"Buy them yourself." Disdainfully the girl swept out off the stage in a huff, pulling her gloves on and disappearing stage left.

"I'm afraid you've spoiled that girl, Henry. But never mind, dear. I'll buy you the tie and gloves."

Finnick preened happily, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Oh don't bother. She'll buy them all right." He leaned in and kissed the girl on the cheek. "Goodbye!" The girl walked off behind the other one, leaving Finnick alone in the middle of the stage. He jangled some change in his pockets with a self-satisfied smile. The curtains closed to him and the darkened auditorium erupted in applause.

Johanna stood up, sticking her fingers in her mouth to push out a loud whistle. The curtain reopened to reveal the full Pygmalion cast, with Finnick in the center. He and the girl who played Eliza Doolittle, a cute little brunette freshman, bowed together to more applause. Finnick bent down to receive a rose and Johanna saw the bright red hair even from her seat a few rows back. He got down on all fours to kiss Annie and took the rose in his mouth.

After the usual handshake and back-clapping that accompanied the end of a play, Johanna and Katniss stood in the hallway, waiting for Finnick and Annie. After each of his plays they'd all go to a restaurant outside of town that served minors and eat terrible food and drink into the night. Katniss's back was flat against the cold stone of the school, Johanna's arms wrapped around her waist. They stood nearly connected at the hips, their legs alternating between each other. Katniss slung her arm over Johanna's shoulder, smiling as she placed a small kiss in her hair.

Johanna leaned in and rested her head against Katniss, looking down the hallway in the opposite direction. Her attention was caught by a blonde woman with her coat draped over her hands. She was speaking with two of the cast member's parents, smiling and nodding in the conversation. Casual Cressida was an interesting creature. By virtue of her half-shaved head you would think she might be a student, perhaps an older sibling come home from college. But the way she spoke, with carefully calculated authority, demanded respect and forced people to listen to her.

They caught glances and she saw Cressida smile at her. Her hair was braided in the center, the rest of the blonde locks falling over her right shoulder as they normally did. She wore a tight fitting black dress with a small set of lace at the bottom covering the middle of her thighs, and some at the top to go over her clavicle. Her wrists were alight with a silver watch, the other with several silver bracelets jangling together as she spoke.

Her shoes, black and pointed with a very slim heels clicked against the tile as she bid the couple adieu and crossed toward Johanna. Johanna lifted herself off Katniss, untangling their legs. Cressida smiled as she approached, flicking her eyes toward Katniss, who was oblivious to her presence, then back to Johanna. "Good evening, Mason, Katniss."

Katniss straightened her posture and stood next to Johanna, giving Johanna's teacher a smile. "Hi."

"Did you both enjoy the play?" She looked from one teenager to the other, her eyebrow raised in question.

Johanna shrugged. "I guess." In fairness, she had fallen asleep during one of the acts. She wasn't particularly proud of that but she had been up the entire night before studying for a test and the heat in the auditorium, coupled with the darkness and Katniss's comfortable shoulder, she had dozed off.

"Always such a spirited discussion with you," Cressida teased, darting her blue eyes over to Katniss. "Miss Everdeen?"

Katniss looked at Johanna, then to Cressida. "I like the movie better. But Finnick was very good."

"I agree, Mr. Odair seems to be built for that role. His English accent was spot-on as well." Cressida narrowed her eyes toward Johanna. "How is the script coming along? Have you read it?"

Johanna nodded and perked up. "It's actually amazing. The dialogue is so ...so lyrical. I'm not having any problems thinking of songs. It practically writes itself."

Cressida failed to hide a small blush on her cheeks as her eyes went to the floor. Her eyes came back up to Johanna's. "Well thank you. I consider that high praise indeed. I look forward to the full report on Monday."

Johanna cocked an eyebrow and smirked. Katniss watched uneasily at the comfortable banter between the two of them. Unlike when she and Johanna first met, Johanna was not intimidated by Cressida. Not like the rest of the students who Katniss had heard call her an "ice queen" or just plainly a bitch. One time she had even witnessed Johanna vehemently defending the teacher - who apparently didn't have a last name - to some jock she hated. Johanna was never one to take up a cause.

