Hate You Still by Lyssa Lemire

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EMMA

It’s been two weeks since I abruptly walked out on Chris.

When I got home, I texted him an apology, making up a story that I just remembered I had to get home to help my roommate with something. I know that he’s too smart to have not seen through such a flimsy tale.

We continued to text back and forth a bit throughout the week, making indefinite allusions to seeing each other again some time, but it petered out. I just couldn’t summon any enthusiasm.

I’ve tried to tell myself that maybe the chemistry was just off. That I can’t expect to just hit it off with the first guy I go out with after my long vacation in singledom.

I matched with some more guys on the app and texted with some of them a little bit, but no matter what, I knew that if things with any of them got to the point where we were alone and they lean in for a kiss, I would do the same thing I did with Chris – pull back.

Whenever I imagine kissing another guy, something inside me turns. My nose scrunches. The edges of my lips turn downward into a disgusted frown.

Except for one guy.

There’s one guy I can’t stop imagining kissing. No matter how hard I try – and believe me, I try.

Every time the images intrude in my head, I try to think of something else. I try to busy myself with studying, or watching a movie, or binge-watching a show, or catching up on my reading. But I can never keep those images at bay for long.

They keep barging back into my imagination, taking hold of my fantasies.

I can’t stop imagining those lips caressing mine. I can’t stop imaging his tongue forcing its way into my mouth. I can’t stop imagining his hands – his giant, sturdy hands – all over my body. I can’t stop imagining my hands reaching up under his shirt and feeling those stark, hard ridges of his muscles with my own hands.

I can’t stop imagining … the thing I’m imagining now.

I pinch my arm to shock myself back to reality. I’ve already missed half the lecture, I realize. And once Dr. Farsa is halfway into one of her lectures, forget about – there’s no catching up.

It’s Thursday, my one day of the week where I have a class on campus. I head out from Marshall right at the bell like the rest of the students and push the edge of the speed limit to make it here on time.

Well, since I’ve already lost the thread of the lecture, what could be the harm of going back to indulging in those fantasies I was just starting to get lost in moments ago …?

No, Emma! Bad girl!

It’s bad enough that those thoughts take possession of me like I’m bewitched against my will. The last thing I need to do is to start summoning them voluntarily.

Because nothing’s changed about the man who’s the subject of those pesky, dangerous fantasies.

He’s still Knox Delton. He’s still a bastard. He’s still a player, a womanizer, a bad boy, a lothario who’s out of control and borderline self-destructive.

He’s everything I absolutely do not need in my life. Not now, not ever.

I do, however, have to hand one thing to him.

I have three students in my class who are on the football team. And their behavior and focus has improved tremendously since the school year started. They’re often talking about how they’re looking forward to practice, and how much progress the team is making.

And the window in my and Ms. Kimler’s classroom looks right out to the athletic field. More often than I’d like to admit, I lose track of time staring out of it when he’s running practice sessions after school.

He doesn’t just chill out in the shade and let the kids run around. He’s really involved in the practice. I see him coaching them, giving them pep talks, demonstrating technique. He works hard – and often stays behind with students for one-on-one help after practice is over.

I know he was having trouble getting a handle on things during his first couple days on the job, but he’s really showed dedication. It’s clear that he actually cares. Which really surprises me.

But, I’d be a lot more impressed with the philanthropic aspect of his coaching … if that’s what it really was. Because I also found out the reason he’s at Marshall coaching the football team in the first place. It doesn’t have anything to do with his studies. It’s community service.

I’m not sure what he did, but it must have been pretty bad considering how much he gets away with.

Class is dismissed and I pack up my stuff, ready to get back home. I’m exhausted.

Every day still feels like running a gauntlet. Even though I’ve been able to establish some order in the classroom, at the end of the day Ms. Kimler is still the real teacher, and she still sets the tone for the students. It’s hard to maintain a productive environment when her unconventional philosophies seem to get more bizarre and nonsensical by the day.

While driving home, I notice an older woman struggling while trying to pull a large box through her front door. Normally, I’d probably be less the good Samaritan I know I should be and just drive past. But I pull over and stop when I see her lose her footing and fall over, flat on her back.

“Are you okay?” I ask worriedly, rushing over to her.

“Oh, I’ve survived worse,” she says, though her face is scrunched up in, if not pain, at least discomfort.

“Should I call an ambulance?” I ask, getting my phone ready.

She laughs, swatting her hand dismissively in the air while still on the ground. “Ambulance! How old do I look? I’m just fine, young lady.” This is one tough old woman, that much is for sure. “I wouldn’t mind a hand to help me up, though.”

I help her to her feet. I ask about four hundred times more if she’s sure she’s okay, sure she hasn’t hurt anything, and is sure that she doesn’t need a ride to the hospital or for me to call anyone – she dismisses all of it with the same independent bravado.

