:A Surreptitious Relationship: Chapter Seven

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“Holly! Where were you today?”

            I winced, pulling the phone away from my ear as Casey shouted into it. “I’m sick,” I lied, crossing my fingers. “I guess you gave me your illness.”

            “Oh! I’m sorry!”

            A grimace crossed my face. “Don’t be.” The real reason why I skipped school was because I was afraid to face Aaron. Obviously he hadn’t told anyone (there would have been an uproar on Facebook if he had), but it was too intimidating to see him right now, just in case he decided to.

            “I missed you today!”

            I cocked my head to the side. “Casey… was there Jeremy?”

            “Yup,” she responded cheerfully.

            “Why are you with him?” I inquired, a smirk spreading across my lips. Perhaps Jeremy is making a move?

            Jeremy said something I didn’t catch in the background, causing Casey to laugh. “Hold on, Holly. Jeremy wants to talk to you.”

            “Wait answer my question—”

            “What question?”

            “Hi Jeremy.”

            “You missed today in gym class!” he cried loudly. “Lexi was all over me.”

            My eyebrows furrowed. Wasn’t she all over Lance yesterday? “What about Lance?”

            “He was hanging out with Casey. But you should have seen Lexi, she was making up all these excuses to touch me.”

            “Jeremy, you can’t—”

            He cut me off. “I know! Casey reminded me. A bit forcefully, mind you.”

            I sighed lightly. “You probably deserved it. You can’t just flirt with the students, Jeremy.”

            “I know,” he muttered. “But it’s hard for a handsome, dashing, beautiful twenty year old man like myself to not flirt. It’s— ow!”

            “Ow?”

            “Casey hit me!” Jeremy complained. “She’s so violent— I mean cute, haha. Cute…”

            I grinned. What I’d do to be in that car right now… “Why are you together again?”

            “She needed a ride home,” Jeremy informed me. “Hold on, I’m giving the phone back to Casey.”

            There was the sound of the phone being passed off and then I heard Casey’s breath. “By the way Holly, Mr. Heywood wants you to call him.”

            My heart skipped a beat. “He does? Why?”

            “He said Aaron said something or something like that… He sounded pretty irritated.”

            Suddenly I felt like I was going to be sick. Did Aaron tell Chris he knew? What was Chris going to do about it? I clenched onto my phone. “Did he say anything else?”

            “Nope,” Casey responded, popping the P. “But Aaron’s going to stop by and give you your homework at some point.”

            “What?

            “What what?”

            As if on cue, the doorbell downstairs rang. My heart leapt into my throat. “How does he know my address?”

            “I told him,” Casey responded slowly. “Don’t you want your homework so you don’t have as much make-up work?”

            “Why couldn’t Jeremy bring it?”

            Casey stayed silent for a moment. “Why do you make it sound like Aaron is an ax-murderer?”

            The doorbell rang again. After hesitating another moment I finally pushed myself off my bed, heading towards the door. “Have Jeremy tell Chris I’ll call him in half an hour. If I don’t, have him come to my house.”

            “Sure.”

            “Okay bye,” I responded, snapping my phone shut. When I reached the door I paused, debating on pretending I wasn’t home. Come on, Holly. Man up. Scowling at the voice in my head, I yanked open the door.

            Not to my surprise, Aaron was standing there, his damp hair matted to his forehead. It took me a minute to realize it was raining out. Aaron’s eyes swept over me from head to toe, a small smirk crossing his face. I dropped my gaze, realizing I was still in my pajamas. My way too short shorts and tank top.

            "So are you going to let me in or make me stand here in the rain?”

            Reluctantly, I stepped aside and let him in. Even if I didn’t like him, it’d be cruel of me to make him stand out there. He scurried in and I shut the door behind him, crossing my arms over my chest.

            “So do you have my makeup work?”

            “Do you have some hot chocolate? It was really cold out there…”

            I shook my head. “I’m sick, so I just want to go back to bed.”