Cressida watched as Katniss slipped an arm around Johanna's waist, a protective maneuver that wasn't entirely wasted on her. Johanna seemed typically oblivious, simply leaning into the contact. "Are you trying to give me homework?"

Cressida chuckled and shook her head, her blonde curls bouncing on her shoulder as she did so. "Hardly. Though even if I was, you'd come up with some excuse to get yourself an extension, wouldn't you?"

Johanna slid her tongue along her bottom row of teeth and tilted her head to the side. "Is it my fault that you're a pushover?"

Cressida's mouth opened into an offended 'o' shape, her cheeks dimpling as she did so. Before she could answer Finnick strode up behind them, his arm wrapped around Annie's waist. He had a few smudges of lipstick on his cheeks from the adoration of a few overzealous mothers but he was grinning from ear to ear. "Cressida! Did you enjoy my savant performance? Some have compared it to Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. Would you like to comment?"

He extended his fist as if he held a microphone and Cressida laughed, leaning forward to speak into the microphone. "I shall refrain from commenting until Mr. Odair finally turns in his homework from two weeks ago." Finnick dropped his pretend microphone and looked up at the woman sheepishly. "Don't think I'd forgotten, Odair. But you were very good. Congratulations."

"Thank you! Now we," he slung his free arm around Johanna's shoulders, "are going to celebrate at McDougal's. Would you like to join us? The first round is on me."

Johanna's body tensed enough that both Finnick and Katniss tossed her glances. Cressida smiled and ducked her head. "Ah thank you, but I think fraternizing with the students at a bar where this is underage drinking is a violation of many laws. Coriolanus Snow would have my head on a platter."

Finnick leaned in covertly and grinned. "What Snow doesn't know doesn't kill him."

"Unless he didn't know he was being poisoned," Johanna supplied casually, prompting a round of stares from everyone. "What? It was a hypothetical."

"I will unfortunately have to decline the offer. All of you have fun and please be safe." Cressida moved around the quartet of students and weaved in and out of the jacketed people still populating the hallway outside the auditorium. Johanna watched her go over Finnick's shoulder, then turned back to her friends.

"All right. Let's go booze it up!"

Settle down with me, cover me up.

March roared into Panem with a series of thunderstorms, all of which kept Johanna inside her home, even during the school day. She had crossed many hurdles following her attack but the sound of a thunderstorm still rattled her bones to the very core. She picked up her phone off her bed and stared down at her contacts. Typically during rainstorms Katniss would talk to her over the phone or borrow Gale's truck and drive to her house. Katniss, unfortunately, was out to dinner with her mother and sister and had been instructed to "leave her phone at home." Finnick and Annie were on a date to the movies.

With a sigh Johanna pressed a button and waited as the other side rang.

Cressida loved a rainstorm. It was the perfect time to draw a bath and devour a good book, as well as copious amounts of wine. Her right hand held the chalice of wine, occasionally putting it to her lips. Her eyes remained trained on the novel in her left hand, her guilty pleasure of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, as she sat beneath the fluffy white foam. With a sigh she placed the book on the small table next to the claw-foot tub, reaching over to place her wine next to the novel. She settled into the bath, allowing the bubbles to inch up her neck like a ringed Victorian collar. The blonde woman made a mental note to allow Johanna to borrow the novel; she had enjoyed Tipping the Velvet so she would probably love Fingersmith.

Her free hand fingered the well-worn spine of her novel, while she dragged her other hand beneath the water, flattening her palm against her stomach. Her first year teaching had gone surprisingly well. Not that she thought lowly of herself; quite the opposite, she thought she would excel. The only kink in her plan was this affection she had developed for a student. It wasn't necessarily an attraction she told herself as her hand tickled the flesh of her inner thigh. It was more of a kindred spirits type of relationship.

Cuddle me in.

