Cougar

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PRESENT DAY
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Right now, it’s Monday, aka lab day in the library. Despite this, I hung back in my classroom, sitting at my desk in case there were forgetful fools who were unable to remember that. I expectantly got Gill strolling into the near empty room.

She stopped dead in her tracks and gave a look of wonder as she said, “Where is everybody?”

“Library,” I reminded her with a laugh. The info dawned on her abruptly as she slapped the back of her hand to her forehead.

“Oh, right.” She went to snap her fingers at me as a goodbye but was interrupted by ZK walking in. He, too, stopped short on his way to his desk. Right as he started to ask the same thing Gill did, Gill smacked her hand against his chest.

“Library, dipshmit.”

She paused to throw an innocent smile at me.

“Clever,” I smiled back instead of snapping at her for ‘cussing,’ and watched Gill push ZK out of her way so she could bolt out the door. I think she likes him - which confused me at first, because I thought Gill was a lesbian. She gives off that vibe, okay. I’m not normally such a prejudice jerk, but come on now; vibes are vibes. Listen to your heart when the ‘gay’ one is being screamed at you.

Plus, this story needs another gay or two to really tie it all together.

Seeing there was about a minute left before the bell rang, I started to get up and head to the library myself. I picked up my folder of work handed in by my other classes, side-stepping away from my desk. Feet away from the door, I almost collided with a body.

I wound up embracing Rebeca so I wouldn’t knock her over. She gripped momentarily onto my forearms to keep from falling backwards. “Woah.” I briskly pushed her away, getting an…illegal feeling down under. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

She clutched onto two or so folders in her grasp and laughed faintly. “Oh” she began, looking towards the ceiling. “It’s…uh…” Her hand was near her head, fingers wiggling around like she was trying to pull the rest of her sentence out of the air.

She scrunched her mouth before going with, “It’s fine?”

God. Foreign people are adorable.

“Right word.” Instantly remembering the room was empty besides us, I said, “We got the library today. Do you know where that is?” She shook her head so I took the lead, going passed her to the door. “This way.”

Down the hall we go, awkwardly making conversation. I found myself asking the same questions people asked me when I moved here: 1) how did she like being overseas so far; 2) why she moved; 3) why a few weeks late getting here, but added a new question 4) would she mind if I started calling her ‘Beck-o’ or some dumb nickname because the True Blue lazy Aussie side of me was prevailing, blah, blah.

1) It’s okay.
2) Riots in Venezuela
3) Thunder/snow/hailstorms in the way of each connecting flight.
4) Go ahead.

Saving us from anymore forced questions, the library finally came into view. I was a gentleman and let her walk through the archway first - and not to look at her ass, I swear. Though…I did have a look.

Passing through the bookcase part of the huge room, we treaded up the three stairs, joining the rest of the students. Beck-o promptly made a beeline for an empty seat - apparently for her. A fellow foreigner smiled up at her with her genuine smile, like the really nice and proper Italian girl she was. Rebox returned Emilia Russo’s gesture before they were submersed in a conversation, seemingly in their native tongue - first thought to be foreign, but after eavesdropping, I realised it was just ‘girl.’

Sitting down at my own little vacant table, I flipped open my folder to the twenty-two essays laying inside. I wanted to hit myself with a blunt object for assigning it in the first place, because now I wasn’t up for grading it.

Thankfully only thirty seconds were wasted before a certain voice was my distraction. The possible owner of the voice made my heart leap against my will and I looked up to give a smile to Ally.

She smiled even bigger back at me, quietly telling her twenty-odd students to use the computers located on the other side of the room.

“If you have any questions,” she added, hitching her thumb towards me, “I’ll be over here.” Getting mumbles as a response, she came over to my table, taking a seat in the wooden chair across from me.

She greeted me with, “Oh, hello - what are you doing in the computer lab this fine morning?”

With fake enthusiasm, I told her, “Story time!”

“What kind of story?”

“Worst pain ever.”

“Like you did?”

I fought the natural urge to flip her off. I stuck my tongue out at her amused face. “Yup.” To shush her from what I knew she was going to say, I continued, “I got some stuff I’ve thought of myself, trust me. It’s just for the sake of (ahem this story you readers are reading ahem) having examples for them to look off of.”

“I wish I could do that,” she said pouting. “We didn’t have French classes in Alta - probably on account of it being in Canada - French central. If anything, we had American English classes. Did you have Creative Writing in Mel-born?” I gave her a look of warning, internally cringing at her pronunciation of my hometown.

She corrected her herself sarcastically. “Oh, I’m sorry - ‘Mel-bun?”

I pretended that my eye was dreadfully itchy, slyly giving her my raised middle finger. She blew me a dramatic kiss. Satisfying my ‘itch,’ I answered her.

