Word Prompt: Chandelier
Plot Generator—Phrase Catch: Fishing for compliments.
Something True
Chandelier
Last Spring
A simple text could make a person's heart speed up. It happened to Bella at her locker after school, right in front of Alice and Jessica as they waited for the rest of their group.
I need to see you.
She glanced at her friends, deep in a conversation of weekend plans even though it was only Wednesday.
When?
Rosalie and Lauren showed up before the next chime. Bella drifted behind the girls as they exited the building, sneaking a glance at her phone.
Come over.
He didn't simply want to see her, he needed to see her. Now.
They never spent time together three days in a row; they were too careful for that.
In the woods, nearing her neighborhood, she contemplated going home to change her clothes, but she didn't want to waste any time getting to his house. He needed to see her. She needed to see him. She turned down his street instead of the one leading to hers.
She recalled what Rose's brother had told her that humiliating day he'd caught her buying condoms. "Make him earn it," he'd said.
Well, Riley had earned it, she thought. Soon, any day, maybe that very night, she would be ready for him to take her to his bed. She would ask him to.
At first everything was the same. He opened the door before she knocked, he took her backpack from her shoulders, took off her coat, but then he didn't kiss her. The look on his face was cold, similar to the look that came over him the instant after she'd asked him about love.
He was wearing a shirt and tie, his hair combed neatly, his face as clean-shaven as he could get it.
"Who did you tell about us?"
"Nobody."
"People are talking."
Her body stiffened. "That - that's what they do at school. They talk. Remember what you told me about the teachers you used to smoke weed with, how there was talk but nobody really believed it except for the ones doing it? It's the same."
He shook his head. "Bella. Not near the same. I'm hearing it. Faculty is hearing it."
She balled the edge of her dress into her fist. "What should we do?"
"We're against the wall. We have to cool it."
"What - what do you mean, but..." She hadn't meant for her voice to waver so much, hadn't meant to sound so weak, so unsure, so childlike.
"We have to stop what we're doing. For now."
"Okay, but - um..." Her eyes started to tear up. There were a million things to say, no words to say them. They never even got a chance to go out to dinner together. She blinked her tears away—no crying in front of him, no looking more like a child to him.
Fingers to her face, he said. "I'm sorry. We don't have a choice. You understand. Deep down, you understand."
"You said 'for now.' How long? Just until the talk stops? I could stop being your assistant. The talk will stop."
"Quitting as my assistant before the semester's end will only exacerbate the matter. Perhaps not among students, but absolutely among faculty. Right now they think it's a joke, but interest has been piqued."
"How long? Until summer?"
"Until you graduate. After that we'll be free to do what we want."
"A year?"
He nodded. "I'll wait for you."
"Why will you wait for me?" She wanted to hear him say it, tell her he loved her, tell her nobody else could measure up—that was why.
"You know why."
"Because you love me that much? Enough to wait."
"You know how I feel about you. But the fact remains, we're being watched now. We knew this was a risk, didn't we?" When she didn't answer he repeated, "Didn't we?"
"Yes." She couldn't stop the couple of tears that got away. He caught them in his fingers, dragging them across her cheeks.
"It won't be easy for me, either, Bella. I just got over one break up."
"We're breaking up?" She folded her hands together, a bold shooting through her stomach.
"No. No." He pushed her hair back on both sides of her face, a strong hold, and placed a soft kiss on her lips. "We're on hiatus. A leave of absence. Our positions are being held."
It took some effort to fight further tears, but the urge to cry was curbed some by his willingness to wait.
If she had any doubt left that what they had was love, it was gone. As she left his house—left him—knowing she wouldn't return for over a year, it was clear. Love was exactly that. It was something you were willing to wait for, even when it hurt, even when waiting was the last thing you wanted to do.
Still, there she was, halfway between her house and his, wiping her own tears away while she wished he was the one wiping them. How could they go a year without seeing each other privately?
...
Their relationship may have been on hiatus, but that didn't stop the flutters in Bella's chest on Friday afternoon, when like a dutiful assistant, she met him in his classroom.
"Miss Swan," he said, leafing through papers, not looking up at her, not coming over to help her out of her jacket. She hung her jacket on the hook, noticing the carvings in the old wood, initials, some chunks of the wood missing. She'd never noticed before because she'd never hung her coat there before.
"Mr. Biers," she said and tried to smile. She took her normal seat. He dropped papers on her desk, and didn't take his normal seat, didn't turn a desk around to face her, didn't kick back with his feet up, didn't loosen his tie.
"Red-pen those," he said, sitting behind his desk, actually tightening his tie.
"What about the door?" she asked.
"Remains open."
If he would only look at her.
"Riley?" That did it. He looked up. Eye to eye contact. Her pulse picked up its pace.
"Mr. Biers," he said. "I'm sorry."
She examined his stone face. She wanted to see the apology written on him, not just hear it from his lips. A week ago they were on his couch. A few days ago they'd said they loved each other. Two days ago she was contemplating sleeping with him.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, do you?"