Admittedly, the first time she had seen Johanna at the club she had been attracted to her. Dark brunettes who could sing like that were a weakness of Cressida's since her childhood. Then to find her not only an old soul but a matching sarcastic personality... Cressida's head tipped back as she slipped her index and middle finger inside her folds and she exhaled a quiet sigh. She dipped her fingers into her own arousal moved the heads of her fingers upward, rubbing her clit in slow semi-circles. Her left hand gripped the side of the tub, curling around the edge as she pushed herself toward orgasm.

Her phone jangled obnoxiously next to her and Cressida startled so hard she knocked it clear onto the tile. "Fuck." Quickly she leaned out of the tub, dripping water on to her floor as she grabbed her phone. She eyed the number and let out a long groan. This was not what she needed halfway to making herself climax. She pressed the button and put the phone to her ear, sliding back into the tub. "Hello?"

"It's weird that people still say that like it's a question. You have my number. You know it's me." Cressida rolled her eyes at Johanna's logic, watching the bubbles as the crested against the edge of the tub, upset at her nearly falling out of the tub to get her phone.

"It's weird that one of my students calls me at nine in the evening."

"Don't give your number to students, then."

Cressida smirked. "Touche."

"Your voice sounds weird." Cressida blushed, watching the red skin move across her breastplate. Did she really sound weird? "You sound kind of out of breath. Were you working out?"

Cressida chuckled. "No. If you must know, I'm in the bath. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

Johanna laid back in her bed, trying to ignore the rolls of thunder above her head. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think, Mason? I'm taking a bath."

"My baths usually don't make me sound so breathless."

"Perhaps you aren't doing it right then."

"Wow. I'm a little offended." Johanna grinned on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. The imagery of what she thought Cressida was doing definitely helped wipe away the storm clouds in the sky. "How should I do it then? You are my teacher, correct? Teach me."

Lie down with me and hold me in your arms.

"You are treading on thin ice, Mason."

"Don't I always? C'mon, you can tell me. We're not at school and we're not prissy little virgins. Self-love is normal and natural. I bet you even light a shit ton of candles."

Cressida eyed the very flames Johanna was blindly referring to. "I will hang up this phone, Johanna."

"I could help."

Cressida shifted her weight in the tub, eager to scratch the itch that she herself had started before being rudely interrupted. Johanna's come ons were no help. "Is there a reason for this call?"

Johanna reached over to the table beside her bed and grabbed Cressida's script. "I'm finished with your script. I thought we could get together and start putting the songs together. I've got some stuff written out in my composition notebook. It's not much but you can let me know."

"That sounds wonderful. Spring break is in a week, correct?" Cressida didn't wait for an answer. "How about Monday you come to my house and we will start working on it?"

"You assume I'm not doing some kind of debauchery doing my spring break? I'm eighteen! I could go to Cancun!"

"Are you?"

"...No."

"Wonderful. I'll see you in a week then. I'll e-mail you my address. Good night, Johanna."

"Good night." Johanna went to hang up the phone and put it quickly back to her ear. "Wait, Cressida?"

Cressida, one hand beneath the water and the other holding her phone, sighed loudly. "Yes, Johanna?"

"The shower head is usually more effective." Click.

Cressida stirred the soup in her pot slowly, gradually allowing all the vegetables to get to know one another and share their juices. It had been ready nearly twenty minutes earlier, but Johanna was in the other room pounding away at the piano with such focused intensity she hadn't wanted to stop her. A quick glance out her kitchen window saw the beginning droplets of a rainstorm. Pity, it had been such a nice day, too.

Lie down with me and hold me in your arms.

A loud crash of thunder rumbled over the house and Cressida heard the piano stop. In the same beat the rain began pouring down in buckets, sloshing the grass and smashing against the tiles of the roof. Cressida went into the living room, about to open her mouth to discuss the weather when she caught sight of Johanna. Her body was white as a sheet, shaking as she pulled her jacket over her shoulders and pushed her arms through the sleeves. "Are you leaving?"

"Yeah I...the rain..." Cressida furrowed her eyebrows and looked out the large bay window at the rain. There was no way you could even see your hand in front of your face, never mind drive in this kind of downpour.

