Page 36 of Wicked Scandal

“You’ll do great. I believe in you, Wilder.”

His head cranks to the left, facing me. “Thank you for believing in me.”

My lips press into a tight smile. “Of course.”

Wilder and I spend the next hour talking about life outside of school and politics. Then, when the conversation takes a turn and he asks about my family, my skin gets clammy and my heart starts racing.

“I don’t talk to my family anymore,” I tell him. “There was no big fall out or anything that could have been done differently, we just live separate lives.”

It hurts to say that out loud, but it’s true. I don’t hate my parents and being an only child, I don’t have siblings to rival with. Life just turned us in separate directions and we all kept moving on without looking back. Now, so much time has passed, I don’t even know who my parents are anymore and I don’t care to know them either.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says with a look of pity on his face. I don’t want that. I don’t want his pity or anyone else’s. I’m alive and I’m healthy and that’s more than I can say for a lot of people who have been through what I’ve been through.

“Don’t be.” My voice is tight. “It just is what it is.”

“You’re right,” he says. “The past is what it is, but the future can be something else. Only you have the power to make sure it’s more than what it once was.”

I think about what he said for a minute, seeing the truth in his words. “So deep,” I tell him. “How is it possible that you’re only eighteen years old and yet you speak like that?”

He chuckles as he grabs his coffee. “I just think too much. That’s what my brother tells me anyway. He’s always telling me to get me out of my head. He jokes that I look as if I am trying to solve the world's problems with a simple answer.”

That sounds like Rome, always dismissive and never deep. I don’t understand how he and Wilder are twins any more than I can comprehend a tomato being a fruit. “So tell me then, when you’re not dissecting life, what goes through that head of yours?”

He lifts a brow. “You want the truth?”

“I’d rather hear the truth than a lie. So yeah, tell me.”

“All right then.” He takes a more serious note. “It’s you.”

My heart does a little flip-flop. “Me?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Lately, you’re all I think about.”

His words warm my heart in a way I can’t explain. I’ve never experienced a sort of comfort and safety like this with another person. He’s saying everything I’ve always wanted someone to say to me. There’s this ache inside me that tells me to quit pushing him away—to stop fighting this. But my brain is at constant war with my heart. I don’t want him to get hurt, but I can’t seem to let him go either.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he gets to his feet. “I shouldn’t put you in this position. I know it’s uncomfortable for you.”

He goes to step forward, but I stop him by grabbing his hand. “Don’t go.”

Curious eyes look down on me as I hold on to him, reveling in the way his soft hand feels against mine. “I think about you a lot, too.”

There. I said it and I can’t take it back.

Wilder pulls me up from the couch, my heart literally ready to flee from my body. I exhale rapidly through my nose, anxiously awaiting his response.

A wide grin spreads across his face. “You do?”

I nod, biting back a smile. “More than I probably should.”

His arm wraps around me and he touches my forehead to his as he closes his eyes. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining whatever this thing is between us.”

It’s hard being vulnerable and it’s especially difficult putting yourself out there for someone you know is off-limits. But is Wilder really off-limits when no one has to know? I like who I am with him and I can’t help the way he makes me feel.

In a moment of honesty, I say, “I thought maybe I was imagining it, too.”

There’s a small part of me that’s wondering if I’m still imagining things. He says he thinks about me, but in what way? The same way he thinks about his friends and family, or someone he has a romantic interest in? Do I give him the same giddy feelings that he’s been giving me? Or am I totally delusional and Wilder is just a student who is worried about his teacher?

Here I am overthinking again. Like Wilder said, this doesn't have to be complicated. Maybe I need to stop making it complicated and just see what happens next instead of trying to plan fifteen steps ahead like I do with Troy. I don’t even know why I try anymore.

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