Page 5 of Muse (The Forbidden Hearts #1)

THEO

C ramped in my childhood bedroom, track medals still hanging from the royal blue walls, I sit at my worn wooden desk, its grain etched with a thousand memories of happier times.

Before the losses. Before the failed dreams. Being back here makes it hard to breathe.

It’s suffocating. The air feels heavy, thick with the past.

These walls once echoed with laughter and love. My mom, humming in the kitchen. My dad, yelling at the TV during a game. The muffled thud of my sister’s music through the walls. Now it’s just quiet and still. The silence feels smothering.

The desk lamp flickers when I switch it on, buzzing faintly like it’s just as tired as I am.

The drawer beside my bed still sticks when I try to open it, same as it did when I was fourteen.

Inside are old notebooks I can’t bear to toss.

Half-written poems and an outline for a novel I never finished writing littering the pages.

I moved back a few months ago after the accident.

After everything. My apartment in the city was bleeding me dry, and this house, our family home, was sitting here empty.

Full of memories and grief. My sister didn’t want it, saying it feels like a mausoleum.

I told her I understood, but I don’t. Plus, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

So here I am. Thirty-five, sleeping in the same room I decorated when I was thirteen. Drinking cheap beer at my childhood desk like I’m seventeen and heartbroken, except now, the heartbreak is heavier, the feeling of loss never really going away.

Winnie, the mutt my parents adopted years ago, rests his head on my foot. He’s old, dopey, and loyal as hell. He’s also the only living creature in this town who doesn’t make me feel like a stranger.

The last few months have been a blur. Losing my parents shattered something in me I didn’t know was still breakable, and starting this job, taking over for a teacher on medical leave in the very town I tried to leave behind, has felt like some cruel joke.

I never planned to teach high school. I never planned to come back here at all.

I was just hoping for stability and a quiet place to land.

And then she was there. In my new classroom.

Sophie.

When I stepped into the room and saw her face, I knew. Instantly.

She’s the girl from the bar.

The one I’ve been thinking about since the night we met. The one I’ve been hoping to find for months.

That night, she caught me off guard. I hadn’t planned on staying out late, hadn’t planned on doing more than stopping in to say hi to a friend, but then she was there.

Smart, witty, and a sense of humor to match.

Her smile made it impossible to look away.

There was just something about her I couldn’t shake, long after the night ended.

I couldn’t get her out of my head.

I still can’t.

And now she’s my student .

Holy shit.

She’s my student. I shake my head, trying to wake up from this sordid dream.

It hit me like a gut punch. Like the wind got knocked straight out of me. That same girl, the one I almost kissed, the one I wanted to find.

And now I wish I hadn’t.

That night at the bar flashes in and out of my head like a fever dream.

Her laugh, low and sweet, rumbling against my chest as she leaned in to talk over the music.

Her fingers brushing mine when she reached for her drink.

The moment I nearly kissed her, stopped only because her friend yanked her away.

I never imagined she was still in high school.

I don’t know what I said during class. I barely remember giving the assignment. My hands were shaking as I collected the papers. And then I saw the drawing. Her drawing. Her eyes, studying me again, this time through the stroke of a pencil.

I didn’t know how old she was that night.

I didn’t ask… there was no reason to. It was a bar, twenty-one and up.

No kiss, no names exchanged, nothing inappropriate happened between us.

Just a moment in time, charged with an attraction I can’t fully explain.

But it felt like more than a moment. It felt like recognition, like finding something I didn’t even know I’d lost.

And now I feel like a criminal for remembering it.

I run a hand through my hair and look down at the stack of papers on my desk. Today, I had them write reflections. I told them I wouldn’t read them, just review the names for participation, but I knew I was lying the second she turned hers in.

Because hers isn’t an essay.

It’s a drawing.

Of me.

She didn’t even try to hide it. Just handed it over like it was nothing… like it wasn’t the most intimate thing I’ve ever seen.

And god help me, I can’t stop staring at it.

She got every detail. The crease in my brow, the tired slope of my mouth. The weight in my eyes I try not to see in the mirror. It’s not just a drawing, it’s an observation. A truth. It’s her, seeing me in a way no one has in a long time.

It terrifies me.

I’ve never crossed a line with a student. Not once. I built my entire sense of self on being a good man. An honorable one. Someone my parents could be proud of. And yet here I am, staring at this paper like it means something .

And it does.

But not in any way it’s allowed to.

I place it back into the stack, a small piece of me wishing I could keep it.

I stare at the wall, at the medals hanging from blue tacks, at the childhood version of myself that lived in this room and thought he had the world ahead of him. He had so many dreams.

I can’t let myself spiral. I can’t let her get under my skin.

This is my job now. My classroom. She’s just a student, nothing more.

I need to remember that.

Even if it might be harder than I’d like it to be.