna craved the warm spring sun more than anything that morning while she exited out of Red's car. She hugged her arms to her side to conserve as much of her body's heat as she possibly could.
She followed rather speedily behind the school nurse, wanting to get in that damn building before she lost all feeling of any of her extremities. The wind was running ramped for a very late March morning. Each time it blew over her she felt her legs tremor from the freezing temperature. An arm encircled around her waist and she turned her head in its direction. A small smile naturally formed from the corner of her lips to see the culprit of the warm gesture was Nicky. She simply wormed herself closer, relishing in the heat Nicky's body provided.
Feeling Lorna nuzzle closer, a smile found its way onto Nicky's face as well. One that matched the brunette's. She pulled her closer and rubbed the hand that was touching her back softly up and down the length of it. It wasn't hard for her to clearly see how cold her girlfriend was the minute they stepped out of the car only moments earlier. And Nicky would be damned if she ever willingly allowed the girl she loved to freeze in such weather as this.
It wasn't too much longer before they made it through the front doors and were halfway down the hall in direction of their lockers. Red had previously departed the two of them to head to her office. Lorna slightly dragged behind Nicky. The minute she entered inside the school, what little happiness she felt—which was minimal given the circumstances—dissipated rapidly. She was in no mood to deal with the likes of Annalisa today. And even more so to have Nicky at all find out about Annalisa's incessant bullying.
As the pair of them approached their lockers, Lorna quickly retrieved her books from inside of her own. She inwardly prayed that Annalisa wasn't anywhere in sight of them. After yesterday's gym locker room squabble, she hadn't the energy or stamina to put up with her antics for another frustrating morning. She closed her locker shut and turned around to wait for Nicky, who was just now putting in her combination to open her own.
"This is why I don't wake up in the middle of the night," the redhead made a light-hearted remark, finally getting the door of her locker to open and reaching her hands inside for her morning class books. Reclosing it a second later, she turned to gaze over at Lorna and cupped a loving hand around a porcelain cheek. "My brain is not working well this morning, nearly tripped up on the numbers for my combination."
Looking her over methodically, the younger teen felt a pang meld into her chest. Despite Nicky's words only being meant in a light-hearted manner, Lorna knew they were only the truth. It was her fault that Nicky didn't have a good night's rest. Same with Mrs. Reznikov, she reminded herself. A sigh escaped her at the thoughts. If she would only have been quieter with her movements maybe their waking's could have been prevented.
"I'm sorry, hon."
Lorna cupped her own hand delicately around Nicky's cheek and brushed the tops of her knuckles around it in a circular motion. Without a single thought, she leaned forward and pressed her lips onto the spot where her knuckles had just stroked around. There was no one else on this planet who could ever capture her heart in the way that Nicky so effortlessly had.
"Sorry? Lorna don't be. You have nothing ya needa apologize for," the reassuring words easily spilled out from Nicky's mouth as she returned the kiss onto the brunette's cheek.
Their eyes locked together and Nicky observed the subtle guilt that appeared to reside within the shorter teen's. The sight instantly formed a lump in her gut. She stopped from walking and took both of Lorna's cheeks in her hands. They stroked palm-faced down against the pale flesh they framed over. "Please don't feel guilty over last night," her voice softly pleaded, breath warm atop the other's face. "I'm just glad ma and I were able to be there for ya. You need to let us help more, my sweet Lorna."
In spite of the sincerity and compassion that came from the heartfelt words that Nicky spoke to her, Lorna couldn't help but feel guilty for the events of the prior night—or rather very early morning. The more she let her mind wander the more she realized it wasn't only last night's events she felt guilty over but the last several days as well. So much happened and poor Nicky was dragged into the bulk of it. She didn't ask to be. She didn't ask to be dragged into any of those things and yet she was and that was what really bothered Lorna over anything else. One of the multiple reasons why she never wanted for Nicky to find out the truth of her mother or father's abuse. Because she sensed earlier on that something similar to this would eventually have happened.
"Lorna, kid?"
