Page 90 of Romance Languages

“I’ve always had a little crush on you, Seamus, but I kept it tucked away. When we started our sessions, I told myself you were doing this as a good friend. This was only about physical stuff. But this past month has been incredible, and it’s made me open my heart in ways I didn’t think possible. You make me feel like I’m sexy and powerful and someone special. I like who I am with you.” I exhaled a breath. “I like you. As more than a friend. And tonight, I want to lose my virginity to a man I am in love with.”

Whoa, did I say LOVE?

I did.

And I meant it.

I was totally, unmistakably in love with Seamus Shablanski.

Was this my first romantic declaration? My first grand romantic gesture? Should I have used cue cards like the guy inLove Actually? My body was on fire, alive in a way I’d never experienced.

Until I took a second to read Seamus’s face, which lacked the same excitement. His reaction belonged at a funeral, not a love declaration.

“Jules, I…I’m flattered.”

He was flattered. That was never a good sign.

“You mean a lot to me, too. But not in the same way.” He spoke slowly, his voice strained. “You’re one of my best friends, Jules.”

Friend. Another f-word that was a terrible sign.

“I thought that you liked me as more than a friend.” I wanted to haul Raleigh in here and explain himself.

Now Seamus was the one looking at the floor, making his hair fall into his eyes in a cruel tease. His hand gripped his desk until his knuckles went white.

“I did. I mean, we’ve been doing so much together, how could I not?” He looked at the blinding white of the markerboard. Anywhere but in my eyes. “But I was caught up in the moment. The sex haze. It’s best that we stay friends.”

Cupid’s arrows turned to poison-tipped spears slicing through my chest.

“I’m sorry, Jules.” He kept shaking his head. “I’m sorry for getting things all confused between us. I wanted you to realize you’re worthy of everything you want in life.”

I didn’t feel worthy.

“There’s a guy out there for you who’s got his shit together.”

“I don’t want some guy out there.”I want you.An alternate version of us, where we were kissing by this point, slipped from my hands.

“It’s probably for the best that we don’t have our final session either,” he said, adding a vat of salt onto my open wounds.

“It’s for the best,” I said, fighting back tears. I wasn’t going to cry and make this moment even more uncomfortable. “Thanks for…all your help.”

He bowed his head, watched his shoe trace a circle on the tiled floor.

I stopped at the door, a surge of anger finding its way to the surface. But who was I angry at? Him or me?

“You know, at least the guys who reject me for being a fatty are being honest.”

“You don’t want me, Jules. Trust me. You can find someone better. You deserve someone better.”

I left his classroom and walked past my own as fast as I could without actually running. I needed to get away from people. I was in no state to be a leader, a mentor, a role model. How could I teach when I couldn’t even speak?

26

JULIAN

March was supposed to go out like a lamb, but today’s weather didn’t get the memo. Wind whipped across the roof in sharp spikes.

What kind of teacher was I to abandon my class because I was so confused about a quasi (though not really) relationship? I was acting like one of my students. I could teach the mechanics of safe sex, but when two people came together in an intimate, vulnerable way, it would never be safe. All the condoms and IUDs couldn’t protect against hurt.

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