Misbehaved

by Charleigh Rose

When I asked my dad why she left, his response was something along the lines of, “Darla’s a whore. Don’t be like Darla.” Duly noted, Dad.

Every girl wants to be good until a bad boy whisks her off her feet and corrupts her.

I wonder if he’s married. I wonder what she looks like. I hate her already.

“You can go now, Stringer,” I say. What I fail to add is I don’t want her to. What the hell is wrong with me?

She’s an innocent wrapped in a body made up of every sin I’ve ever wanted to commit.

I want to mark her.

“Why do you care? You’re just my teacher, right?” “We both know that’s not true.”

“I’m going to hell for this,” he says. “I’ll follow you down.”

His lips are on my neck, but my heart is in his teeth.

“Don’t do this,” he warns. “Do what?” “End this.” “End what?”

Me: Are you spying on me now, Teach? My phone pings not even ten seconds later. Pierce: Yes. I figured our relationship wasn’t dramatic enough, so I’ve decided to add stalking to the list.

The fact that she is picking on my girlfriend, who already has so much bullshit to deal with in life, rubs me the wrong way. Jesus Christ. Did I just call Remington Stringer my girlfriend?

“I can’t promise you forever, Remi girl. I can’t even promise that one of us won’t get hurt. But I can promise a few things,” I whisper roughly into her ear. She arches back into me. “I promise to take care of you, even when you won’t let me. I promise that while I’m with you, I won’t so much as think of another woman, and I promise to fuck you good, and to love every minute of it.”

Quietly, I pad over to her and graze her flushed cheek with my knuckle. “What are you doing to me?” I muse aloud. I try to make sense of the overwhelming and foreign feelings that slam into me, but they all hit me at once, making it hard to grasp on to anything, save for one thing. Mine.

I walk toward my car in the teachers’ lot, start the engine, and drive to the bad side of Vegas. To the only place where I want to be. To her.

I fell in love with a girl who felt like a woman and made me feel like a man instead of a ghost.

I leave, without the girl. Without the evidence against Ryan Anderson. And most importantly, without my soul.

There is no right or wrong in this world. No black and white. Remington and I live in the gray area.

Sometimes secrets ruin lives. But sometimes they save them.