And that was when Lorna became aware she was so far in her mind that she hadn't been paying attention to where she was walking. Within a matter of seconds she found herself colliding into a rather large pillar that she never even knew existed before then. The collision immediately caused a sharp ache to form in the middle of her forehead. She innately lifted a hand up to place on it, rubbing it fervently to stop the pain.
"Shit," Lorna mumbled. "When the hell did that get here?" She pointed to the lengthy, beige-bricked, post that took up space in the middle of the hallway. Her eyes averted over to Nicky, who clearly watched her in concern, and broke into a fit of giggles at her own mishap. She shook her head at the stupidity she just displayed by walking right into the damn thing and only laughed harder. "I mean it, hon. I've never seen that pole there before. Have you?"
The laughter was certainly infectious and it hadn't been long before Nicky found herself joining in on the fit of them. Both girls only laughed harder and slid to their knees on the ground right in front of the very post that caused their laughing fit to begin with. When they finally stopped and caught their breath, Nicky leaned her head over onto Lorna's and pressed her cheek against hers. "No, kid, I don't think I've ever noticed this post before either. I don't really pay much attention to the architecture of the school, do you?"
Another couple of giggles burst their way from the younger teen's windpipe. She shook her head and nuzzled closer to the older girl. Her arms instinctively engulfed themselves around Nicky's shoulders. "Clearly I don't pay attention to a lotta things, hon. I mean I literally just walked straight into the damn thing."
"That you did. And ya know what's funnier? You're not even straight, babe," Nicky couldn't resist from making that comment with a warm, husky, chuckle to follow.
A chuckle made its way up out of Lorna's windpipe as well from the light-hearted joke her girlfriend had made. She placed a gentle hand over Nicky's shoulder to help gain her balance from all the laughing and snickering the two had done in the last few minutes that passed by. While she grasped onto the older teen, her eyes looked her over in a precise manner and the urge to smash their lips together merely overpowered her entire being.
Everything else around her faded far into the back of her mind. She reached both of her hands up and lovingly framed them around either side of Nicky's face. Inching closer, Lorna's lips lightly touched over Nicky's and once their foreheads were pressed together, the light touching of their lips morphed into a tender kiss. The temptation to deepen it was intense, however, the fact they were on the floor in the middle of one of the many school hallways was enough to keep her from acting on that impulse.
Instead, she moved their lips in another soft, short, kiss before very gradually pulling away. Despite their lips no longer brushing together, Lorna's hands remained framed around Nicky's cheeks—palms caressing up along the flesh. Both sets of brown eyes peered at the same spot on each other's faces. "I wish we didn't have to go to class—I could kiss ya all day," her voice murmured, breath hot overtop of the older girl's mouth.
With a tingling sensation starting in the very tips of her fingers and making its way throughout the entirety of her body, Nicky was taken aback by Lorna's boldness being displayed out in the open without much hesitation. A good taken aback that was. The tingling only intensified as their eyes locked together once more. She reached a hand up to gently place on the flesh of Lorna's forehead and combed the tips of her fingers gently along the width of it.
"Yeah? Well, who says we can't skip class and go get a little frisky in one of bathroom stalls?" A playful smirk molded onto Nicky's face as she threw out her suggestion. She gave a spirited wink to go along with it.
The idea was heavily tempting to Lorna. And had she not already been struggling in almost all of her classes, she would have easily agreed to the offer. However, she knew it was in her best interest to refrain herself from taking part in such an activity. A deep breath inhaled through her airway and down into her lungs; she smashed her lips over Nicky's one last time before finally releasing her grasp on her completely.
Though her eyes retained their gaze onto the taller teen's—peering into them with an immense wave of affection. "There's nothin' I'd like to do more, hon," her voice softly started; a hand brushing away the many strands of hair that fell over Nicky's eyes. "But I can't really afford to skip any classes right now. My grades are already shit, I don't want them to get any worse and end up being forced to repeat the school year."
