“Your views?” He leers into me with those bedroom eyes, and my stomach bottoms out. “You could share your past views, present views, that is, if they’ve evolved at all.” He says it low with the deep register of his voice, while smoldering at me openly in front of the class. Something about this forbidden foreplay lights an inferno around me, makes me choke on the prospect of every item on that syllabus occurring in real time.
What am I saying? Cruise Elton looks at every girl that way. And to think otherwise is only setting myself up for a spectacular fall.
“I think love is nothing but a fallacy propagated by the greeting card industry and a billion-dollar bridal enterprise that feeds into the fantasy of every little girl.” I say it a little louder than called for. “I think the divorce rate in this country is solid evidence that love and all of its trappings are nothing more than an illusion propagated by fairytales that promise ‘happily ever after’ in a world where neither happy nor ever after truly exist. At the end of the day all that really remains is high-octane lust—enough to fuel a rocket ship—still doesn’t make it real.”
His cheek cinches to the side and his dimple goes off, but no smile. He still manages to melt me in the process. There’s that high-octane lust I was talking about. It’s as if my hormones insist on making the point for me.
“Perhaps, Ms. Jordan”—he locks me in with a heated gaze—“you simply haven’t met the right person yet.” He moves onto the next student, but that cold steely look he gave makes me shudder. Why do I get the feeling I’ve just done something terribly wrong—like stomped out the rosebush of our love before it ever had a chance to blossom.
The thin girl next to me clears her throat before giving an answer. She turns to face me fully. The harsh lights from above annunciate the fact she’s sporting a rather burgeoning girl-stache as she frowns. “I’m sorry for you.” She says it short and simple, and my face burns with color. She reverts her attention back to Cruise. “My parents have been married for almost thirty-years. They say ‘I love you’ and kiss each other hello and goodbye. They’ve raised four kids together, and they still go out on dates.” She cuts me a look as if I’ve just slashed open the bellies of a hundred newborn puppies. “I believe in love because it exists. I don’t take other peoples’ failures and make them my own. I will find love, and it will prosper.”
A stunted applause comes from the back of the room and builds until the entire class is roaring and cheering, spontaneously jumping to their feet, with the exception of a well beaten down me.
The class goes on that way with everyone declaring themselves team love, while I seem to be garnering more than my fair share of dirty looks. You would think I were secretly spearheading a matrimonial apocalypse, or I’ve made it my personal crusade to take down Valentine’s Day.
The class ends and bodies drain from the room. I wait until the last of the stragglers dissipate before making my way to the front.
“I see you’ve outfitted me with a syllabus tailor made for your sexual pleasure.” I mean for it to come out peppered with humor, but it comes out a sad admission from the one who all but declared herself anti-love. Anyway, that’s basically how I introduced myself to Cruise, so he should be the least surprised.
He glances up at me from behind his large mahogany desk, looking dangerously sexy as he takes off his glasses. He walks over, wraps his arms around my waist and holds me for a long span of time. I take in his scent—memorize the girth of his body entangled with mine. He feels safe, nourishing, and hearty, as though I’ve hungered for Cruise my entire life and now I had the vitamins, the essential minerals I needed to survive. All along I had been anemic in the very thing I decried—love. Cruise was the iron my marrow so desperately needed. He kick-started my body again, put God’s own breath in my soul, and I had the nerve to deny him right to his face, openly calling these feelings budding inside me a flat-out lie.
A ragged breath escapes from me, and then the unthinkable happens. Tears begin to fall, and I’m weeping a river over his freshly pressed dress shirt. It’s as if I’d carried a weight around with me my whole life, a heart of lead and granite. And today, in front of God and Cruise and about fifty of my newest peers, I dropped it. It lay shattered at my feet because I didn’t want it anymore.
I do want to believe in love. I want all of its trappings, and if it costs me my sanity and a very good divorce lawyer, so be it.
I pull back and gasp at the mess I’ve made of Cruise. His shirt has turned to velum, and his skin glows beneath. Two necrotic butterflies stain his once-pristine dress shirt, and I’m mortified at what I’ve done.