Law had texted me.
"Where were you yesterday?" He said. "I texted you."
I looked at him philosophically, brandishing a piece of toast I had taken to-go. "Where is anyone, really? In a quantum sense, I was everywhere and nowhere."
"Are you high?"
I smiled.
"You are obligated to tell me." He said, tone unwilling to budge from the subject.
"I'm high on life. Take all you want. It's free."
His eyes narrowed. "Just the other night you were leaping off water towers-" He stopped and a cheeky smirk blossomed across his face. "You got laid."
I grinned, suggestively.
"Was it an older man?"
"What is age, really?" I said and Law instantly checked out of the conversation.
Before we went to our first period class, I grabbed his arm.
"I want to start working seriously on our movie."
"I have. Last time I checked, you were the one running off trying to get your fix like you were some nympho-"
"Okay, okay, sorry," I said. "I want to take it seriously."
He looked down at me skeptically, his eyes dark. "Fine."
"Cool, I'll come over to your place-"
"No. Absolutely not."
"What? Where else would we go?"
"Yours will do."
"No. My place is off limits." I said, firmly. I waited.
His face changed, his sharp features shifting beneath his smooth light, olive skin, and I didn't need him to verbally announce it.
His place it was.
~·~
I saw Mr. Donquixote completely by accident. I was walking between classes on the first floor when we spotted each other in the hall. We both stopped. It was as if the lights dimmed on the river of bodies streaming around us, and we were the only two people left in full colour. Fiery, radiant colour, singeing the screen. All noise and motion blurred away. It felt like a camera circled us, capturing this movie-perfect moment. I started forward again and so did he. We passed each other slowly. We didn't stop or speak. But our arms brushed, and for half a second our fingers curled together, then slipped free, like a secret handshake.
~·~
Leaves shook out of the trees and fluttered around me in gold and green flakes of summer. I rode slowly beside Law, pushing the bike with my feet. The soft clack of the spokes, the groggy drone of bees and locusts, the honey-thick sunlight drizzling over us-I was in love with the world today. A big dumb smile climbed onto my face every time my mind drifted. The air tasted like sherry, sweet and light, a pleasant sting on my tongue.
Law looked up from his phone for the first time since we left school, but didn't deflate my good mood.
We went into town, one or two small towers of glass and metal erected here and there. Law showed me round the back of one building, eight stories high, to where an old bike rack was and I chained my bike. We walked back around to the front of the building, through the glass, double doors and into a large foyer. He casually padded toward the hive of mail boxes on the left wall before signalling me to follow him. We took the elevator up to the fifth floor, the cool slabs of metal sliding in on itself to open out to a long hall, numbered doors stretching down on either side. We stopped at 42.
As soon as I walked through the door, I knew it was Law's home.
Everything was sleek, no colours, just blacks, whites, grays and silvers. There was a slight acidic burn in the air, like cleanliness, sanitiser. A white, pristine rug lay on dark, polished oak floors. A sleek, L shaped lounge sat in the living area, in front of a contemporary gas fireplace, above that, a thirty-two inch flat screen TV. There were no photos, not a single thing that could've been family orientated in sight.
It could have been a bachelor's apartment.
"Law, are your parent rich?" I asked, gawking into his kitchen.
He ignored me.
I grew curious about his family.
His room was simple. A queen sized bed draped with a black quilt, a metal desk with laptop and lamp adorning it. There was a hefty looking bookshelf pushed up against the left wall of his room, shelves lined with books I could only dream of trying to read.
"What, no baked cookies?" I said, as he slung his bag under the desk. He took to the desk chair at the desk, while I was left standing there.
"We're not here to eat. Sit down." He ordered. I looked around the room before sitting on the edge of his bed awkwardly.
"Who do you live with?" I asked.
He looked at me like I was prying. Was I?
"My 'brother.' And we're not here for that either." Brother? Wait, he definitely said it with quotation marks. There was a story behind it, I was sure, but he was right, we didn't come here for cookies or let's-reveal-our-deepest-secrets time.
"So," I said, accentuating the vowels. "What is our film about, Monsieur Auteur?"
"I've been shooting B-roll. I haven't decided on a subject yet."
"A...docufiction?"
"A Cinéma vérité," He said with finesse. "With narrative injected into it."
I looked at him, slightly astounded. Since when was he into films?
"I didn't think you were into films," I said, almost accusingly. "I thought you were all over that biology stuff."
Law flipped his laptop open, punched in a password. "I'm not. And I am."
My head cocked to the side of its own volition. "What?"
"We'll never get this done." He sighed, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose while his long legs stretched out.
A memory leapt to the front of my mind, unbidden. Corazon and I in the motel, in each other's arms, moving together slowly, hypnotically. Jesus. I blushed furiously, but said, "When you don't force it, sometimes amazing things happen."
