I can’t believe I got detention, again! So lame. Mrs. White is so dumb, so what if I dozed off and didn’t do my homework, that is no reason to give someone detention. Ugh! Oh well, on the bright side I get to be with Scarlet, I think. She wasn’t here earlier. I wonder if she called in.

Or not.

I walk into my last class and catch Scarlet as she takes three pills dry. She winces and shakes her head a little. She looks like shit. Is that the same skirt she had on yesterday? What happened to her? Her hair, my god, it looks like she stuck her hair in the garbage disposal. It’s so tangled and sloppy. She has dark bags under her eyes. Her lips look dry. What happened?

“You okay? Dinah asks her.

“Just don’t, okay. I’m not in the mood. I just want this shit day to be over with so I can go home and forget this place exist.”

“You said shit.” Kyle snickers.

Scarlet shoots him the death glare.

It only makes him laugh harder.

“Thank you, for that.” Scarlet snaps at Dinah.

Dinah sighs and takes her seat.

The final bell rings and Scarlet walks up to start teaching. It’s clear she doesn’t care at this point she is just basically summarizing what happened in the book without giving context as to why it is important. Then about halfway through the class she just puts on the movie with Kira Nightly.

When the final bell rings she turns it off and grabs her bag, She looks like she is about to leave but she must remember she is in charge of detention because she whimpers and slams her head against the board. Then with a huff, she walks off.

Okay so whatever happened to her, she is certainly not in the mood today. I get up and follow after her to the detention room. She eyes the list and crumbles it up and throws it before plopping down on the desk.

“Want to talk about it?” I ask.

“No.” she clips the word.

“I guess someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” I tease.

She glares at me.

Yeesh, harsh crowd. No matter, I won’t give up. I will get her to smile before she leaves.

“Just go home Maddison, I don’t care why you got detention, just go home.” She grabs her bag.

“Wait!” I stop her.

She sighs and turns to me.

“Uh, I uh, so uh, you opened the present, did you like it?” I ask.

Her face softens and she sighs again.

“Yes, it was nice.” She admits.

“Oh thank god, I thought it was embarrassing.” I blush.

“Oh it is, but I like it.” she shrugs.

“Hey!” I pout.

That causes her to smile.

“How long did that take you to make?” she asks.

“Just a day. It took me forever and a lifetime to find that song from the night we danced in the rain. All classical music sounds the same! In the end, I had to call up your friend from the restaurant and ask if they always play the same music or if it’s just random. To my luck, they have a playlist they always play! I asked him to send it to me and I listened to each song until I found the right one. I wanted you to relive that experience. I wanted you to relive all our happy moments together.”

“Did you put that together before or after you cheated on me?” she asks.

Ouch.

“I came up with the idea before but put it together after,” I admit.

“Ah so you thought you could give it to me and I would just forget everything.”

“No, it wasn’t like that.”

“Sure, whatever you say Maddison.” She moves to leave.

“Wait! Don’t go. Please, I just want to talk to you.” I grab her by the wrist.

“What if you never saw me again?” she asks out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

She turns to me and her eyes look so lost. I just want to hold her.

“If this was the last time you ever saw me, what would you do?” she asks.

What kind of a question is that? I mean how do I even answer it? There are so many things I’d want to do. How can I just pick one? It’s impossible.

“Well?” her voice shakes.

“If this was the last time I was ever going to see you. I’d ask you to marry me, then I would hold you in my arms and do my best to never let you go. Because I think if I never saw you again, I might just die of heartbreak.”

She laughs, but tears fall from her eyes.

“I take it back; you can be pretty charming.” She chuckles.

“Scarlet, what’s wrong? Don’t cry.” I wipe her tears.

But doing that only makes her cry harder. Seeing her like this brings tears to my eyes. Why is she hurting again? What happened? Is it me? Is it Reyna? Who did this, and how can I fix it?

“Maddison, I think I hate myself.” She says.

“Why?” I grab her hands in my own.

“Why?” she laughs at that, “Why!? Well for starters I am a shitty person. I am miserable. I hate myself.”

“Then why don’t you change? If you don’t like something, change it.”

“It’s not that simple. Trust me, I wish it was.”