"You can't possibly leave in the middle of this thunderstorm, Johanna. There's no way you and that rear-wheel-drive machine will make it down the block." Cressida moved to the window, pushing back the sheer white curtain. "The street is already flooding." Johanna bit her lip and wrapped her arms around her midsection. Something had her completely spooked. Her brown eyes were darting in every direction, like a mouse trying to gauge an exit strategy. Cressida smiled. "Are you afraid of a thunderstorm?"

"No," she shot back with venom, and Cressida visibly bristled at the offended tone Johanna took. Her eyes squeezed shut and it looked like she was trying to will herself to stop shaking.

Something unsettling began rooting around in Cressida's stomach. The way Johanna was trembling and looking scared was not right. The smile faded from her lips as she took a tentative step toward the younger girl. "Johanna, is everything okay?" The lights above their head flickered and went off and through the lightning's glare outside, Cressida saw the look of pure horror cross her face. Johanna began to bolt for the exit and Cressida grabbed her by the shoulders. "Johanna you can't go out in this weather."

And your heart's against my chest, your lips pressed to my neck.

Johanna wrenched from her but it felt like holding a kite in the wind, little resistance. "N-no, please, you have to let me go. I can't..."

"You can't what? Johanna, you can talk to me. You're safe here." Johanna looked into her eyes and Cressida tried to piece together what was frightening the girl. Had her father died in a rainstorm? No, he died overseas. The words 'you're safe here' seemed to mollify her only slightly so she tried it again, her voice softer. "Nothing can harm you in here. Not the rain, not the thunder." Slowly she let go of Johanna, afraid she would bolt out the door if she wasn't being restrained. Contrarily, she looked relieved to be unhanded. "I have a 'shit ton' of candles, remember? I'll light a few."

Cressida moved away from her to retrieve her lighter, leaving Johanna alone in the living room. She sat down on the couch, still hugging herself close. Cressida reappeared quickly, lighting the various candles around the room. A lot of them were scented and the smell in the room was probably going to be bizarre, but the violent way Johanna had reacted to the dark erased her concerns.

Once they were all lit, she sat next to her student who seemed fixated on the orange glow of the room. The shadows danced against her walls, highlighting random photo frames of photography she enjoyed and had hung around the room. They let a long silence fill between them as the thunder rolled outside, each time making the younger girl shudder. "If I tell you something, you promise not to tell anyone else?"

I'm falling for your eyes, but they don't know me yet.

Cressida looked over at her, surprised by her words. She looked so tormented, Cressida wanted to bundle her up and protect her from whatever demons were waging inside her eyes. "Of course."

"Last year, this girl..." Johanna trailed off, looking down at her shoes. "This girl that I used to have ...a sort of relationship with. It wasn't anything real or romantic or anything. Just fucking." Johanna sighed, chuckling sadly at her own expense. "A lot of fucking. I guess that was easier than admitting there was something wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with a healthy sex life, even if you are a little young."

Johanna dragged her eyes up Cressida's legs, passed her body, to her face. "It wasn't healthy. It was fucked up. We just used each other. At first it was all the time. Every few days... Then I got kind of tired of her? So we only hooked up when we were drunk, at parties and stuff. After I met Katniss... never again. Well once, but before we were together."

Cressida nodded for her to continue. "It was just always so violent. When we were sober it was ...just about power. Making her come was more about seeing how badly I could hurt her before she would break." Johanna's voice fell silent and Cressida didn't move. She barely dared to breathe. "I guess she was jealous because I didn't want to fuck her anymore. She didn't like to see other people happy, especially not me. So one night she came to my house.. it was raining really hard outside. Thunder... She shows up with..." Johanna squeezed her fists together to stop them from shaking. Gently Cressida placed her hand on top of Johanna's trembling hands. "The power went out and I couldn't see her. I didn't see the gun..."

"Oh my God," Cressida breathed out quietly, rubbing a small circle with her thumb along the front of Johanna's hand.

"How could I have been so stupid? I was just so stupid and fucking scared and I thought she'd hurt Katniss if I didn't." Johanna's voice broke, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. "She just...for hours. Making me fuck her and choking me and holding me down." Sadness quickly began to ebb into anger. "You know what the worst part was? I actually orgasmed. At least once. I actually got off on her sick fucking rape. I felt so disgusted with myself I wanted to throw up but nothing ever came up. She just laughed in my face, telling me how clearly I was enjoying it. That 'this is who I am' some sick pervert who likes to be hurt."

