Beth woke the following morning with a dull pain at the base of her skull that somehow matched the aching in her chest.
She recognized that her heart as a mass of muscle that hung heavily in her chest for the sole purpose of pumping blood throughout her body. She never romanticized the heart into a two-dimensional ruby red shape that could be easily ripped in half, resulting in the concept of heart break. A heart couldn't be broken.
The pain in her chest could have been easily explained in countless other ways. It could have been the sharp hand of stress or a stitch had found its way into her ribcage. Regardless of the explanation, Beth refused to believe that she was experiencing heart ache. She was a strong person and she'd be damned if she was going to lay in bed sulking because of what had happened with Dixon.
So it was with a great deal of effort that Beth crawled from the warm confines of her bed and started her Monday. She practically ripped the shower handle from its porcelain wall in her violent attempt to wash the entire weekend off of her body. Steam billowed from the hot water, fogging up the mirrors. Beth wiped away the condensation and found herself looking into a pair of determined blue eyes with sadness rimmed around the pupils.
Already the Georgia heat was rearing its ugly head. The pitiful ceiling fan in Beth's room was doing its damnedest to circulate the air but everything still felt sticky to her. The burning water had kept her chest pain at bay but she could already feel it slithering back into her body. Existing on autopilot, she pulled a light tee over her head followed by tugging a pair of jeans over her hips.
Everything that had transpired over the weekend felt as though it belonged in an alternate universe, or maybe an extended dream. But there were little pieces of reality staring Beth in the face that forced her to acknowledge what had happened. The moment she settled into the driver's seat of her car, she was overcome by the lingering scent of Dixon. Pale bruises decorated her arm like dark flowers where Dixon's brother had roughly grabbed her.
Beth hadn't expected to like Dixon this much- not even in terms of a potential relationship, but because of who he was. Even worse was the fact that she sincerely missed him. She missed their verbal sparring and gentle flirting at the bar.
She missed the way his eyes crinkled into genuine amusement when he laughed at something she'd said. In a small town such as hers, Beth often felt crushed under the expectations of her parents and the unflinching reality that she probably would never get the chance to leave Georgia for good. Her deep-rooted sense of family would keep her here, as well as the simple fact that there just wasn't enough money to support her going out-of-state for college.
Dixon had somehow found the chink in Beth's silver armor. He was the unpredictable element that had flown in so suddenly and then disappeared just as quickly. Her satisfaction with a normal life was irrevocably affected by that moment in July where she had unknowingly kissed her teacher.
It had awoken a thirst deep within her for more in life. She could date as many skinny, awkward seventeen year old boys as she wanted but it would never amount to the genuine chemistry that she'd discovered with Dixon.
After initially discovering that she'd kissed her teacher, Beth had been overcome with shame- but never regret. Beth now took that and built it into something stronger; something powerful. If she'd been taught anything from the surreal weekend she'd had, it was that Dixon hadn't forgotten about the summer either. More than that, an unconscious voice whispered to Beth that he wasn't ready to move on from their connection.
She decided that she wasn't ready to move on, either. She wasn't going to give up on him just yet.
Despite the fact that Erin had been drinking heavily over the weekend, she appeared clear-eyed and glossy-haired in Dixon's tenth bell. That girl is a chameleon, Beth thought wryly.
"Welcome," Erin smirked.
Once again, Beth was struck by how easily people could slip into masks. She distinctly remembered how concerned Erin had been the last time they'd talked. Part of Beth sensed that this was Erin giving her space. She was not naive enough to believe that the topic of Dixon was permanently retired, but for the moment Erin wasn't pursuing answers. And for that Beth was ridiculously grateful.
"Something tells me that you could descend into Hell itself and come back without even a flyaway hair," Beth said sweetly. Erin rolled her eyes.
The chattering reluctantly dropped to a lower volume the moment Dixon swept into the room. Beth had not spotted Dixon a single time all day, but her mind had been constantly occupied with what would happen during tenth bell. She'd wondered if he would appear disheveled or if his charismatic energy would be muted.
However it would appear that Erin wasn't the only one who had slipped on a mask. Dixon was standing straight and dressed handsomely in a charcoal gray vest topped off with a black bowtie. Wisps of dark hair fell across his eyes in that certain way that posed a dastardly threat to every pair of ovaries in the room.
