Stepbrother Soldier: A Forbidden Military Romance Novel (23 page)

5

“Mom, you can’t even
believe
what
happened today!” I nearly yelled into the phone. I didn’t even say hi or ask
how she was. I just jumped right into it.

“What? Was it good? Was it bad? Oh my god – please, please tell me it
was something good!” I could hear the panic in my mother’s voice and decided to
take a deep breath and calm down before I gave her a heart attack.

“Professor Tyler left and…and…ugh! I know it’s not that big a deal,
but
Jay
took her place. Jay is my
professor, Mom! He pretended like he didn’t even know my name in class today –
it was so embarrassing! Mom, this is awful,” I said. I could feel big, heavy
tears welling up in my eyes. There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Honey, I thought this might happen. But it’s not
awful!
It’s
wonderful!
”

“Wonderful? How is it wonderful, Mom? He’s such a
jerk!”

“Listen, Elizabeth, I know that Jay isn’t exactly a beam of sunshine,
but he’s really not all bad. Maybe this will give you and him a chance to
connect! He’ll see how smart you are and how hard you work and, I don’t know,
maybe he’ll change his mind about us,” my mother said, sounding hopeful. I
rolled my eyes, happy that she couldn’t see me.

“That’s never gonna happen, Mom,” I said, hating myself for insulting
her optimism but unable to help it.

“Never say never, Elizabeth. Look at me. I never thought I’d meet
someone like Mark, but it happened. People can surprise you in all sorts of
ways. Really, Lizzy, I’d love if you could look at the silver lining here and
try to use this to your advantage,” Mom said, pulling out her ace in the hole
by using my childhood nickname. Whenever she called me “Lizzy” I knew she meant
business.

I closed my eyes and paused before responding, quieting the voice
inside me that wanted to protest even further. I didn’t feel any better, but
Mom obviously hoped that I would give this bizarre situation a shot, and it was
the least I could do to humor her.

“Ugh! Okay! You’re right, Mom. You’re always right. I’ll do my best,”
I said, shoulders slumping in surrender.

“Thank you, Lizzy. I love you,” Mom said. I could hear pride in her
voice, and it made me ashamed that I couldn’t be as positive as she was.

“I love you too. Talk to you later,” I said before clicking off. I
threw my phone down on the bed and held my face in my hands, groaning.

The worst thing was that I knew Mom was right. Deep down, beyond all
my resentment towards Jay, I knew that I had to give him a chance. That’s the
way I was raised, and I knew that I couldn’t control Jay’s thoughts or actions.
I could only control my own. And if I did my best to get along with him, follow
his rules, then it would be no one’s fault but his if he continued to be
miserable about his new family.

Suddenly empowered and inspired, I decided to hit the books. Jay
wanted to see how far we’d come on our essays for
The Tempest.
Being the good student that I was, I’d already started
and was probably way ahead of the rest of the class. But I didn’t want to just
be ahead of the class; I wanted to be ahead of Jay’s expectations. Pulling my
laptop towards me, I opened the essay and set to work.

He won’t have a single thing to criticize when I
hand this in,
I thought to
myself.
He’ll finally see how hard I’ve
worked to get where I am. He’ll see we’re not so different. He’ll have to
respect me.

I can’t help but think, now that everything’s said and done, that if
we’d been reading
All's Well That Ends
Well,
I might have had a little more warning about what was to come:

"Oft
expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises."

You might know it
better in its translated version: “expectation is the root of all heartache.”

6

The next class I had with Jay, I walked in proudly, essay in hand. It
was almost finished, and I knew that it was good. I’d toiled all weekend on it,
and had even taken it to the school’s writing lab for a second opinion. I knew
that it would show Jay how smart and hard-working I was, and that was really
the only way that I could prove that his preconceptions about Mom and I were wrong.

I left the paper on Jay’s desk, on top of a pile of other papers. He
looked up, briefly, when I did, but made no sign of recognition or even
interest. I didn’t want to be disappointed, but I was.
Well, he can’t ignore me once he reads the paper,
I thought to
myself. I took my seat and waited for class to begin.

Jay was a surprisingly good professor: he was thorough and seemed
approachable during his lecture. Obviously, I had my own issues with him, but I
thought that if I were just a regular student, I’d probably be thrilled about
being in his class. He was, after all, still incredibly hot. You could tell,
even under his dress clothes, that he was ripped, and his handsome face wasn’t
hard to stare at for an hour. Plus, he was pretty funny, cracking jokes
throughout our discussion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire female make-up
of our class left with a crush on him.

But I wondered, too, if those same females were seeing what I was
seeing. It didn’t happen constantly, and when it did happen, it seemed to be
over in a split second, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it
was
happening. More than once, I saw
Jay’s eyes drift over me. They’d focus for a second, and in that second he
would stutter or his speech was slow, as though he were distracted.