"I truly hope you don't believe that," Cressida said quietly, using her free hand to stroke Johanna's hair. "None of what happened to you is your fault." Johanna shot her a disdainful look. "Really. You weren't stupid. You were scared. You were trying to protect yourself and Katniss. And the ..." Cressida cleared her throat. "The reaction you had, is completely normal. The body doesn't understand. Usually making love is mental but sometimes the body does what it is programmed to do. And it's not as if you were unfamiliar with her so in some respect, it was your brain trying to do you a favor. Trying to create some sort of pleasure."

"That is so thoroughly fucked."

Cressida rubbed her palm along Johanna's spine in soothing movements. This was not what she thought would happen when she had Johanna come over. She could not have foreseen sitting in the dark with this beautiful, broken girl sobbing because of some disgusting act committed upon her. "Thank you for trusting me with that. I want you to know that I think you're very brave." Johanna scoffed and looked away, wiping the tear on her cheek with her shoulder. "Look at me, please." Slowly Johanna obliged. "Every story worth reading has a plot twist, be it tragic or otherwise. Every interesting person has a little bit of brokenness inside them. It is that brokenness that allows us to call to others to fix us."

"What's yours?"

Cressida shook her head. "What's my what?"

Johanna's lip curled only slightly. "Your plot twist."

Cressida smiled and ran her fingers through Johanna's hair, twirling a strand of it around her finger. Johanna's eyes fluttered at the contact, seemingly finding it soothing. Cressida continued to play with her hair as she spoke. "When I was sixteen I came out as a lesbian to my parents. They immediately disowned me and kicked me out of the house."

Johanna felt both privileged to be on the receiving end of this information and simultaneously disgusted. She was always grateful for not only her mother's acceptance, but her encouragement and support. Too many young men and women had stories like Cressida's. "Whoa. That's heavy."

And with I'll feeling I'll forget, I'm in love now.

Cressida chuckled and nodded. "Seems like ages ago. And yet, I can feel it like it was yesterday. I was just so offended, you know? Like, Mom, Dad, I'm the same little girl that you bought a bright pink bicycle for when I was ten. I'm the same little girl that took horseback riding lessons and loves Snickers bars and dancing. How can you all of a sudden not love me anymore over something I can't control?"

"What happened after?"

Cressida sighed, leaning into the plushness of her leather couch. Johanna shifted her weight and then placed her head in her teacher's lap. The comfort, the warmth, the acceptance there was like a balm to her nerves. Cressida continued playing with her hair, smiling fondly down at the young girl. "Well I moved to Los Angeles. I faked some documents so the school would think I had a home and I slept in my car for two years until I graduated."

"Holy shit."

Cressida laughed quietly. "Holy shit is right. Then I applied to colleges while I worked full-time at this awful dive bar on the strip. Got a full ride to UCLA, got my bachelor's, went and got my master's and my doctorate simultaneously over the next four years. Graduated near the top of my class for all three degrees. Never saw my parents again."

"Really?" Johanna asked, turning over so she was face-up looking at her teacher. "Never?"

"Nope. They couldn't support me when I was at my most vulnerable they surely do not deserve me at my most successful. At any level of success, really. They've sent me e-mails over the years, reaching out to me. But..I just cannot. I want to forgive them but I will never be able to look in their eyes and see the same people. And I know they couldn't control themselves. I know that deep down, they were more disappointed in themselves thinking they had failed as parents. Which is stupid, too. But I can't forgive them. So instead, I love myself. I define myself by my own successes and failures, not the ones they projected on me."

A rumble of thunder made Johanna squeeze her eyes shut. "That seems like the mature thing to do."

Cressida stroked the young girl's hair, her other arm now stretched along the back of the couch. "It took me a lot of years to be okay with myself."

"Now you're okay with yourself in the bath and everything." Johanna's lips curled into a grin and Cressida stared down at her, open-mouthed.