            He grinned. “Or do you want to call your boyfriend?”

            “No!” I denied immediately, feeling my face grow warm.

            “You’re a horrible liar,” he commented, brushing by me. “Where’s the kitchen? Make me some hot chocolate.”

            For a second I blanked. It was like déjà vu. Except this was Aaron, not Chris. A scowl took a place on my face. “You can’t order me around in my own house!”

            He glanced back at me. “Actually, I believe I can. Unless you want the school to find about you and your boyfriend.”

            My heart dropped into my gut. Blackmail? That was just like Chris too… Except this was completely different. He was making me angry. “Look! It’s none of your business! Just butt out!”

            “I do believe it is my business,” he responded simply.

“No it’s not!”

He rolled his eyes. “Please. My sister did the same thing you’re doing. I’m not stupid.”

“What am I doing?” I cried, clenching my fists. “I’m not doing anything!”

“You’re just trying to act innocent.”

“No I’m not!”

“Yes you are,” he responded in a hard voice. “I hate people like you.”

I opened my mouth to yell at him, but stopped short. How could he hate me when he didn’t know me? “What am I doing?” I said, forcing the words out between my clenched teeth.

“Don’t you think it’s obvious you’re getting better grades than everyone else because you bang the teacher?”

            My hand acted on its own accord, and before I realized it, it had connected with Aaron’s face. He took a step back in surprise. I glared at him, my cheeks red with anger. “I don’t bang the teacher! We hardly even kiss! And I don’t get better grades than any one else!”

            “Can you prove that?” Aaron demanded, moving closer to me again. “You and Lexi are the same type of person! Don’t try to make me think differently!”

            “You don’t know me!” Tears were starting to well up in my eyes now out of anger. “Give me my homework and go home.”

            His look softened. “Holly, I just want to help.”

            “So you’ve said before,” I snapped. “I don’t need help. We’re not doing anything illegal. If you haven’t realized it, I’m eighteen. A legal adult.”

            His eyes widened. “What? You are?” he asked, taken aback.

            “I’m not stupid enough to date my teacher when I’m underage, Aaron,” I told him, trying to hold back my anger.

            “But you’ll still get in trouble.”

            “Why do you care?”

            He set his jaw. “That’s none of your business.”

            “Then stop acting like you’ve known me your whole life.”

            “Stop dating your teacher.”

            “No.”

            He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll tell everyone.”

            “Go ahead,” I dared him, my hands shaking as anger washed over me again. “But we’ll just deny it. No one will believe you.”

            “That may be true,” he agreed. “But I bet they’ll believe me since I have witnesses.”

            That threw me off guard. “Witnesses to what?”

            “If I told you, you’d find some way to make it seem like what you did was fine,” he responded simply. “So if you’d like your relationship kept a secret, you listen to me from now on…”

            I glowered at him. Who did he think he was? More tears of frustration welled up in my eyes. Why couldn’t the world just leave Chris and I alone? We’d been through more than anyone could imagine, and now this moron showed up. It was like the world was trying to keep us apart.

            A loud chime resounded abruptly as the doorbell went off again. Confused, I glared at Aaron once more before trudging over to it. I quickly wiped my eyes with the back of my hand before opening it. To my stupefaction, Chris was standing there. His eyes narrowed when he took in my expression.

            “Holly—”

            “Mr. Heywood?”

            Chris’s eyes snapped to Aaron, his expression becoming confused. “Aaron?”

            “What are you doing here?” Aaron inquired, a smirk crossing his face. He glanced at me, giving me a knowing look.

            “He’s my mom’s friend,” I lied quickly. “Sorry, Mr. Heywood. She’s not home right now…”

            He frowned. “Is that so?”

            “Yup…”

            “I’ll be on my way then,” he said slowly, his eyes searching mine. “Unless she’ll be home soon?”

            I shook my head. “Nope. She won’t be back until later tonight. I’ll have her call you.”

            He pursed his lips. “Fine. See you later, Ms. Evers.”

