Page 39 of What He Doesn't Know

It’d been a rough couple of weeks, January fading easily into February, everything picking up speed just like I knew it would.

I was tutoring a dozen students after school now, one on Saturdays, and all that on top of teaching my normal classes during the day. I’d mostly unpacked, save for a few boxes with personal items I wasn’t sure what to do with yet, and I’d officially caught up with everyone who still lived in Mount Lebanon whom I used to know at one point in my life. I’d been working long days, spending my evenings with people who annoyed me more than entertained me, and more than anything, trying to ignore the fact that I missed her.

Charlie hadn’t talked to me since the day she came back to Westchester. And that had been two weeks ago.

Sure, she’dspokento me. She’d said hello when we passed in the hallways, told me about the book she was reading when I asked, even referred one of her students’ older brothers to me for afterschool sessions. She’d offered to help me set up the spring concert if I needed anything, but all that aside — she hadn’ttalkedto me.

Charlie was keeping her distance at all costs.

We didn’t have lunch together, didn’t walk longer than a few steps side by side before she was jetting off in another direction. What was more, she seemed happier than when I first arrived at Westchester. Maybe she was fine. Maybe shewashappy.

But something under my skin told me otherwise.

I saw her smiling. I watched her laughing each and every day. But her eyes… there was something there, something I’d seen immediately the first day we’d reconnected — something she was hiding now, or at least, trying to. When I’d first come back, it was almost as if she were a zombie, and then she’d let me in that night we went up the Incline.

Now, she wasn’t a zombie, but rather an actress. She told me everything was fine with her words, but her eyes betrayed that lie.

Then again, maybe I was crazy. Maybe I didn’t have any fucking idea how to tell if she was lying or not.

Maybe, deep down, Iwantedit to be a lie — that she was perfectly fine without me.

The water cooled a bit, so I turned the faucet more, watching as the steam filled the four walls of my standing shower. One hand kept me steady on the tile while the other rubbed my back muscles, sore from lifting and unpacking boxes all week. I rubbed out the tension in my lower back, still thinking of Charlie, and that’s when another muscle woke up, too.

It was just past three in the morning, and I knew I needed more sleep to face the busy Friday I had ahead. The more I thought about how a nice release would help me fall back asleep, the more my cock ached under the hot water. Every flash of Charlie’s doe eyes made me grow another inch, longer and harder, every nerve waking up at the thought of having her in that shower with me.

“This is so fucked up,” I groaned, but my hand was already moving from the muscles on my back, fingers wrapping around my shaft with a slow pump. I thought if I spoke it out loud, it would stop me. “Think of someone else.Anyoneelse.”

My resolve was weak, but I tried. I closed my eyes tight, fist curling over my crown before sliding down to my base as I paged through my mental stash of porn. I saw foreign tits bouncing, but then it was Charlie’s soft lips as she sucked yogurt off a spoon. I shook them away, remembering a hot anal video I’d found just before my move, but it was quickly shoved out and replaced with the image of Charlie’s thumb between her teeth, her eyes on my mouth, her small body pressed into mine.

“Fuck,” I grunted, surrendering to the need. I was already working myself faster, flexing my hips into my hand, the water providing a hot, slick lubricant. I pictured Charlie there with me, her small body bent beneath me, knees on the cold tile as her eyes locked on mine.

And then, my hand shot up, turning the faucet all the way right until the water was ice and all visions of Charlie disappeared along with the steam.

All the want drained from me in an instant, the cold water zapping my nervous system as I forced myself to stand under it. It felt like punishment, which was what I needed. Charlie deserved more than me thinking about her while I beat off.

She deserved more than me, period.

I ran a bar of soap over my entire body quickly, rinsing off in the still icy water, not allowing myself any more warmth. Once a fresh towel was scrubbed over my long, wet hair and tied around my waist, I ran my hand over the foggy mirror, meeting my eyes in the reflection.

I remembered a time when I could stare at myself for hours, getting ready for a party or a night out on the town. I would listen to my music too loud, spend too long on my hair, shave and joke with Graham or, later, my roommates at Juilliard. I’d been confident and sure, the world my oyster.

Now, I could barely look for more than a few seconds.

The man I used to be had died along with my family, and now all that was left was a wanderer. I searched for home, for happiness, for something —anything—to make me feel like life was still worth living.

I’d found that in Charlie.

The only question was whether I could keep that feeling with her only being my friend — and not in the way I wanted her to be, but in the way she was. Naturally.

Maybe we wouldn’t talk every day. Maybe we wouldn’t spend time together outside of school. Maybe this was it, and I had to ask myself if it was enough.

If it wasn’t, I needed to keep searching for something to feel like home, and not in her. It wasn’t Charlie’s job to save me.

Even if I wished she would.

Reese

Even though I’d only been awake a half hour in the middle of the night, I felt the restlessness of my lack of sleep that next morning. It was Friday, the day before Valentine’s Day, which meant the entire school was painted red and pink, and every single child was hopped up on sugar.