At first I ignored it, figuring it to be a coincidence, but when it
happened the fourth or fifth time I realized that it was real. Every time he
looked at me, his eyes would glaze over for a second, and he would seem to lose
some momentum. His eyes on me were passive, not hateful but also not obviously
positive. Almost as though he were physically trying to
not
see me.

“I’ll be looking over your papers next week. In the meantime, the
deadline stands for the end of the month, so keep working. Don’t think you can
just take it easy now. You still don’t want to have to finish your paper in a
night,” he said as class drew to a close. When the clock struck, marking the
end of class, I hesitated before getting up to leave. Should I stick around for
a moment, try to talk to him again? I decided not to, to just act like he was
any other professor.

As I stood up and gathered my belongings, I felt a sudden wave of
discomfort, as though I was a specimen under glass. Looking up, I saw Jay’s
eyes on me, the glazed look gone, something fierce and overwhelming in his
eyes. I blushed and turned away immediately, not wanting him to know I saw him.
I made quick work of shoving my books in my bag and rushed out the room, heart
pounding.

That look. That look was unmistakable. I’d never seen that look in
anyone else’s eyes. I couldn’t remember anyone ever looking at me like that
before. But I didn’t need to have seen it before to know what it was. It was a
look of desire. Deep, hungry, wild desire.

I felt like I was carrying his eyes with me as I walked to my next
class, unable to shake the sensation. I felt like I was back home, in the early
morning, watching Jay swim laps again. My virgin sex pulsed and I felt moisture
between my legs. I blushed, thinking that everyone around me could tell exactly
how I felt.

I spent the time in between English classes trying to talk myself out
of what I knew to be true. I hadn’t seen anything. If he was looking at me, it
was with nothing but utter contempt. Hadn’t he made it obvious that he wanted
nothing to do with me, that he hated me, that I was less than nothing to him?
It was all in my head, I was just confused, that was all.

But the next class didn’t help convince me further. In fact, it made
it worse. That time, whenever Jay’s eyes passed over me in class, the stutter
was more noticeable, the look less distant. When he looked at me, I could feel
it like fingers on my body. He seemed to get upset each time his eyes lingered
on me, and he would be noticeably agitated for minutes afterwards.

I tried to compensate by keeping my eyes glued to the book, but I
couldn’t help the way my body reacted each time he looked at me. I’d blush
bright red and feel my whole body warming up, as though I had a fever.

When class ended, I wasted no time in gathering my things and getting
out of the room. I took a beeline to the nearest bathroom and sat in the stall,
breathing heavily and trying to put it all out of my mind. This was just like
the summer, when I’d find Jay looking at me randomly, a similar expression in
his eyes. What did it mean?

It was a question that I knew the answer to. I may have been sexually
inexperienced, but I wasn’t stupid. That look he kept giving me wasn’t a look
of anger, or hatred. It was desire. Pure, unbridled desire. How could he look
at me that way but still act so cold? So hateful?

Next class began with Jay handing back our papers. My heart fluttered
as he called my name and handed me mine, the paper shaking slightly as he
pushed it towards me, as though his hand was unsteady. He kept his eyes far
from me and my body. My heart plunged when I saw the words, marked in red, on
the top of my paper.

Needs work,
was all they said. That was it. Nothing else. No edits in the body of
the paper. No comments. Just those two, insulting words. I felt like crumpling
the paper up and throwing it away. I looked up at Jay as he walked down the
rows of seats, handing out other papers. How dare he? After how hard I’d
worked…this was ridiculous!

I knew that paper was good, and he was letting his personal feelings
about me influence his judgment. Or maybe he really was just out to get me. I
must have been shooting him daggers, because he turned to face me with some
surprise, as though he could feel me looking. He met my stare with one of his
own; it was as full of contempt as my own.

This time, class went by without any hungry looks or lecherous
glances. Whenever our eyes met, there was nothing but electric anger between
us. As class ended, I strode straight to his desk, slapping my paper down in
front of him.

“What is this?” I demanded, pointing at the red
words.

“I assume you can read,” he said flippantly,
packing up his papers.

“I can write, too. I can write damn well. This paper is fantastic, and
you know it,” I said, trying to make him look at me. There was one thing I’d
learned from my mother: if you know you did your best and someone treats you
like you didn’t, you have every right to demand better.

“My notes reflect my feelings. I feel this paper needs work. You want
a good grade, work harder on the finished paper,” he said, snapping his
briefcase closed and finally looking at me. His eyes were cold, conveying
nothing. I wondered, not for the first time, how someone so awful could still
be so attractive.

