13. 13

13

Ember

S omething was different this morning, and I realised what it was when I saw my mum step outside a little while before Mr E was due to the house.

“Where’s mum going?” I asked my dads, who were both still at the table with my twin brothers, while Ash was still asleep.

“Probably just getting some fresh air, sweetheart, don’t worry about it,” dad Gray said, casting a brief look at my other dad. See, they thought they were convincing when they did crap like that, but I wasn’t buying it for a single second. Something was definitely up, but when I stood up to go and look for her, dad Dory stood up too.

“Em, sit down and finish your breakfast. We want to talk to you, actually. Cole, Phoenix? Can you go to your room for a minute?” They both grumbled, and Cole grabbed an extra slice of toast to take with him, as they left.

My dads seemed to have some kind of silent conversation with their eyes for a moment, but dad Dory finally spoke again.

“How are things going with Mr E? You’re only a few days away from exams, right?”

Why would they be asking about him? Why were they asking right now? Something was wrong, wasn’t it? Had that bitch Suzy told someone what I did?

“You know when my exams are, or at least you should, as my dad.”

“Don’t be a smart-arse, Ember. We’re just asking, just like we’re just wondering how it’s going with ‘Teach’.”

Uh huh. Dad Gray was never one to keep his mouth shut on anything, was he? He and my other dad probably planned this all out, and he was already going off script.

“I think, thanks to him, I’ll pass my exams this time. Is that what you wanted to know?” It wasn’t, I was certain of it, and they clearly weren’t looking for that answer.

“Has he… uh… does he behave appropriately, Ember?”

“I’ve asked you repeatedly not to call me that. Why can’t you honour my wishes about something so vital to my wellbeing, dad?” Both dads looked a little guilty, but they were interrupted by mum coming back into the house, and she was followed by Mr E, who was still a bit earlier than I’d expected him.

“Mr E? Is it that time already? I’ll just get a-”

“Sit down, young lady.” Oh wow, mum just ‘young lady’d me, so clearly I was in some kind of trouble, and I was nervous about Mr E, because he wouldn’t even look at me, just like he hadn’t responded to my message this morning.

I probably shouldn’t have sent it, but I wanted him to know, because it’d been a huge deal for me. Not only getting myself off, when anything sexual had been the last thing I wanted for so long, but also knowing that I wanted more, but only with him.

Did he know how monumental that had been for me? Did he understand that a girl who’d been through the abuses I’d been through, might never feel sexual attraction for any man? Did he realise just how big a deal it was, that I was feeling that way about him?

“Do you need them to leave?” I pointed at my dads, because I could see how nervous of them Mr E had become lately.

“I’m not going anywhere, how about you, Dory? Are you gonna leave this room right now?”

Dad Dory shook his head, and watched as Mr E sat down in the furthest seat from me, even though it put him next to dad Gray.

“What’s going on?” I finally asked, because I was starting to freak out.

“Did you send an inappropriate text message to your tutor this morning, Em?” Mum looked worriedly at me, as my dads both raised their eyebrows. He told her? He called it inappropriate? How could he do that to me? I trusted him!

“What? I don’t… did you show her?” I was mortified, beyond embarrassed, dying of shame, because my first consensual sexual experience was a huge deal for me, but had he missed the significance of it? Why would he tell her?!

“I… of course-”

“We’ll do the talking, Teach. I think it’s best if you don’t address our girl right now,” dad Gray butted in, frowning at me. “What did you send, Chica? You shouldn’t be texting your teacher, you know that, right?”

Wow. Dad Gray was lecturing me on the etiquette and rules of propriety in dating?! Hypocrite much? I opened my mouth to say as much, but mum spoke again.

“Have you been leaving suggestive drawings for him too? Em, please, why would you do this?”