Letting out a sigh, Nicky gave a reluctant nod in response. Despite the slight disappointment that loomed over her, she found Lorna's reasoning to be sufficient. She wouldn't force the suggestion on her knowing that it would only cause detrimental repercussions for her. Something she certainly didn't want to happen. Lorna already had enough on her plate, she acknowledged, she wasn't about to add anything else to it by her own lustful offer.
"How about at lunch time then? Does that work for ya, kid? We can meet in one of the girls' bathrooms and have a little alone time," the words slipped nonchalantly from her mouth albeit the warmth that rushed through her bloodstream and all the way into her extremities. She ran a hand down along the length of Lorna's body in a rather sensual manner.
Lorna swallowed a gulp at the offer. Her cheeks instantly turned a deep shade of pink, growing hotter by the second. Yet, even though she felt fairly frazzled, she nodded her head quite enthusiastically. It was a good compromise to Nicky's earlier proposal, she believed. At least she wouldn't be missing out on any important work and lunch was her most dreaded time of day, anyway, so a little sexcapades in the girl's room sounded like absolute heaven to her.
"Yes, sign me up." The comment slithered out easily and with a small laugh accompanying it right after. Lorna quickly covered her hands over her mouth when she realized the response that she had given. The shade of pink deepened further.
Her girlfriend's continuous display of boldness was making Nicky's quest to push away her lust even more of a challenge. The blushing of Lorna's porcelain-toned cheeks was highly endearing to her big brown eyes. Only strengthening her urge to take her right then and there against a wall and have her way with her. She swallowed uneasily when she acknowledged the vision she just had play through her mind. And, as if she hadn't already felt consumed with lust, the sensation of her panties suddenly becoming soaked caught her off-guard.
The unexpected silence came as a surprise to Lorna. Maybe the response she'd given was a bit too forward, she prompted herself. Concern took up form on her face while her eyes peered fiercely onto her girlfriend's demeanor. "Are ya okay, hon?" She brought a hand up and placed it onto the top of Nicky's head, combing it softly through her thick red curls of hair.
Plastering a smile on her face, Nicky shook herself out of her thoughts and refocused her attention on the brunette across from her. She nodded her head more profusely than she had planned, cupping a hand lovingly around one of Lorna's cheeks and leaning forward to allow their lips to stroke over one another's. "Sure am, doll. Just, uh, can't wait for lunch to get here. I want more time with you."
"Aw, hon," Lorna murmured while their lips remained mere centimeters apart. "Lunch will be here before ya know it. We only have a few hours and then we can sneak away to one a the bathrooms." She threw her an excitable wink along with another kiss on the lips before they mutually pulled away and decided it was best they both headed to class before either of them gave into their lusting hearts.
Albeit her comment she mentioned to Nicky before their parting ways for the morning, once she sat down in her first period class, she realized how far from the truth her words truly were. Lunch seemed so far away. Impossibly far away as her eyes darted onto the clock in the front of the room, displaying that it was only half past eight. Three hours was certainly not going to fly by as she previously assured Nicky of. An exasperated breath of air puffed its way from her lungs.
Mrs. Bell stood in the front of the class writing some chicken scratch on the board, Lorna wasn't entirely sure since her eyes refused to pay attention to any of it. Words were spewing from her mouth as well but again, she couldn't quite make out what they were nor did she really care to. Her awareness was more on when she would finally be reunited with Nicky after their third period classes ended.
However, the sound of desks squealing against the tiled floor shook Lorna out of her daydream and back into reality. Her eyes squinted through their lids as she searched around the area to see what was going on. Everyone, aside from her, was moving their desks into small groups of two to three students which must have been what was requested of them by Mrs. Bell. That was probably what was coming out of her mouth when Lorna had her mind elsewhere.
Lorna suddenly felt uncomfortable and panicked as she pondered on who she was partnered or grouped up with. She took her cheeks in her hands and hoped to God that whoever she was forced to work with wasn't—a desk merely slammed into her own, interjecting her train of thought rather quickly, and when her eyes landed on Annalisa everything inside of her froze.