"I suppose not." He smiled and she couldn't stand to look at it.
They worked in the least comfortable silence imaginable. A paper shuffling sounded like a scream. Every second she was there, Bella was fighting tears. Her jaw hurt from the stress of flexing. When it was time to go, she placed the stack of papers on his desk, and went to retrieve her coat. She turned before exiting the room.
"I think - I think it's raining out."
"Do you have a friend you can call for a ride?"
She folded her lips into her mouth. She shut the door. Maybe if she did that, just for one second he would act normal.
"Mr. Biers? Do you like my dress at least?" She was trying. He had to notice how hard she was trying. Why couldn't he give her one thing, one small sign he cared.
He turned toward her. "It's a very nice dress."
"Riley," she said, tears pooling "Please."
He stood up. "Bella, you do understand where we are right now, I take it?"
She swallowed.
"This isn't going to work. I no longer need your help after school. During class is enough. You've always been efficient."
Efficient. It seemed that would be the best compliment she would get. The only compliment.
...
In class, every once in a while, Riley would smile at her, but it wasn't the same. He didn't meet her eyes when he did it. He was doing it for show, for the benefit of the other students, so nothing would appear to be out of the ordinary.
Bella, as hurt as she was, kept telling herself that he was behaving this way for them, for their relationship. He was trying to save them by treating her like nothing but a student.
She attempted to do the same. Even when she didn't feel like wearing dresses or skirts, she still put them on. The way she dressed and made her face up and wore her hair were all part of the same show.
Just like an adult, she could do this. She would prove it to him.
When the girls asked her what was wrong at Lauren's sleepover, she told them she was stressed. Finals.
She was lying on her back in her sleeping bag, ready for sleep.
"Perk up, Swan," Alice said, sliding to her stomach on her own sleeping bag, her face next to Bella's. "Two more weeks and we're outta that hell hole for summer. And guess what? Today..." her voice level dropped to a near-whisper. "Jasper told me he loves me." She kissed Bella's cheek. "So no stressed-out friends allowed."
After the girls were asleep, even Jessica who had not long ago tiptoed in, returning from her meet-up with Mike, Bella felt around in her bag for her phone. She couldn't stop herself.
I miss you, she texted, the words glowing in the black of night.
When by Monday she still hadn't received a reply, she told herself it was too risky. For some reason, texting was riskier now than when they were seeing each other. She tried to make sense of it. Maybe faculty knew more than he'd let on. Maybe he was afraid someone would ask to check his phone or something.
She decided not to text him anymore. She would play it the same way he was.
...
The rumors hadn't stopped. They'd grown worse. No longer were they saying that she slept with Mr. Biers, but they were saying she was sleeping around with other teachers. A couple of senior guys who had never given her the time of day asked her out.
She needed someone. She needed Riley.
As the last bell sounded, Bella headed to the bathroom, fixed her hair, waited for the hall to quiet down, and then made her way to Riley's classroom.
The door was closed. She peeked through the narrow, rectangular window above the door. A brunette was inside. Bree, one of the shyest girls in the junior class. Riley beckoned her over to him with the flick of his finger. He helped her out of her jacket.
Bella may have ducked out of the way before he could see her, but she knew what he was doing. He was hanging Bree's jacket up on that hook.
Bella was unaware she was moving until she bumped into the lockers behind her.
Her stomach hurt, breathing gave her trouble, but still she waited in the hall. When Bree exited, Bella followed her outside.
"What did he say to you?" Bella asked.
"Who?"
"Biers."
"He asked me to be his TA," she said in her quiet, breathy way. "He said you were too busy to help with all the work he had."
"Are you going to do it?"
"I don't know. Are you jealous because he asked me?"
"I'm not jealous." But Bella wasn't certain of that. There were too many emotions inside her to understand them or separate them. She walked away from Bree, toward the forest.
The wind beat at her face, the earth below her feet unsteady. Everything inside of her and outside of her felt wrong.
She climbed up onto her fallen tree. There was a barricade in her throat. It was as if she'd swallowed all the dirt in the forest. Not even air could seem to pass through. She was choking on the truth. Something she could no longer deny or make excuses for. She remembered words. Very careful words. You distract me... You're too beautiful.. I want to take you to dinner... I didn't feel like being separated from you... If it feels like love, it is love... This feels precisely like love... You can relax with me... You know how I feel about you.
He isn't waiting for me.
She slid down from the tree.
He doesn't love me.
Arms wrapping her stomach, she pitched forward.
He never did.
All of her emotions mixed with Riley's lies churned her stomach and pumped into her throat. With one hand holding her steady against her tree, she vomited over dead leaves and sticks. She couldn't stop it, her stomach contracting and contracting. Losing her balance, she fell to her knees, catching herself with a palm to the ground. Leaves crunching under her body, she let herself fall to her side. A fallen chandelier, shattering in all directions. Shards of her so tiny, they'd never be found.
She thanked God, or the forest floor, or even the rumors that had spread like wildfire from students to teachers, that she never had sex with Riley Biers.