My god. What hadn’t he told her? I felt so betrayed by him, that fury was building inside me at an alarming rate. I wanted to grab a knife and jam it into his cruel heart, right in front of everyone. I wanted to make him feel the same pain he was causing me, because right now it felt like he’d done exactly that; jabbed a knife into my heart and twisted it, tearing agonised screams from me, as he tore my soul apart at the same time.

“Why?” I begged, wishing he’d look at me instead of the damn table. “Did it mean nothing to you? Am I nothing, Ethan? Am I just a way to pass the time until you move on to the next job?”

His eyes lifted, and I saw the pain there, the anguish, but was it because of what was happening right now, or because of what he stood to lose if this came out? I choked back a sob as I stood up, a fist over my mouth to try and hold in my words, to stop this before it could continue, so I could try and undo it.

“I think you’re done here, Teach. You stay away and we’ll keep this quiet, for now,” dad Gray said, surprising the hell out of me, but dad Dory cursed and glared at him.

“NO! No way are we keeping quiet! This is an abuse of power! You don’t play with the hearts of impressionable kids, dammit! Look what you’re doing to her, and don’t you dare tell me this is all one-sided, you asshole. We warned you about this.”

“Dory, we don’t need more attention on-”

“How could you do this to me?!” I screamed at Ethan, feeling my entire world crashing in on itself, because he didn’t want me. He didn’t see value in me. He wasn’t feeling anything for me like I’d hoped he was. I was nothing to him. Nothing to anyone.

“You were… you were my…”

He held up his hands as he stood too.

“Please, Em, just-”

“You gave me my first orgasm, you bastard! How can you just pretend that means nothing?!”

“You fucking son of a bitch!” Dad Gray lurched up from his chair, but somehow he didn’t beat my other dad in reaching Ethan, and they both started hitting him, as mum and I started to scream at them, but punch by punch, I quieted down, as I realised that it didn’t matter. None of it mattered, did it? I didn’t matter, and that was the point that had just been driven home with a sledgehammer. I didn’t matter to anyone .

I edged out of the room while their attention was on him, grabbed a knife from the kitchen and ran to my room, locking myself in my sanctuary, my sanctuary that now felt tainted by him, because I’d let him in here, and now he’d abused that privilege. Abused me, like they all did.

The only thing that kept me from falling over the metaphorical edge I’d climbed up onto, was my door crashing open, breaking the lock, and Ash bursting in. He took one look at the knife in my hand, sneered and lunged at me to take it, making sure to cut himself in the process because he was a sick little shit.

Ethan

THAT DIDN'T GO TO plan. Wilma managed to keep the two sick fuckers from beating me too badly, but I’d taken a few punches to my face and stomach, oh, and my chest, like they wanted to literally bruise my heart, but the damage was already done, because her face… oh god, her face as the betrayal sank in. I did that to her, and now it would be impossible to take it back.

Her dads had taken photos of the message on my phone, and demanded to take the sketch she’d drawn, but I assured them I’d burned it. I hadn’t, but I couldn’t tell them I wanted to keep it, to add it to the book with the others I’d kept. I knew I should destroy them, but destroying art was sacrilege, right?

I made my way home, after it was made abundantly clear that I was ‘so fucking fired, I should be engulfed in flames’, especially as those words were followed up by actual threats to burn me to death, and leave me in so many pieces that even birds would struggle to find a mouthful. Ugh.

I knew they were twisted, but seriously, they were terrifyingly so. My only saving grace was that they’d assured me they’d leave me alone, if I never returned. Did I fully believe them? Not especially, which was why I was already considering moving house, moving town even.

A day later, I was walking away from a meeting with my employer at the education board, still smarting from the verbal spanking that preceded my suspension. I’d hoped they wouldn’t report me, but I just wasn’t that lucky.

“Ethan, these are incredibly serious charges, and we can’t let you remain in any placements with students until this is resolved.”

“Resolved? How can you resolve accusations without proper proof?” Clive Head, my direct employer, and the man with my future in his hands, sighed, lifting up the file in front of him.