"You cheeky thing." Another roll of thunder made the girl beneath her tremble and Cressida heaved out a sigh. "You know what? I have an old radio around here somewhere. Battery operated." She patted Johanna's stomach. "Up you go, I'll go find it. We can do some dancing until this rain lets up."

Johanna sat up and Cressida left the room with silent footsteps, rummaging around in a closet blindly. After a few minutes of clanging around and swearing at her disorganization, Cressida emerged with a battered looking portable radio. Triumphantly she raised it in the air and entered the room again. She placed the radio on top of the piano and turned it on, trying to find any station coming in clearly over the rain.

The soft guitar strummed loudly, a soft bass drum thumping in the background. Cressida eyed Johanna warily, but the young girl didn't seem fazed. "Not up for a slow jam?" Johanna opened her arms. "Come on, I don't bite."

Kiss me like you wanna be loved.

Cressida wrapped her arm around Johanna's waist, holding Johanna's free hand in hers. She pulled their clapsed hands in and held them to her chest, leading Johanna in a soft almost-waltz around the candlelit room. With anyone else this would have been terribly romantic. Cressida kept reminding herself that this woman, this girl, was her student. This was not some girl she had chased home. This was not okay.

But it felt okay.

Johanna rested her head on the crook of Cressida's shoulder, attempting to move with agility since Cressida seemed to move so naturally. Just like Cressida, part of this poked at her conscience. How could see share such feelings for someone other than Katniss? The feelings she had for Cressida, which moved fluidly from lust to affection to friendship with startling elasticity, were not appropriate for someone in a committed relationship.

This feels like fallin' in love.

Settle down with me and I'll be your safety. You'll be my lady.

Cressida sat on the edge of the piano bench, watching Johanna's hands move across the ivories. It was strange to see such hands, a little rough in their appearance, unpainted nails at uneven lengths, create such fluid beauty. The song was forlorn with just a bit of hope sparkling out of the notes at random intervals. Johanna was humming a melody along with it, accompanying herself wonderfully. Cressida took the glass of wine from on top of the piano and took a sip as Johanna stopped abruptly. She stuck the end of a pen in her mouth and pulled off the cap, making a scribbled notation in the sheet music in front of her.

Johanna looked frustrated. The music was coming along beautifully. It somehow matched the aesthetic Cressida had in her head without her ever having verbalized it. Johanna was certainly the first person to accurately get inside her head. It was unnerving. "I want it to sound like the mockingjays. This girl is trying to get the other to love her. She wants her to mirror that love back like the mockingjays mirror sound. She says I love you, she wants to hear I love you." Johanna gently played a few more notes.

Cressida turned to her, eyes wide. "So how does one make a mockingjay sing?"

Johanna turned her body to face Cressida, pulling her leg up between them to rest her calf on the piano bench. She was so close she could taste the faint hint of grapes on Cressida's breath. "You sing it a melody for only the mockingjay to hear. You whisper it a song so sweet it intrinsically needs to sing it back. So here, you give her something something she needs. She has to say something that the girl wants to hear so badly that she'll repeat it in her bones until it bursts forth from her mouth."

"Like a kiss." Johanna raised her eyebrow in confusion. "Like a first kiss. That tentative first melody of your lips on that person's. Hoping that they will sing that kiss back to you in perfect harmony. Even if it's clumsy or ugly with passion, it will sound like a symphony because your heart will play it as such." Cressida didn't know when her voice had dropped to a whisper. Something about the moment they were in seemed to be quiet with unspoken tension.

I was made to keep your body warm.

Things between them had been altered since the night of the rainstorm. Johanna's abrasive attitude seemed more rounded than the sharp-edged sword normally was. Cressida had attempted to keep her distance but it was of no use. Almost every third day Johanna would show up at her door, bursting in with a flourish of "listen to this!" and play something magical on her piano.

Cressida enjoyed watching Johanna work. It was truly like being in the presence of genius. When she focused on her music she became like a swirling tornado, solely attuned to one thing. Her deep cedar eyes would be looking at you but she couldn't see you. She was seeing notes in the air or watching the vibration of a violin's string in her mind's eye. Cressida would just casually grade papers, making a comment where she felt necessary.