"Bet ya didn't expect Mrs. Bell to make us partners, huh?"
The question spewed out of the blonde in a highly taunting tone. One that easily made Lorna shudder in her seat. She removed her hands from her face and placed them on either side of her desk, moving it slightly back away from Annalisa. The girl was way too close for comfort. A lump melded into the pit of her stomach and the rate of her heartbeat gradually increased in pace.
"Partners? For what? What are we supposed to be doing?" Lorna sucked in her lower lip, peering unnervingly ahead into the blonde's menacing blue eyes. Not paying attention always brought with it natural consequences, the realization slowly dawned on her. Now, she was stuck with her bully as her teacher appointed partner for whatever they had been assigned to do.
Her cluelessness effortlessly formed a smirk on Annalisa's face, who scooted her desk closer the second she observed the other retreat backwards. Setting a stack of papers harshly onto the surface in front of the brunette, she gestured her hands down on it as if it were the most obvious thing. "This, the stupid assignment Mrs. Bell was just flapping her jaws about. The hell? Little miss Lorna wasn't paying attention? Hmm, not surprised. Ya never do, no wonder you're failing," she chuckled, eyes fiercely peering directly into the brown ones across from her.
Hearing the remark instantly caused an alarming amount of saliva to build up underneath her tongue. Lorna swallowed uncomfortably and moved herself farther back, wanting to put as much distance between she and Annalisa as possible. "How would you know if I'm failing or not? D'ya stalk my grades or something?"
"Ya have some real nerve to use that kinda tone with me, Morello. The fuck do ya think you are?"
Before Lorna could muster up a response, however, Mrs. Bell approached the pair of them. Standing to the side of Lorna's desk, hands both covering a hip, she peered through the lenses of her glasses down on both teens. "I wanna hear less jibber jabbering and see more working, ladies. This project is worth twenty percent of your grade so you better be getting focused," she sternly informed them, eyeing Lorna with an all-knowing look. As if telepathically prompting her that she needed to worry.
This project is worth twenty percent of your grade. Twenty percent. The teacher's last comment repeated several times throughout Lorna's mind. A lump was swallowed down to her throat and her heart-rate automatically began climbing. Not only did she have to make sure she did well on this project but she also had to work on it with her fucking bully. Oh, god, did she feel vastly queasy at the thought. Like things in her life hadn't already been fucked up, Mrs. Bell just had to throw even more fucked up shit at her. All color drained from her face and the palms of her hands grew incessantly sweaty.
"What, what exactly do we have to do for this project?" The query came out in a shakier voice than Lorna had imagined. She bit down on her lower lip, eyes glancing nervously up at the science teacher. Her throat suddenly felt much tighter than usual, she knew she was on a tight rope with Mrs. Bell and that twenty percent could be her lifeline on whether she repeated the ninth grade or not.
Shaking her head out of frustration, the older woman pointed to the board in the front of the room. "Well, Lorna, if you had been paying attention, you would know that you and your partner have to pick a topic from the ones I wrote up there and create a PowerPoint presentation on it. You both will need to write your own two page, double-spaced, reflection paper on what you learned from your research."
Her eyes quickly shifted onto the topics written on the board and momentarily squeezed her eyes shut after finding cancer was one of them. Lord help her, she thought; Annalisa knew she had a bad rap with cancer and, more-than-likely, had her heart set on choosing that for their topic out of the unrelenting spite she had for Lorna.
"When, erm, when is it due by?"
A sigh made its way out from Mrs. Bell as she shook her head for a second time. If Lorna wanted to pass her course, she wasn't showing that by asking questions she'd already given answers to just minutes earlier. Her patience was wearing thin. "It's due by the end of the week next week. You better start paying closer attention if you wanna pass this class, Lorna."
Once the teacher was on to another pair of students, Annalisa refocused her gaze on the brunette and easily allowed a smirk to take up form on her face. "I already chose our topic since you weren't even listening, Morello. And we're doing cancer because I know just how much you love cancer," her voice emphasized the word love in a highly sing-song fashion. The look on Lorna's face only made the smirk on her own grow wider and confirmed that she had made the right decision by picking cancer as the topic for their project.