“I think it is. Your just too scared to see it.”

She shakes her head no.

I wrap myself around her and hug her tightly. She wraps her arms around me and buries her head into my shoulder. Her body shakes from her silent sobbing.

“Oh Maddy, I’m such a wreck without you,” she admits.

“I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. When you are ready, I’ll still be right here.” I assure her.

“How could anyone ever love someone like me? I’m selfish and stupid and there is nothing great about me,” she says.

I pull away from her and look her in the eyes.

“Then change. Stop being stupid, and selfish. It’s true you are those things, but you are also so much more. I could go on forever as to why I love you and it has nothing to do with the way you look. Though that doesn’t hurt either.” I playfully bump her.

She smiles and forces a light laugh.

She’s so close to me I can feel her warmth. As if she suddenly realized the same thing she takes a step back, but I’m not going to let her get away, not this time. I take a step towards her and she steps back, we do this until I have her back against the wall.

Her breathing has intensified. She just stares at me with so much confusion and heartache in her eyes.

“It’s over Scarlet, we don’t have to hurt each other anymore. Come back to me.” I caress her face.

She leans into my touch.

I’ll take this as a good sign. I lean into her and press my lips against hers. There is a shock that goes through my body. Like I am Frankenstein’s monster and Scarlet has shocked me back to life. A warmness spreads from my lips to my chest and then all over my body. I am abuzz with energy and life.

Scarlet must feel the same because she quickly deepens the kiss. I shudder under her touch as her hands run down my arms and back up again. Everything inside of me feels like it could fly away or melt, or even both.

Our one kiss quickly becomes a second and a third. I run my hands up her stomach and quickly start unbuttoning her shirt, I need to feel her skin, her warmth. When I finally have her shirt open I yank it off of her and let it fall to the floor. My lips quickly find what belongs to me and I kiss every inch of skin.

I can see fresh hickeys on her skin, but I ignore them and make new ones.

Suddenly Scarlet grabs me by my ass and hoists me up into the air. I wrap my legs around her as she carries me over to the desk. She dramatically knocks everything off onto the floor and lays me down gently on my back.

I stare up at her. I feel like I am in some type of lovers trance. Even if someone walked in on us, I don’t think I would want her to stop. I need her. I need her desperately. It’s been too long. I watch as she grabs my boots and takes them off before unbuttoning my jeans and yanking them off as well.

Her hands glide up my legs and she kisses the exposed skin.

I’m afraid to make a sound that if I do, I’ll bring her back to reality and scare her away. So I close my eyes and bite my lip to keep quiet.

She lifts my shirt off of me and pushes it away.

Just when I think she is going to go all the way, she stops. My eyes flutter open and she looks down at me and I can tell she is in such pain. I grab her before she can run away again.

“No. stay,” I say.

She shakes her head.

“Scarlet, stay,” I demand.

She tries to pull away.

“If you run now, you will just break your own heart. You know what you really want, stop being stupid. Stay with me. please.”

She starts to cry again.

I grab her hand and place it dead center of my chest. She looks up at me.

I place my hand on her heart.

“You feel it? They are beating at the same time.” I say.

She stops fighting me and lets her hand relax on me.

“Stay.” I swallow back my own tears.

She takes a shaky breath before pushing me back down on the desk. She pulls my underwear off and spreads my legs. Her tears have stopped and when she looks at me now all I see is her want, her desire, her love.

She kisses my inner thigh, then higher to my hip bone. Her hands dig into my flesh and I can’t help but let a moan escape. I watch her shiver and get goosebumps from the sound. She kisses her way up my stomach before climbing on top of me. She kicks off her heels and unzips her skirt. After fumbling around a little she lets it fall to the ground. God, she’s as fucking gorgeous as I remember.

“I am going to make love to you now.” She declares.

“It’s about god damn time.” I smile at her.

She giggles.

Her smile, I love her smile.

She leans down to kiss me when we hear the sound of the door being opened.

Fuck!

Scarlet falls off the desk and yanks me down with her. We hide but it won’t be long before someone finds us.

Shit.

“Shit.” Scarlet whispers my thoughts.

“Go, I’ll take the fall,” I whisper.

“No, you could get expelled.” She says.