            “I’ll walk you to your car,” Aaron offered, grinning at him. “I’m leaving now too. See you tomorrow, Holly.”

            I stayed silent, staring determinedly past Chris, at his car parked in my driveway. Aaron chuckled, patting my shoulder with his hand as he passed. I clenched my jaw, feeling the anger return. After a worried glance from Chris, he turned and followed Aaron down the path. I closed the door behind them, wandering towards the kitchen again.

            Aaron hadn’t even given me my homework. A deep sigh left my lips as I sat down at the island, dropping my head onto my arms. Being angry took a lot out of me. I’d never been so angry in my life. I felt my cheeks grow hot again, but the time due to embarrassment. How could I let him rile me up so easily? It wasn’t like me at all. But the part about me using my body for grades was unjustified. Was he really just trying to help me?

            I groaned in frustration. If he waned to help me, he wouldn’t harass me. I didn’t see how Lexi and I were alike at all. I wasn’t doing anything wrong by being together with Chris. I refused to think for a second it was wrong. We were both young people in love. It just so happened that he was my teacher.

            “Holly?”

            I jumped violently, my head snapping towards the doorway. Chris was standing there, a concerned look on his face. Immediately I pushed myself off my stool, staggering over towards him.

            “Are you okay?” he demanded, putting his hands on my shoulder. “You’ve been crying.” It was a statement, not a question.

            “I wasn’t crying,” I muttered. “I just got angry…”

            “Why? Did Aaron do something to you?” he questioned, his voice suddenly hard. “What was he doing here?”

            I quickly shook my head. “No! He didn’t do anything. He just…” I trailed off, hesitating. I couldn’t let Chris know Aaron knew. “He brought me the homework I missed today. I stubbed my toe and… Yeah.”

            Chris frowned deeply at me. “You’re picking up a bad habit of lying, Holly.”

            Without warning I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his body tightly. “I’m sorry.”

            He returned my hug. “It’s okay. It must be something that’s hard to talk about.”

            That wasn’t the half of it. I held onto him tighter. “Kind of.”

            “I’ll wait for you to tell me then,” he said, rubbing my back soothingly. “So are you really sick? Or did you just skip?”

            “Er… I skipped,” I told him honestly.

            He chuckled, pushing my away from him. “Good.”

            “Good? That’s not something a teacher should say…”

            He rolled his eyes. “Not good that you skipped. Good that you’re not sick.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I couldn’t do this.”

            He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. Before I could respond, he pulled back. I frowned, putting my hands to his face and pulling it back down. He raised an eyebrow. “Since when are you so aggressive?”

            I flushed and dropped my hands. “I-I’m not being aggressive!”

            He chuckled again, grabbing my hands. “I’m kidding, Holly. But usually you just stand there awkwardly and blush.”

            “Sorry,” I muttered.

            “Don’t be. It’s one of the thing I like about you,” he responded, kissing my forehead.

            I smiled at him, wrapping my arms around him again. It was comfortable enough just being in his arms. Whatever Aaron said didn’t matter. So what if he did tell? If worse came to worse we could just break up for awhile. He didn’t have anything us.

            “I love you, Chris,” I said, feeling cheery all of a sudden.

            “I love you too,” he responded. “And I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

            I looked up at him in surprise. “Huh?”

            “Holly, I’ve been in love with you for almost half a year. I can tell when you’re upset about something.”

            “You can?”

            “Sure can,” he said, flicking my nose.

            I frowned. “I can’t do that with you…”

            “I hide my feelings well,” he responded with a smirk. “Some of us aren’t open books…”

            I turned my face away from him. Jerk.

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Hey guys! Here's the next chapter! It's late, but I've been busy... And will be busy for awhile, haha. Updates are gunna be infrequent. The good news is that I'm going to see Alesana on the 12th :D And then Valentine's day is the 14th, and then my birthday is on the 16th! It'll be a fun period!

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Today's song is.... Dance Hall Drug by Boys Like Girls :D

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