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“Incredibly weak. But no, not everyone.”
“Just me?” I blink.
“You and my team. They’re used to it though.”
“Why? Why would you be awful to your…friends?” I ask the last part hesitantly but the professor nods.
“Yeah. They’re my friends. Brothers. And I mean that in the truest sense of the word, not in this modern-day teenage bromance bullshit.” I almost smile at the vehemence in his words. It’s nice that it’s not directed at me for once. And I also understand what he means about bullshit bromances.
“But why?” That seems even worse to me. I never had brothers or sisters – in the literal or metaphorical sense – but even I know you shouldn’t treat them like dirt.
“Because while they’re masquerading as students, they could have my girl.”
“Hypothetically could, or actually did?”
“They did.”
“Oh…” I add quietly, suddenly insecure about this thing that’s developing between me, Cove and Bhodi. They’re seeing other girls? Cove said he wasn’t but did he lie? Or was this all happening before I came along?
Why does it hurt so much either way?
“Why me?”
“I think you know why,” he replies, equally low, his tone urgent.
“I don’t.” I shake my head. I refuse to consider what he might be saying, my brain is far too muddled by all the revelations of the last few days that have been thrown at me. I can’t even begin to unpick the complexity that is my professor…who, apparently, isn’t a professor at all, just like Reef isn’t a doctor. “But if it’s so easy, a simple case ofmind over matterlike you said, then why are you so fucked up? Wouldn’t you have a handle on your vices?”
“I didn’t say it was easy, Malia. Just that it was simple.”
“Well, in my mind simple and easy are synonymous.”
“Similar perhaps, but not the same.”
I turn to face him and see anguish lining his handsome face.
“Is it hard?”
“Excruciating.”
There’s real pain and suffering in his eyes, which stirs something in me. “Why not just give in? You clearly give in to the drinking.”
“I’m trying. I’ve been trying to be a better man.” Why does that thrill and disappoint me in equal measure?
“Don’t you worry that you might…snap?” I ask, holding my breath for his reply. He’s so close, staring at me so intently. I feel like we’re talking about something entirely different now, like he’s trying to tell me something, but what?
His reply is so low I have to lean in to hear him. “All the time.”
“Doesn’t it leave you on edge?”
“Constantly.”
My heart is racing, and between the roar of the ocean, the wind, and the blood pounding in my ears, I’m struggling to make out his responses. There’s tension crackling in the air around us, but not like when we fight. This feels different. Indescribable.
“Is it worth it? The not giving in?” I all but whisper.
He’s going to kiss me.
“No. It isn’t.”