“Yeah, but I didn’t take it. I think I took a second Study Hall instead.”

“Smart - I took, like, Speech or something.”

“‘Like’?” I echoed her, smirking condescendingly. “Good to see that semester class is still workin’ for ya.” She flicked her tongue against the inside of her bottom lip, raising her brow slightly. She mocked me with a shit Aussie impersonation.

“‘Workin’ for ya?’”

“I’m Australian,” I snapped, kicking my foot against hers under the table. “We’re a lazy breed. Sod off.” She smirked back, pushing my foot several more times.

“Footsy?” she said ‘flirting.’ I put on a flirty smile before I kicked her hard. She jumped and widened her eyes at me. I stuck with my smirk.

“You know it, babe.”

She brought her leg up and hugged her knee. “You’re so mean to me,” she whined frowning, giving me the ‘puppy dog’ eyes.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mocked her from before. “You don’t seem to mind in the bedr-” She grabbed my folder and shoved it to the ground. Her finger pointed to it as she feigned another pout.

She said sadly, “Your stuff fell.”

And this is why I like her - she can dish your bs right back to you.

I narrowed my eyes at her, muttering, “I’ll get you for that,” reaching down to scoop the few scattered papers back into the folder. Sitting back up, I caught eyes with Rebeca. An evil thought was slowly devised. My revenge was available sooner than expected.

I looked back at Ally, giving Rebeca a small glance as I said, “You know Beck-o - oh, wait. Rebeca. Sorry - she’s also taking my Speech class.” She picked up on my intentions within seconds.

“‘Beck-o’?” she said, giving me a small glare. “So I see you’ve already got a nickname for her.”

I modestly shrugged. “Yeah, just a little somethin’ I came up with - she likes it. Anyway, like I said, she’s taking two of my classes - actually…she’s in one of my English classes, too. How weird. I get to see her all the time.”

Her ‘glare’ got darker. “Oh?” She gave a fleeting look behind her. I followed her gaze and saw she was giving a real glare to Rebeca. Rebeca apparently didn’t look away when I did earlier, but quickly did at the sight of both Ally and I staring at her.

Ally turned back to me, a big smirk on her face.

She said haughtily, “She is a pretty little slut, isn’t she?”

“Breathtaking,” I smiled at her, holding back my laugh. “She’s staying after school to chat with me - needs a few pointers on giving speeches. Fix up her English a bit.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yup.”

Ally tried to keep her ‘playful glare’ going, but her eyes widened as she shook her head at me.

“Over my dead body. You are not going to be alone with her.”

I sat back in my chair, arms going over my chest. “Don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust her.”

I took a glimpse at Rebeca. She had gone back to looking this way. She held my gaze for a few seconds before dropping it back to her screen. I suddenly understood Ally’s side of this, but wasn’t giving up that easily.

I shrugged again indifferently, saying, “Not an issue for me.”

“Well, it’s a major issue for me.”

I shrugged once again. “Yeah, but you ‘tutored’ me and we turned out great.”

“Exactly,” she said, heaving a kick to my foot one more time. “We got a good thing going. Let’s not ruin it by bringing that…thing into it.”

I acted like I was considering what she said, but began smirking deceivingly.

“Okay, say I do call off the little afterschool meeting, what do I get?”

“My undying gratitude?” I pointed my thumb downward. Her forced convincing smile fell into a devious one like mine. She leaned forward to quietly say, “Whatever you want.”

Though that was the answer I was hoping for, I slouched back, not completely sold, because - heh - I wasn’t joking; Rebeca did came in this morning before the bell rang to ask if she could stay after school for help…and I didn’t deny her request.

I brought my hand up to nonchalantly scratch my jaw. “Well, our plan is set in stone; I can’t just flake on her. She really, eh, ‘needs’ this.” Ally sat up straight, her fingers locking together, reminding me of something like a woman in power, determined to get her way.

“Tyler,” she said, pausing to gesture to herself. “Take a look at this. Okay?” She seemed to ignore me when I snorted at her. “And…her - just…ugh. Let’s be honest, she’s probably gotten passed around a few times - I heard she got tag teamed over the weekend and then got a train pulled on her afterwards -”

I interrupted her, finally laughing.

“Who told you that?”

She shushed me, continuing. “I may have made that up. Point is - I, on the other hand, am practically clean thanks to my ridiculously religious parents. Up until my cliché freak-out in my senior year, not one soul got up in this. You and that girl that wound up being my temporary friends-with-benefits are the only ones. I am, hands down, the best choice if we’re talking STD-wise.”

“Yeah, completely ditching the fact that we’ve been ‘together’ - shall I say - for about four years.” She propped her arm up on the back of the chair, taking a second to blow on her nails. Brushing them off against her grey cardigan, she smiled at me.