“The only thing I wouldn’t mind is if you helped me lug this damn box through the door,” she says cheerfully.

“Deal.” I grab the edges of the large, rectangular box and drag it through her door. Wow, this is heavy. She really must be tough and uncompromising to try to haul something of this weight by herself at her age.

Or, at her age, maybe she just doesn’t have anyone around to help her.

Finally, I’m able to get it inside and dragged into her living room.

“Thanks a bunch, dear,” she says. “The name’s Clare, by the way.”

“Emma,” I reply, introducing myself. “What is this anyway? It was so heavy!” I can’t resist asking.

“A new bookshelf. I bought on from Walmart a couple years ago, but the cheap plasterboard piece of junk fell apart. I bought one made of real wood this time. Still have to assemble it myself, though.”

Well, that explains the weight. The thought of the woman trying to assemble a bookshelf made of heavy slabs of wood doesn’t sit well with me, though.

“Do you need help assembling it?” I ask.

She waves the question off. “No, don’t worry. I’ve got a nice young man who I know will do it for me.”

“Oh,” I say, with a relieved smile. “That’s good.”

“I swear, that boy is a life saver. A saint really, though he doesn’t realize it himself. I think of him as my guardian angel. The grandson I never had.”

My heart swells at her words, they’re so stamped with genuine pride and gratitude. Man, if only I could find a guy like that.

“It’s good that there are some good people out there,” I say.

She nods. “He’d have hauled this damn bookshelf in here no problem, probably one-handed. But he’s busy volunteering right now.”

“Oh, really?” I ask, my interest piqued. “What kind of volunteering does he do?”

Maybe I can just happen to take an interest in whatever cause he’s aligned with, too, and meet him there. From Clare’s comment about how he’d be able to handle such a heavy package one-handed, even if it probably is some grandmotherly hyperbole, tells me this guy is probably at least in pretty good shape, on top of obviously being a great guy, too.

“He’s working with the middle school football team. Coaching them.” She chuckles to herself. “I don’t know how that young man keeps his sanity trying to coach a bunch of wild twelve and thirteen year old knuckleheads, but he does it.”

Wait a minute …

No, no way. The thought that just crossed my mind can’t possibly be true.

There are two middle schools in Alton, after all.

“Do you know which middle school he volunteers at?” I ask searchingly, sure that the ridiculous possibility that just presented itself to me is about to be dispelled by her answer.

“Marshall.”

No way. She must be mistaken.

“Are you sure it’s Marshall?” I ask, almost urging her to change her answer. “You’re sure it’s not the other one? Bentley Middle School?”

She shakes her head. “Definitely not. It’s Marshall Middle School, alright. That poor boy has bitched about the trouble he’s having with those kids to me so much that I couldn’t mistake the name, not even at my age.” She lets out a booming laugh at her self-directed joke.

“What’s his name?” I ask, unable to help myself.

“Who? The young man I’m talking about?” She asks, and I nod my head. “Oh, his name is Knox. Such a nice boy.”

Knox. Such a nice boy.

Someone should check the temperature of hell, because those are words that I never thought would – or could – be uttered in succession.

“Knox … Delton?” I ask.

Her eyes light up. “Oh, do you know him? Are you friends?”

I’d laugh at that suggestion if I weren’t in a state of shock.

I fib and tell her that I know him from some classes we’ve had together. She then regales me with story after story of how much he’s helped her over the last two years, how many things he’s done for her, how he’s always offering to do more, how she doesn’t know what she’d do without him because she doesn’t have any other family.

Once she gets going, I can’t stop her gushing about Knox, like he’s about to win Humanitarian of the Year, instead of Jackass of the Century.

Knox Delton, the single most self-centered man in the universe, takes time out of his day to regularly help a nice old lady around her house?

I’m starting to wonder if maybe there isn’t a real Knox Delton out there, the one she knows, and if the Knox Delton I’ve been familiar with hasn’t just been his evil twin.

That would actually make more sense than the possibility, which hardly even is a possibility, of the Knox Delton I know, the next-door neighbor who goes out of his way to obnoxiously ruin my dates when he isn’t ruining my night’s sleep, being a good Samaritan.

Helping a sweet, adorable old lady who has no one else to rely on? The Knox I know would be more likely to hide out in the bushes in front of her house before she leaves for church every Sunday and then sneak in to pilfer her old jewelry.

Now, if she’d told me that Knox had done that, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Of course, she’s wrong about Knox volunteering to coach the team. I still don’t know the full story about how he ended up at Marshall, but I know it’s part of the terms of a community service sentence.

Personally, though, if I were a judge, I wouldn’t be assigning Knox to serve at a middle school – I’d be more inclined to give him a restraining order, keeping him away as a bad influence.

But, after hearing these glowing tales of his helpfulness and selflessness from Clare …

I wish Clare a good day and head out home, still reeling from the stories she told of Knox that upset every conception I had about him.