We sat through an awkward silence for what felt like hours. I didn’t exactly know what to say to a possible psychopath. He already made it clear he was having the worst moments of his life. So I was just going to sit it out. In five minutes, it would all be over.
“So…?” He leaned over the table where the laptop was placed, his raspy voice breaking through the silence. “You haven’t gone ahead and got a boyfriend, have you?”
My brow furrowed. Was there a standing rule against that?
“Well, I had one, until about a few weeks ago. But apparently, a student isn’t supposed to have an affair with their teacher, so, yeah. It ended.” I glanced at him. His eyes had darkened, his jaw hard. It felt like he was boiling from the inside and just struggling to keep it all together.
“And then there’s this one now.” My cheeks heat up at the mere thought of my Snow White, my pretty boy, ignoring the unmistakable change in my father’s expression. “He’s kinda way older than me, by the way. But that doesn’t matter. He’s so kind and so…sweet.”
I hadn’t spoken to him in hours, hadn’t heard his voice that I had become addicted to. I wanted to talk to him, see him, hug him, kiss him. I loved kissing him, loved the way he would hesitate, then melt into me all at once.
“Foolish girl.” My father’s icy voice snapped me out of my daydream. His lips were tightened, fist slamming on the table. “Do you not listen?”
“Sorry?” I recoiled, eyeing him with caution, my pulse already racing.
“What did I tell you about boys?”
“Um, I don’t know–”
“–I fucking told you to stay the fuck away from them!” He almost lunged at the laptop screen. “I explicitly said that to you, you idiot. Have you no sense?”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I jolted to my feet, irritation swirling in my chest. What was all this madness about?
“Okay, times’ up.”
With hands firmly on his shoulders, the guards pulled him up from his seated position.
He fixed me with a dark, stealthy glare before they veered him away from the laptop’s camera.
I rushed to my laptop and slammed it shut as if he was going to jump out through the screen and give me a good beating.
“What the hell was all that commotion?”
My gaze flickered to Kenzo who was standing with a weary look at the entrance of the kitchen, a spatula in hand.
“N-nothing,” I said, quite disconnected. “He was just upset that the officers were dragging him.”
I had no idea why I lied. It just…came out.
“Um, okay?” His gaze was skeptical, but he didn’t press as he shook his head, then disappeared into the kitchen again.
I lowered myself to the floor, my thoughts spinning, unable to make sense of what had just happened.
This wasn’t the first time he’d asked if I had a boyfriend. My answers had always been the same–no. Rowan was my first real one. The others before him were harder to name. There had been kisses. Sex. And then…nothing.
“Well, are you done?” Kenzo asked, strolling into the living room again, the smell of fried chicken following him in.
“Yeah,” I murmured, scooting across the floor until my back rested on the cream-coloured leather couch. “Another ten minutes of my life…gone.”
Reaching for the bowl of fried chicken my good friend had placed beside me, I grabbed a piece.
“So…same result, I guess,” he said with a confirmative tone then whirled around, walking back to the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, shaking off the memory of what had just transpired between me and my father. I didn’t want to think too hard about it. I had no room in my head for that. So I shoved a drumstick into my mouth, taking a slow bite.
From a distance, I overheard Kenzo grumble, “I can’t fathom why you persist in this. It’s literally the same result every damn time.”
“Well, he’s my father,” I mumbled with chicken latched between my teeth.