Law looked at me skeptically again, but I could see something flicker behind his eyes, like he was trying to figure out the meaning of something.
Law's phone skittered across the desk as it vibrated.
We both looked at it.
The name "Kid" lit brightly on the screen.
He didn't touch it.
"Not gonna get that?" I said, cocking an eyebrow, the corners of my lips twitching.
The phone settled after a few seconds, the screen light fading until it blacked out. Law plucked the phone from the desk and tossed it in one of the side drawers.
Note to self: Kid may be an off-limits topic.
Note to self: Ask who Kid is.
I'm obliged to know.
He turned back to the laptop and pulled up a file. I got up and stood beside him. "Is this your B-roll?"
He nodded.
He had a metric shit ton. Half from summer:oceans of wheat rippling in the wind, trains silhouetted against bloody sunsets, even the carnival, eerily deserted in the rain. The rest was from the school year: a swarm of legs, a fist fight we'd seen.
And me.
I was in most of those shots. Staring out windows longingly or giving him my lunatic grin. Sitting in class listening to Mr. Donquixote. In every single on of them my yearning was crystal clear. It burned in me like fever, made my skin glow palely, my eyes blaze, a beautiful madness. I stared at myself, breathless. I wasn't hiding anything.
It was all there in plain sight.
"Is this how you see me?" I said, almost whispering. "As an attention whore?"
"Not necessarily."
"Then why am I in all of these?"
"Because you're the only interesting person here."
I glanced at him. "You can't do much with this except make a film about me."
He eyed me sideways, too. "I fail to see your point."
"I want to make something, Law. I don't want to be objectified as some pretty face." My words came out harsh and sibilant, like steam. I hadn't meant to sound so angry.
"Don't be so vain. No one said we were. I'm simply finding different...perspectives." He looked up at me. I let out a huff.
"Okay," I said. "Country heartland. What darkness lurks inside this seemingly pastoral town?"
"Incest." He said. I laughed.
"Cliche," I said. "But probably."
We brainstormed for a few hours before watching some movies for inspiration. Unsurprisingly, Law showed me an old eighties classic called Blue Velvet. Really, he paused on the severed ear and explained, in gruesome detail, just how he would have done it. Funnily enough, he spoke in a clinical sense, rather than some sick psychopath. After we had watched that, he slid the laptop onto my lap and retrieved his phone from the drawer and disappeared down the hall. I took the opportunity to hook my own up to his laptop to charge and met him out in his kitchen. He stood at the open fridge, fingers tapping at the screen of his phone. He tucked the phone into his pocket and tossed me a bottle of chilled water.
"Thanks." I said, setting the bottle down on the counter. "Where's the bathroom?"
"Down there, to the left."
On my way back to the room I snatched up the water.
"Someone is calling you." He said as he lowered into the chair.
"Who?" I asked, after taking a sip, and sat the bottle down beside the bed.
"C."
I grabbed my phone. "I need to take this outside."
"Who's C?"
"Hi Dad," I said exaggeratedly when I answered. "Just a sec."
I could practically hear Corazon's eyebrows go up with a little comic book noise. Fwip. I raced through the living room and flung open the front door.
"Hi," I said, leaning back against the wall. "Sorry about that."
"'Dad'?"
"Thought you would appreciate the Freudian irony."
He laughed softly. His voice, slightly metallic, ran down through my bones and settled warmly in my chest, like bourbon. "I got stuck with a shit-ton of paper work, and I can't stop thinking about you."
You read things in romance novels like He made me melt, knowing this is physically impossible. Girls are not pats of butter. Yet my body was doing a damned fine impression of I Can't Believe It's Not Girl, dissolving against the side of the wall.
"So you called to torture me?"
"I know it's late, but I want to see you."
My eyes widened. "Do we have time for that?"
He laughed again, a little guiltily. "I actually just want to see you. Even if it's only for a minute."
"Yes." I said.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, it's late. And yes, I want to see you."
I pictured him smiling. "Can you meet me?"
Law was transfixed to his own device. I wondered if he was texting that Kid person.
When he finally noticed my return he made a grin so wide he looked like that Cheshire cat, his eyes steady, unwavering, knowing. My heart jumped into my throat.
"What?"
"It's getting late." His gaze felt like that tungsten lamp you see in the interrogation rooms in the movies, burning and melting my face to see the truth hidden deep inside of me. Bringing light to whatever darkness there was.
"Mhm," I hummed, voice unwittingly nervous. I picked my bag up, slung it over my shoulder. "Better get going."
That was easy. I think. At least I didn't even have to try and convince him not to walk me him.
~·~
I stopped at home to brush my teeth and change clothes, because I'm not above vanity. The lights were off, Mom's van gone. I wish she'd never come back.