“Well, you could get fired! Or worse!” I whisper back.

“Maddison, you in here?” Shit! It’s Mrs. White!

Scarlet seems to make up her mind right then and there because she grabs her clothes and crawls towards the door. I quickly slip my shirt on and poke my head up.

“Oh hey, Mrs. White.” I smile at her while my hand feels around for my underwear.

“What are you doing on the floor?” she walks over to me.

“No! I mean, I uh, dropped a lot of stuff. On accident. You should stay over there I don’t want you to slip and fall.” I subtly slip back on my underwear.

“Where’s Ms. A?” she glances around.

While she is distracted at that moment I quickly snatch up my jeans.

Her head whips to me at the sudden noise.

“Um, She left early, something about a headache.” I force a laugh.

“Oh.” She frowns and looks around the room once more.

At that moment Scarlet makes her escape into the hall.

Mrs. White looks in the direction of the door but nothing and no one is there. I slip my jeans on to my knees before she looks at me once more.

“Did you need something?”

“Yes, I brought you some work to keep you busy, but it seems no one is even in here watching you.” she purses her lips.

“Well you can just leave it on the desk, I got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

“How did this mess happen?” she eyes me.

“Um, I uh, well… I uh lost my balance. Yes, I lost my balance and fell down but took everything with me as I tried to catch myself. Clumsy me.” I laugh nervously.

She eyes me noticing I still haven’t moved from the same spot.

“Do you need help getting up?” she steps around the stuff.

“No!”

She narrows her eyes. Then her eyes find my boots tossed carelessly on the floor. I can see her piecing two and two together. Fuck! Just then Scarlet walks back in.

“Hey I’m sorry, I know I can’t just leave you here. I just went to get some aspirin. Oh hey, Janet.” Scarlet says like she is surprised.

While she is distracted I slip my pants on all the way. The sound of the zipper makes her look at me again.

“What are you doing here?” Scarlet draws the attention away from me.

I straighten myself out before standing. Mrs. White’s eyes whip back to me, she looks back and forth between me and Scarlet. I glance at Scarlet. Her shirt is not buttoned correctly, her skirt is crooked. She looks flustered. Fuck, we are so fucking obvious.

“I thought you left.” She says to Scarlet.

“Oh I thought about it, but I knew I couldn’t just leave Maddison here alone, so I just went to grab some aspirin. What happened here?” Scarlet eyes the mess.

“I fell.” I lie. Well, sort of lie.

“Oh, are you okay?”

“Yep, just embarrassed that’s all.”

Mrs. White, aka Janet, eyes us. I can tell she’s not buying any of it. once again her eyes travel to my shoes.

“Maddison.”

“Yes, Mrs. White?”

“Your shirt is on backward.” She points out.

I feel the color drain from my face.

Without another word, she eyes Scarlet one last time, giving her the death glare before walking out. For a moment we stand there in silence.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“Let’s just clean up this mess and get the hell out of here.” Scarlet kneels down to help me.

I nod and start picking up all the stuff.

My heart is racing a mile a minute. Fuck. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“I knew this was a mistake,” Scarlet mutters to herself.

Well that hurt, fuck I feel like she stabbed me in the heart.

“It wasn’t,” I say.

“It doesn’t even matter, fuck this place. I’m so fucking done with it.” she says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

She avoids my gaze and quickly picks up all the papers from the floor.

“Scarlet,” I demand.

“It’s Ms. A to you okay. Enough Maddison. No more.”

“This is not going to be it, just because we were interrupted doesn’t mean you weren’t feeling what I was feeling. I know you love me.”

“Well, who needs love. Fuck love. Fuck this whole place. This was all a mistake. One mistake after another. No more. Goodbye Maddison.” She stands up just as she sets the last paperback on the desk.

“Scarlet,” I call after her.

She ignores me and walks out.

“You can’t run forever!” I call after her.

She ignores me.

Damn it. I was so close. So fucking close. We kissed. We touched. We almost made love. She can’t run away from me, she can’t. I am not going to let her. This isn’t over. I am going to keep fighting. I am closer than I’ve ever been. I know I can get through to her.

I will win, I know I will.

The fights not over yet.

Not if I have anything to say about it.