“Yet another reason why you should drop that hoe.”

“Ahem.” Our eyes snapped wide open at the sound of someone that wasn’t one of us clearing their throat. We slowly looked up to see Gill. Ally noticeably relaxed, probably expecting to see Rebeca, like I was, but tensed almost instantly when she realised it was still a student who just heard her say ‘drop that hoe.’

“Gee, McClain,” Gill chuckled, pressing both her hands flat against the circular table, leaning on them. She made the ‘tsk-tsk’ sound, shaking her head in disapproval. She started to smile arrogantly, and when she said, “What would your ridiculously religious parents think of that language?” I fucking lost it.

Rightfully jumping to conclusions, Ally’s demeanour collapsed from overly confident to utter humiliation.

She stammered out, face going red, “How…how much of that did you hear?”

Gillian smiled bigger. She winked at Ally, perching her lips into an awaiting kiss, depicting that she heard of Ally's dip into lesbianism. “Enough,” she beamed before turning to me. “Are we coming back in here tomorrow? I won’t finish my story if we aren’t.”

Mentally not prepared to move on from what Gill just did, I took a few seconds to collect myself. I managed to say, “We can.” Gill nodded, tapping her knuckles against the table. We waited for her to scamper back to her desk, but she spoke to Ally.

“You know, I side with you. I would not trust her. She is quite the hoe. Hasn’t even been here a week and she’s already fuc-…slept with half the guys in our class.” She turned to me, ‘gravely’ saying, “Heed my warning.” She slowly backed her way to her computer.

After sitting motionless, Ally suddenly smiled.

“Told you she’s no good.”

I eyed her, crossing my arms over my chest. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“Alright,” I caved. “I’ll tell her I can’t do any of that ‘torturing’ after school. But what if she’s persistent?”

She said with a shrug, “Dropkick her.”

I laughed, but nodded like I was a secret agent and she was my supervisor giving me orders.

“Got it, boss.”

-

The more I look at Rebox the more she reminds me of Leticia Bufoni - female skater from Brazil. Leticia is hot, so Beck-o is hot. That makes it harder to turn her down now.

Also…I guess I should tell you…I was diagnosed as a sex addict when I was about fourteen. Yeah. I’m horny 24/7. I don’t know if it was just because of the way sex was perceived in my family or what, but it’s a weird issue for me.

Well, truth be told, I think it has something to do with my dad - how dumb is this? The only time he was ever genuinely proud of me was when I did something idiotic - drugs, girls, got expelled. Anything that wasn’t good.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, sex is fantastic; I like doing it, but when I did it as a teenager, it wasn’t really for that kind of pleasure. It was more for…acceptance, I guess. And lemme stop you there - that doesn’t make what Vanessa or what anyone else did to me any better. That wasn’t sex. That was rape. I didn’t exactly enjoy it.

God. This is lame. I know. Just thought I should tell you so my life choices make a little bit more sense now.

Unfortunately, at the thought of sex, I started to zone out. Luckily, the bell had rung at 2:35; it was now getting near forty. No one was in here to see me pop a boner. To sidetrack myself, I was at the whiteboard erasing the doodles of poo Gill drew during her English lesson - fourth period.

I took a few seconds to admire her works of art before erasing them. Making the last one disappear - a cartoony pair of boobs - I went to drop the eraser down on the tray. My head turned towards the doorway when someone spoke softly.

“Mr. Williams?”

It was Rebeca. I rubbed the palms of my hands against my shirt, hopefully getting rid of any marker they had gotten on them. “Yeah?” Again, she looked at the ceiling for her sentence.

“We are…still…studying?”

The look of confusion she gave me made me smile, but I shook my head at her. “Can’t,” I said with a fake frown. The lie came easily to me. “Gotta take my dog to the vet. She has worms.” She grimaced and groaned slightly.

“Oh - gross. Uh…well, I don’t have…a rides home.”

“What about the buses?” I suggested. “They couldn’t have left yet.”

“I don’t ride a bus. A friend takes me home.”

“They already left?” I asked, my stomach sinking. She nodded. Was I supposed to do something about that? She had this hopeful look on her face and she started to smile when I said, “Well, should I…do something?”

“Drive me?”

“I…” tried to think of another excuse. I knew I couldn’t have her in my car alone and take her to her house without wanting to follow her inside or park off somewhere and do her. I think she knew that.

“Please?” she begged, looking up at me with those big brown eyes. She lightly tugged on her bottom lip. For some reason, that had the opposite effect I thought it would have on me. I started to relax, suddenly not interested in her anymore. She was doing that on purpose, to persuade me, if you will.

She added, “I really need it.”

She jumped when lightning cracked loudly and the sky outside lit up. My stomach sank again as I stared incredulously out the window to see bucketfuls of rain drench the parking lot.