When I biked out to the water tower he was already waiting. I hopped off and let my bike ride on without me and ran to him. He pulled me down on a blanket he'd spread on the grass. I ended up atop him, my hair in both our faces. He held me, his arms coiling and relaxing, again and again, one hand buried in my hair at the base of my skull. Crickets made a creaking heartbeat around us. Cool aloe musk rose from the grass.
"I've been thinking about this all day." He whispered.
I brushed my cheek against his. The earth sank beneath us, pressed by the weight of the whole universe above. How could it set us up like this, every planet precisely aligned, if it didn't mean for us to collide? His heart crashed against mine, fierce and steady.
I pushed up on my palms. "You've done something to me." My voice was quiet, too, a ribbon of breath threading into the breeze that stirred my hair. " I feel like I'm waking from a long dream and everything is so much more beautiful than I remembered."
His eyes were pale and bright in the starlight. The hand in my hair pulled me into him.
I kissed my teacher in the shadow of the water tower, beneath the stars.
~·~
I've been pretty honest so far, haven't I? So I'll admit it: it wasn't innocent, blind love. His age drew me to him in the first place; now it was his being my teacher that gave me a wild, terrified thrill every time we touched, infusing me with adrenaline, making my skin prickle. The danger was an electrode buried in my brain, lighting up my most primal fear and pleasure circuits. There was more to it, of course. Something was unfolding in me that had never happened before. But I wasn't kidding myself.
The forbiddenness was part of it.
~·~
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky. We propped up our knees side by side. A tiny cut of light opened in the star-freckled face of night, a shooting star. I raised my hand and closed a fist over it. When I opened my fingers, it was gone. Part of me now. You're a creator. Law had seen the person he thought I was, some obsessive, narcissistic teenager. Corazon saw both who I was and who I wanted to be.
"Why did you want to become a teacher?" I said.
He sat up, leaning on his elbow. "There are two types of teachers. The first kind always wanted to be teachers. They train for it. They're passionate, caring, good people." I could hear the smile in his voice, bittersweet. "The second kind wanted to be something else, but couldn't. Crowded field, not good enough, not driven enough. Whatever. But they have a lot of specialized knowledge, so instead of letting it rot, they become teachers."
"Which kind are you?"
"The third kind."
"Like Close Encounters of?"
He frowned. "The kind that doesn't know how he got here or where he's going. I was on my way somewhere else, but a detour came up."
I pulled out my phone. "Where were you going?"
He turned his head, his eyes searching the milky way above. "Are you filming me?"
"I want to document this moment."
He chuckled in defeat, or was it surrender?
"There's no story, really."
"There is. And this is your audition."
"For what?"
"The role of my corrupt teacher. Of the third kind."
He gave me an electric look. Even through the cheap phone camera it made my nerves tingle, lightning lacing up my arms. Our gazes met above the screen.
"I thought I already had the part."
"What? We didn't even get to the casting couch."
His eyes crinkled, his face folding into embarrassed laughter. "You're a predator. I'm pretty sure you're the one corrupting me."
I sat behind my phone, relishing this. My power over him. The strange dynamic of me as the observer, him the observed.
"Why don't you put that away?" He said.
"Why?"
"So you can corrupt me."
I put it away.
"You owe me that story." I said.
He tilted my face. Kissed me lightly on the mouth, then along my jaw, following to my ear. My eyes half-shut, drifting to the carnival lights in the distance. The hot breath in my ear was unbearable, a chemical pulse straight to my spine.
Something rumbled out on the road.
We stiffened, listening. A car going past.
"Kids come here." I whispered, thinking of Law.
Corazon took my hands and pulled me to my feet. Attempted to scoop up the blanket and ending up getting himself tangled in it, his lanky legs pointed out at awkward angles. I laughed, a hearty one, before helping him. I walked my bike toward his car on the shoulder.
"I can't last until Friday." I said. "I need to see you."
He gave a regretful wince, but it had become much less regretful lately, more longing.
"Rent another room," I said. "At a different motel. I'll pay."
"You don't have to do that."
"I want to. This is as much mine as it is yours."
We stared at each other over my bike. Far down the road, two red snake eyes winked in the darkness.
"Okay." His voice was a little strange. "When should I pick you up?"
"As soon as the bell rings."
He reached over and lifted my face and kissed me, so intensely I let the bike fall against him. This was an old-time, black-and-white-movie kiss, with the orchestra swelling in my chest, hot tungsten lamps carving out our shadows. My bones turned to air, nothing holding me up but the fierceness of my desire. God, I just wanted to get into that car with him. Forget this whole fucked-up life and disappear somewhere together. I had to push him away, fight for my breath. Too much. I gave him an agonized look. When he spoke, his voice was guttural.
"I can't hold on to you. You're like that shooting star. Just a trail of fire in my hands."
And he did it. He put the first fine, hairline crack in the ruby of my heart.