“Don’t push me to show you what they’ve provided as their ‘evidence’, because you know what you did. She may not have been under-age but she’s a vulnerable person, and you abused your position of power over her. Her parents do admit that they shouldn’t have trusted you behind closed doors, and in her bedroom… her bedroom? Why in the world were you ever in her bedroom? Why were you exchanging text messages? There’s talk of physical sexual misconduct here, Ethan. My god, this is enough to end your career, because nobody would hire you with this on your record. It’ll look to the world like you were grooming her.” Jesus. One crush on a student, and letting her get too close, and I was finished. My life was fucking over, wasn’t it?

I rested my head in my hands, my heart racing faster, as the panic over my destroyed future started to really sink in.

“What do I do, Clive? I have no idea what to do here,” I murmured, feeling crushed under the weight of everything I’d worked for being torn away from me for one mistake.

“Ethan, the girl was distraught. She attempted,” he paused, sighing heavily, but my heart was racing faster than ever as I lifted my head in horror, “she-”

“Is she okay?” I demanded, my breath practically choking me as I absorbed what he’d almost said. She tried to hurt herself again, didn’t she? Maybe worse. She hurt herself because of me.

“They caught her before she did herself any harm, but she’s back under the care of a doctor, and her exams have been postponed during her treatment.” Fuck! The one thing I was meant to achieve, and I’d failed her on that too. What the hell was I thinking? Why did I let things go so far?

“She injured her brother in the process too. This is very serious, Ethan. If they could prove anything illegal, you’d be arrested already, but as it is, we have accusations, and a distraught girl who one could argue might have been mistaken about your behaviour.”

I couldn’t help feeling protective over her, because it hadn’t been completely one-sided, had it? I had been interested, I had given off signals I should have done my best to prevent, and this was the outcome. All I had to fucking do was keep things professional. I should have put a stop to things after that first hug, and that accidental kiss. I should have called her on the vandalism, and the picture I should have torn up right in front of her, instead of keeping like some creeper.

“She’s a good kid, Clive. Smart as fuck, and she’s been through hell. Don’t go doing anything that makes her look like the bad guy here. It’s absolutely my fault. All I had to do was nip this in the bud before it got out of hand, but I kept letting things slide, because she was coming out of her shell.”

“A shell you might now end up locked in.”

It only took a roll of my eyes and Clive nodded.

“Yeah, it wasn’t the best analogy, but the fact remains that you’re on suspension without pay until we come to a resolution on this matter. Your other potential students are being redirected to other tutors, and right now I don’t know if there will be a role for you to return to, even if this is all disproved. Even rumours about these kinds of things can destroy a career, as you well know.”

I stood up, pacing his office, and wondering if it’d be the last time I ever saw it. My dream job, years of hard work, and it was all being taken from me in one fell swoop.

“So I just go home and wait for updates?”

He lifted his hands helplessly. “I have nothing further to offer you, Ethan. I wish there was an easy solution, but a vulnerable female student making claims about this kind of thing is as serious as it gets, aside from hard proof to go with it. I’ll try and check in weekly with you, but be prepared for this to take a while. You’ll also have to be interviewed by the board as part of the process, so make sure you’re clear on everything that happened, and if you have any evidence that can disprove any of this, make sure you don’t hold it back.”

Great. So after heading home, I sat on my sofa in silence, wondering what the fuck to do with myself now. Part of me was kicking myself for broaching the subject the way I did, by reaching out to Wilma Cross, but what other way was there?

Em’s actions had been escalating, and it wouldn’t have been long before someone caught her with me in some way that could be misconstrued, even if I was entirely innocent.

I sighed, leaning back on my sofa, my head on the cushioned back. I wasn’t innocent though, was I? Maybe that was the worst part of all this. I let my feelings for her taint my behaviour, because I should have stopped her, but I kept allowing her to get closer to me, and what did I really think would come of it? Romance? A relationship? A future?

I was an idiot, and I was paying the price for my bad choices. I just wished she didn’t have to as well.