Well, now I have to, don’t I?

Goddamnit.

I sighed to which she took as a success.

“Yeah,” I slowly gave in. “I’ll give you a ride.” Pulling out my phone to text Ally that I was going to be a little late getting home, I grabbed my jacket and started to join Rebeca out the door.

“Where do you live?” I asked, unhooking my keys from my belt loop. She told me her address as I locked my classroom door. Took about three tries before we were on our way to the teachers’ parking lot.

I pressed the unlock button and made the white Honda beep twice. She slid into the passenger side seat while I went around to the driver’s.

We didn’t really talk the whole way there. If I tried to, it would’ve just been a repeat of the walk to the library. She didn’t seem to be too bad, honestly. She rarely flirted, thank Jesus, but the way she sat in her seat was…distracting. She had both her legs spread; one rested against the car door, the other’s knee was almost in the cup holders. Her hand dangled limply between them.

Oof.

She murmured out, “Left,” when we got to a four way intersection. I took the turn and she said, “The brown house. There.” Going passed four houses of no corresponding colour, I pulled into an empty parking spot rather than parallel park because then we’d die.

“Here?”

She nodded, yanking on her bookbag. She stopped to give me a strange look as she breathed out a thank you. I told her she was welcomed and waited for her to push open the door. She eventually did, but stopped when she got it open a crack and was bashed by rain. She yelped out and jerked the door shut. Her make-up was already starting to smear. She looked back at me with growing raccoon eyes. I wanted to take a Snapchat of it, but knew I needed internet, and that I didn’t have.

To save her a little bit, I handed her my jacket. “Bring this back tomorrow.” She reached for it then smiled at me.

“You would let me…?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you,” she said again, smiling bigger. It was then I was painfully reminded just how devastatingly beautiful she is. I smiled nicely back. She went for the door handle again, this time with my jacket draped over her head. She turned back one more time to smile at me before opening the door and rushing out. I waited for her to run up the steps and make it onto the porch.

Seeing she made it without tripping, I faced back towards the road, then drove off.

Ehh. Yeah, alright, isn’t she.

For now.

Dun, dun, duuuuuun.

I came home to a flat full of people. Ally, Ellie, Shelby and Fabio - Wait. Michael, blah. They were sprawled out amongst the couch and floor, a big box of Papa John’s pizza on the coffee table.

Ellie took a bite as she cried out happily, “Tyler’s home!” I winked at her before stepping right on her to join Ally on the couch. She cried out in pain this time, rolling over onto her back. She gripped her side.

“You arsehole!” she wailed. I reached forward to pat her on the head, ruffling her hair. Shelby laughed out loudly at Ellie’s scowl, pausing to take a bite of her pizza, then started laughing again.

Ellie snapped, “Oh, yeah. Love you too, babe. NOT.”

Shelby bent over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Not as much as I love you…” She drifted her eyes up at me, beginning to smile. “…Tyler.” I blew her a kiss while Ellie’s mouth hung agape in fake betrayal.

“Oh, whatever!” she shouted. “Why don’t you two go fuck again, eh?”

I shot up from the couch, causing Ally to fall face first where my butt previously was. As she groaned, I went for Shelby’s hand. “Round two,” I declared in Ellie’s glaring face. Shelby laughed again, high-fiving me instead of taking my hand to help her up.

We did our secret hand shake (fist bump, jellyfish, then explosion) and I sat back down next to Ally. Ally leaned to look passed me at Michael. She said, “Oh, Michael. What’s it like being alone?” The room laughed. His was sarcastic.

“Oh, ha-ha. I won’t be alone for long. Damien’s coming over soon.” Ah, yes. He’s dating Damien. Weird, right? And Shelby’s getting married to my sister. Ally and I are…uh…questionable.

Aaannd…what else is there? Oh, right. Shelby and I did it - we’ll get to that later, Then obviously, Ally and I did it too.

Man. I’m a slut.

Hey, recovering sex addict. Leave me alone.

Haha. I’m not recovering.

Soon Damien did come over and then everyone had a make-out buddy. Seriously. The only ones who weren’t making out were Ally and I, surprisingly. I don’t know why; we’re usually the ones who start the competition.

We ultimately grew tired of all the tonsil hockey being played in front of us and ditched them for my room where we cuddled with Baby on my bed and watched Weeds, then went on Netflix and watched a few episodes of Orange is the New Black and American Horror Story. And since we’ve already seen all of season one of AHS, we banged a few times.

Like, really. This girl is perfect.

I just wonder if what it’d be like if we actually started dating. Would we still be the same or would everything change? It was a weird thought I try to keep myself from thinking, but always do. I know she does too. We talk about it sometimes, but never do anything about it.

I’m alright with that.

I hope she is.