Beth watched Dixon carefully as he unloaded his bag and haphazardly spread papers over his desk. He was smiling, but her stomach was thrown for a loop when she realized he wasn't looking at her side of the room.
"So as I recall," Dixon began without any kind of preamble, "On Friday I assigned scenes four through six from Macbeth. I'm assuming that no one read them."
The class tittered. One brave soul rose his hand. "Mr. Dixon, aren't you not supposed to say the name of the play?"
Dixon's eyebrow rose. "Oh, you mean Macbeth? I shouldn't say Macbeth? Is that what you're saying, Newman- not to say the word Macbeth?"
"I think I heard you have to knock on wood if you say it," a blonde girl chimed in.
"No you have to run around the room twice," corrected a nerd in the corner.
Dixon laughed and settled himself on the edge of his desk. Beth continued to watch him, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks but not caring if someone noticed. Dixon still had not looked over at her a single time. It was bizarre comparing the upbeat man before her to the heart broken one he'd been only twenty four hours ago.
"You're letting the language have power over you," Dixon told them, crossing his arms. Beth couldn't help but notice the way his button-up sleeves strained over his toned forearms. "That is superstition. It's not real. However when you think it's real, then you're giving it power. You are submitting to the words."
Dixon paused for effect. Beth scanned the classroom; a few students clicked open their pens and were scribbling notes down. She had to admit to herself that Dixon was a really good teacher. He was young, but he had a way with words that really impacted those around her.
And Dixon had something that could only be seen in really good teachers- sometimes while she watched him teach, he'd get deeply lost in his lesson. The way he spoke of classic literature and its many themes and characters, one might think that they were real living, breathing people. Beth could see him falling under as he spoke of Macbeth.
"Now, I'm sure you all just think I'm rambling on aimlessly. But now I'm about to blow your minds and connect the circle. You see- in act three of scene four, what happens to Macbeth?"
"A ghost shows up," said some guy from the back row.
A few kids giggled at his lazy terminology but Dixon pointed at him. "Exactly! A ghost shows up. And not just any ghost. Banquo. And what happens? Macbeth starts talking to Banquo's ghost and all of the people at his feast think he's crazy."
"And then his lady starts telling him to stop being a nutcase," inserted a girl from the front row.
"Yes! And I bet no one can quote to me what Macbeth says to explain why he's talking to someone that isn't there?" Dixon prompted.
The answer came from the far right side of the classroom, causing several pairs of eyes to turn clockwise. Beth heard her own voice speaking clearly to a very quiet room: "Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends, I have a strange infirmity which is nothing to those that know me."
It was the first time that Dixon looked at her side of the room. His dark eyes collided with Beth's. For a moment the room was deathly quiet, a strange energy crackling in the air between Dixon and Beth. Somehow beneath Beth's decision to speak up was a challenge towards Dixon. She stared unflinchingly back at him.
"And can you explain what that means?" Dixon said, his voice an octave lower.
"Macbeth is trying to tell his friends and those around him to not worry about him. The reason he's acting strangely is because of a disease- but that is a lie. There's much more going on underneath, he just doesn't want to appear weak."
Beth was very aware of the double meaning of her words, and she didn't care that she was calling Dixon out on his actions from yesterday in front of his entire tenth bell class. To everyone else it just sounded like a very in-depth analogy on a line from scene three of Macbeth. But it was clear to Erin- and especially Dixon- that Beth was provoking him.
"That is correct," Dixon said after a moment of silence. His eyes wandered over Beth's face, lingering just enough so that his mask quivered. For the briefest of seconds Beth saw a cloud pass over Dixon's expression but before she could even register this, the fake smile was fastened right back into place.
Beth felt a pair of eyes staring into her skull. She turned to find Erin looking at her with wide eyes. After an outburst like that, there would be no telling how incessant Erin's questions were going to be. But Beth wasn't fazed. She was drawn back into the lesson, where she took notes and listened respectfully for the final forty-five minutes of class.
It wasn't until Beth was halfway home that her phone buzzed from a text. She took her eyes off the road for a split second to check who had texted her and very nearly swerved off the road. For the sake of other drivers on the road, Beth pulled off and threw the car into park. She sat there staring at her phone, feeling her fingers tremble as she opened the message.
Preston's parking-lot. Now.
Thank you so much to all of my readers! And thank you to those who have reviewed/messaged me about this story. Your words mean so much and so I'm going to keep working on this story. I will update soon!