The bell for lunch finally rang through the walls and Lorna couldn't be more grateful for that. She jolted out of her seat and frisked her way out of the classroom down the hall until she arrived at her locker all the way at the end of it. Once she switched out her books, she turned to walk back along the other side and stopped when she caught sight of Nicky a few feet ahead. A smile quickly molded onto her face as she carefully approached her beloved girlfriend.
Wrapping her arms gently around the taller girl from behind, Lorna's lips naturally found their way onto the top of her head and pressed down on it in an affectionate kiss. "It's been a long morning, hon," she murmured, breath warm against the same spot she had pecked her lips on only seconds prior. "I've been looking forward to lunch time ever since we left for class earlier. I just wanna be locked in one a the stalls with ya and not think about anything else for a long, long time."
The sensation of the younger teen's arms around her instantly caused Nicky to turn around and smash their lips together in a needy kiss. Before things heated up further, though, she pulled away and took hold of Lorna's hand—gently yanking her along down the hall until they came across one of the girls' bathrooms. She opened the door for the pair of them to enter through and they hurriedly pushed their way over to the biggest stall on the other end of the room with Nicky clicking the lock so that no one else could open it.
Without a word, Nicky lovingly constrained Lorna up against the metal of the stall behind her and crashed their lips into a fervent kiss. Her hands found their way onto Lorna's pale cheeks, rubbing them up and down along its flesh all the while strengthening the hot contact between their lips. She easily slipped her tongue inside of the brunette's mouth and the kiss gradually morphed into an even more heated make-out session.
Both of their bodies pressed up to one another's as their hands moved at god-like-speed along each other's faces and upper bodies. Tongues touched together while lips hotly stroked over and over until they both had no choice but to pull away for a breath of air. Nicky retained her loving grasp on Lorna's shoulders, keeping her held up against the wall of the stall. Her mouth was slightly agape, panting as she tried to regain control of her breathing once more.
"God, Lorna, you're so, so," Nicky's lips were mere centimeters from Lorna's, breath warmly trickling over them as she hotly murmured her words. She took one of her hands and cupped it behind the back of her girlfriend's head, "fucking beautiful." A finger traced delicately along the flesh of Lorna's cheek, drawing small hearts all around it. She leaned their foreheads directly onto one another's and moved her finger up to affectionately brush loose strands of brown hair away from the shorter girl's eyes. "I want ya so bad, kid."
Her lips moved to one of Lorna's ears, pressing gently against the rim of it. She cupped a hand around the edge of the same ear and purred, "You have no idea how wet I am down there right now."
Goosebumps lined the tops of Lorna's arms and legs at the words being murmured into her ear. A lump was swallowed down through her esophagus. She lifted her hands up and framed them lovingly around Nicky's face, letting her lips peck softly onto the corner of her mouth. Her nose pressed against Nicky's and she allowed them to naturally rub together. "I think I might have a pretty good feeling," she whispered breathily over the spot she had just kissed.
The words were nothing short of the truth. It wasn't until Nicky made her comment that Lorna became aware of how soaked her own panties were. They felt rather warm and sticky—a sensation she hadn't been used to but also didn't come across as uncomfortable or anything of a negative nature. In fact, Lorna found it rather soothing and craved further intimacy with Nicky.
"I'm wet, too, hon."
That was all it took for Nicky to stop from restraining herself. She removed the hand she had around Lorna's ear and rehomed it down at the waistband of her pants, slowly sliding it inside of them. The stall shook from her movements and it wasn't long before the two of them heard the clearing of a throat on the other side of it. Immediately such sound halted Nicky's actions.
"If ya'll wanna be all erotic in here, that's fine, but at least wait until I leave the room. I gotta mop these floors," the school janitor's voice boomed through the walls, the wheels of her cleaning cart screeching against the floor as she pushed it to the other side of the girls' bathroom.