“Fine,” I said, pointedly. I spun on my heel and marched out of class.
I could picture a cartoonish raincloud hanging over my head as my rage and
indignation hovered above me.
Fine, fine,
fine,
I thought, my own last word echoing in my head.
You want me to work harder? I’ll write a paper so damn good it could
win a Pulitzer!

And that’s exactly what I did. I hit the books that night, and didn’t
stop working for days. I ignored all my other assignments, all my other
classes, devoting all my time to research and writing. I e-mailed every person
I knew who was good at English and asked them to look over the paper. I ran
entirely on coffee and determination.

In the few classes between Jay handing back my first draft and handing
in my completed paper, I did my best to ignore Jay’s continued looks. They were
getting more frequent, longer, and left him more flustered each passing class.

To be honest, I started to gloat about it.
He thinks he has an edge on me, but it seems like I’m the one who’s got
something on him,
I’d think to myself, smirking at him each time his eyes
passed over me hungrily. Maybe it was all that smirking that was making Jay
lose his focus a little more each time; maybe it was that smirking that led to
everything that happened next.

Or maybe it was me. I’d like to think that I’m pretty blameless in
everything that happened, but when I look back on it honestly, I knew what I
was doing every step of the way. I’d been able to ignore my feelings for Jay
when I was just spying on him from my bedroom window, but sitting in class with
him every day was a different story.

Because, as much as I hated Jay as a person, I liked him as a teacher.
He was friendlier when he was lecturing, funny and smart. And those looks…as
much as I tried to ignore them, they seemed to burrow into my skin. They seemed
to collect in my subconscious, only to come out in my dreams.

Those dreams! They had started after Jay’s second class, but at that
time they were simple, fragmented, and easily forgettable. As time went on,
though, they became more detailed, fuller. I’d wake up in a sweat, heart
pounding, thighs clenched together. I wouldn’t be able to remember exactly what
happened, but things stood out. Kisses. Caresses. A feeling like a pulse. It
made it all the harder to sit through class under Jay’s hungry eyes. It made it
all the more uncomfortable when I’d leave class and realize, with horror, that
my panties were wet.

I’d never had dreams like that before. I’d never even felt like that
before. And I hated Jay so much: how could
he
be the one to make me feel that way? Those dreams, those feelings, piled
up. I buried them, working on the paper, staying up late to avoid sleep,
driving myself into a frenzy. But there’s only so much you can bury. There’s
only so much you can take. There’s only so much room for tension before the
rubber band breaks.

The rubber band broke a week after handing in our papers. That was the
class we got our papers back. Jay waited until the end of class before
distributing the papers. When he came to mine, I stared up at him in defiance,
sure that he had finally recognized my efforts.

C.

The letter stared up at me from the top of the paper. My hands shook.
C. C. C. C.
That was all. No other
notes, no other markings. Just a big, ugly, half-moon written in red. My eyes
shot up to him, but he had his back turned handing out the rest of the papers.
I didn’t let him out of my sight, just continued to stare until he’d made his
way back to his desk.

“That’s all. If you have any questions about your papers, please see
me,” he said, taking a seat. Around me, students began to gather their things.
A few of my peers walked to the front of the room with their papers in hand to
talk with Jay. I remained seated, my body almost rigid with anger.

I watched as he spoke in low tones with the students, sometimes
smiling, sometimes looking with genuine concern at certain parts of the paper.
As though he
cared.
I think what I
hated most about him in that moment was that he was pretending to be a good
teacher. He was acting like Professor Samuels, when really, I knew that he was
Jay, the asshole.

Finally, as the last of my classmates drifted away, it was just me and
Jay in the classroom. He looked up at me, fixing me in his cold gaze. We stayed
like that, in silence, for a long minute.

“Can I help you?” he finally said, his voice hard
enough to cut diamonds.

“What the fuck is this?” I said, spitting the
words out in a rush. “You know this is an A paper.”

“I give everyone the grade they deserve,” Jay said, rising from his desk
and collecting his things. I stood up, too, and marched to his desk.

“I worked hard on this. Really, really hard. And it’s good. It’s
great. It’s a fantastic paper, and you know it,” I said, catching his eye. You
could cut the air between us with a knife.

“It lacked depth, Elizabeth. You can’t just skate
by on the surface,” he said.

“Depth?
Depth?
What’s that
supposed to mean?” I said, almost yelling. I could feel angry tears pricking in
my eyes.

“It means that you don’t get whatever you want just because you’re my
stepsister,” Jay shot back, betraying himself.

“That’s what this is all about? Because your dad fell in love with my
mom, that’s my fault, and I need to be punished? By ruining my life? You could
cost me my scholarship!” I cried, almost on the verge of tears but holding
back.