My head's against your chest, your lips pressed to my neck.

Johanna was unlike anyone Cressida had ever known. She was tortured and brilliant and funny and wise. She carried with her the torch of wisdom but yet the wide-eyed innocence of youth. Her moral stance of their friendship teetering into another territory stumbled nearly every day she saw her. She felt like a rock against the raging swirl of Johanna's ocean, slowly being eroded away and not bothering to move.

She never spoke of Katniss when they were together. The times she did, it was laced with betrayal. That Katniss's uncertainty of their future was somehow a knife in Johanna's back. To Cressida though, it seemed like projection. Katniss's openness about her nervousness over their ability to conduct a long term relationship only furthered Johanna's guilt that she didn't think they could, either.

I'm falling for your eyes, but they don't know me yet.

Johanna surged forward, kissing Cressida with the same funneled passion she had for music. Her lips moved like song, all rhythm and driving purpose. This kiss was not a symphony, it was a march. She felt fingers tangling her hair, sucking in a quick breath as they broke apart to switch angles, their lips connecting more softly the second time. While Johanna's hands were wrapped in her hair, her own hands were clutching the piano bench underneath them for support. Her lungs combusting from the lack of oxygen getting to her ribcage. If she was against Johanna's ocean before, now she was inside it, drowning and allowing the salty darkness to consume her.

Cressida heard herself curse into the kiss and felt the curl of Johanna's lips against hers. A pair of pearly whites clamped down on her bottom lip, a soft warm tongue flicking the flesh before she plunged her tongue back into Cressida's mouth. Her nails scraped against the base of Cressida's neck, eliciting shudders down her spine that she could neither control nor stop. The warning in her brain of how wrong this was began screaming like an alarm in a nuclear reactor about to go supercritical.

Kiss me like you wanna be loved.

When they broke apart in need of air to breathe, Johanna couldn't help the wideness of her eyes as she looked into Cressida's blue ones. She hadn't meant to kiss her. It just had felt inevitable. Like the urge to step in front of an oncoming train, but usually your brain tells you no. It tells you to step back. Johanna didn't listen to it and instead thrust herself in front of the train with gusto. With abandon.

"I think you should go," Cressida stated with some finality, getting up from her position on the piano bench. "I'd like to continue working with you on this project but... this cannot continue. Things cannot continue as they are."

"Why not?" Johanna asked, balking at Cressida's calm authority. Had she not just swooned in her kiss?

Cressida began filing Johanna's music into a folder and handed the stack of papers to the younger girl. "You are my student. It was wrong of me to ask you to do this, but obviously I cannot take that back now. Not that I would, this has all been beautiful. I've just let things spiral out of control."

Johanna got up from the bench, taking the folder from Cressida. She still wore a mask of confusion. Confusion at her reaction, confusion at the kiss. "I hardly call a little kiss spiraling out of control, Cress."

"Are you going to tell Katniss?" The immediate falling of Johanna's face as confirmation enough for Cressida. "Exactly. That was not some little kiss. That was a student and a teacher not only fraternizing outside of school hours, but at my house, with your tongue in my mouth. We have, well I have, literally broken the law. I am trained to reflect this behavior, not encourage it. Beyond that, I've made you feel like you've betrayed your girlfriend."

"Fuck, Cressida it's not like we had sex, relax."

Cressida rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "It was completely unethical and unprofessional of me, do you understand? I think that we should not see each other until the school year is over. Then we can resume work, if you want. If you're uncomfortable, I understand."

"Fine." Cressida felt helpless. She felt like she was standing outside the gates of some forbidden city watching the larger-than-life doors close in front of her. Where once she had been allowed inside Johanna's walls, she was being closed out. That was for the best though. "See you at school." Johanna tore out of Cressida's house, angrily throwing the folder of music into her backseat and she got into her car. Her engine grumbled to life and she took off down the street, sending the smell of burning rubber high into the air.

When had her life become such a cliched mess?

Music: "Kiss Me" by Ed Sheeran.