Joseph’s POV“You let a bitch take your find,” one of his friends laughed. “Man, you got weak.”“She had backup,” the guy muttered, sounding annoyed and a little drunk himself, but not completely intoxicated like Tessa was.I gritted my teeth, hiding against the shadows that formed around the alley they were hiding inside.“If she was as hot as you say, I wouldn’t have let anything take that away from me,” his friends said. “Next time, give me a call and I’ll be your backup.”The two laughed, which pissed me off even more. I wasn’t going to let them continue talking about Tessa like this. I made myself known to them, and they both turned to face me with large, startled eyes.“Hey, man. We were having a private conversation,” the one with the longer hair and yellow teeth said. I recognized his voice as the one talking about “his find.”“Yeah, were you eavesdropping or something?” His friend asked.They were both tall and skinny, yet they had muscles as well. I’m sure the two of them co
Tessa’s POVI went into the classroom and Miss Emily leaned against the desk, folding her arms across her chest, staring at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. It’s not that I didn’t like Miss Emily, in my opinion, I found her to be quite nice.From her students, it’s obvious she’s well-liked and good at her job, much like Joseph.But it was the fact that she obviously had a thing for Joseph that bothered me about her. I didn’t have her as a teacher, so her pulling me aside to speak with me was odd. I tried my best not to look uncomfortable.“I just wanted to check in with you,” she said simply, giving me a fond smile.I stood frozen in front of her, still feeling the effects of the hangover.“I don’t think I know what you mean,” I said softly, keeping my eyes on hers.“I’ve been noticing you today and you’ve seemed a little off,” she said with a timid frown. “I know I’m not your professor, but I do care for you, Tessa. I’d like to make sure you’re okay.”I was surprised by t
Joseph’s POVI spent most of the day in my office grading papers and working on next week's curriculum. I had the curriculum done for the next several weeks, but my students were already ahead of schedule, so it needed to be revamped.I chose the right students to take this course; most of them are doing rather well. Most of their papers are excellent and grading them came easily to me. But as I went through each paper, I realized there was one missing.Tessa’s. She hadn’t given me her recent assignment before she left class yesterday; she left in such a hurry that I couldn’t even speak with her like I intended to do. She was also very quiet and kept her head down most of the class.I suppose I am the one to blame for that.It was easy to fall behind in this course; it only took a couple of missed assignments, and her grade would drop an entire letter. I’m willing to allow her some extra time to get her assignments done and even provide her with some tools for success, but she has to
Tessa’s POVMy phone rang for the third time, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. I knew it was Ruby again. She had texted me often after school, but I ignored her text messages.I felt completely sick to my stomach after overhearing Joseph’s conversation with Miss Emily. She asked him out to a café on Friday, and he accepted. He didn’t even stop to think about it; he just accepted.I guess I don’t really have a right to be upset over this. But I couldn’t help myself. My heart was so broken and all I wanted to do was sit here in my dark living room and cry.I knew if I didn’t answer Ruby, she would end up coming over and that was something I didn’t want. So, I sighed and reached for my phone on the coffee table in front of me. I frowned at the brightness of my phone, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the lighting, and saw a couple of missed calls from Ruby and a text message from her as well.“I’m worried about you. Please call me.”I sighed again and cleared out the notificatio
Tessa’s POVIt felt like the air had left my entire body. Or as someone punched me in the gut and I tumbled over, gasping for breath that wouldn’t arrive. I found it incredibly difficult to breathe. I knew if I remained where I was, gasping and panting, he would turn and see me standing there.I couldn’t let him see me.It would only take a minute before the tears spilled from my eyes. I felt the in the back of my eyes threatening to betray me. I bit onto my bottom lip until I tasted the metallic blood and as soon as the blood left my lips, I saw Joseph’s body tense.Crap. He could smell it. Before he pulled away from Emily and turned in my direction, I was already running down the stairs. The tears came quickly and once they started, they wouldn’t.I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through the rest of today in one piece without falling apart completely. I held my mouth with my hands, trying to keep the sobs from being too loud, but they, along with my tears, wouldn’t stop.I con
Third Person POVIt was obvious to Emily that something bad happened between Tessa and Joseph. It seemed as if Tessa was going to great lengths to avoid him. She even seemed a bit depressed and closed off. Emily didn’t have Tessa as a student, but she knew Tessa well from observing her to know when something was off.Regardless, she had come to know Joseph rather well and he also seemed off. She was never certain what was going on between the two of them, but she knew whatever it was, it had to be over.They were very careful to hide their relationship in front of others though. But somehow, Emily knew the truth. She knew they were hiding a secret relationship, and that Tessa was the reason why Joseph declined Emily’s advances.But now that Tessa seemed to be out of the picture, Emily found this to be the perfect opportunity to try again. Especially now that Joseph seemed to be struggling emotionally.She had already convinced him to go with her to the new coffee shop on Friday, now s
Tessa’s POV“I mean it, Brian. This doesn’t mean we are getting back together. I just needed to get out of the school,” I said, folding my arms across my chest as I stared out the window.We drove for about 15 minutes and the further I got from the school, the more I felt I could breathe. But knowing I was in the passenger seat of Brian’s car; I felt a sense of unease boiling in my stomach.The inside of his car hadn’t changed at all; he still had that stupid stuffed turtle he kept on the dashboard that he always had for good luck. His car reeked of his friend's cigarettes and Amanda’s perfume. Just as it did when we were together.The more I thought about it, the more I realized, I was never truly with Brian. He was always with Amanda, I was just the girl in the way.I wondered where Amanda was right now and if she even knew that Brian was with me.I somehow doubted it very much.Part of me wanted to ask him, but then I figured that it really didn’t matter anyway. I was only here to
Tessa’s POVWhen I returned to my apartment, I felt a little better. Not because I spent the entire evening with Brian, but because I was able to get some space from the school and Joseph. I was feeling like the cloud in my mind was parting and a little bit of sunshine was sneaking in.Of course, I was going to have a good excuse as to why I missed Joseph’s class. But that wasn’t something I wanted to worry about right now.I grabbed my phone out of my bag, which was left at school initially, but Brian brought me back to grab it before bringing me home. I hadn’t had a chance to even look at my phone since grabbing it from my locker. I already knew what I was going to see; Ruby would be in a panic for sure.When I looked at the screen, there were about 10 missed calls. 8 of them were from Ruby and two of them were from Joseph.I winced when I saw his name.There were also a couple of text messages from Ruby as well, but none from Joseph thankfully.I decided to ignore Joseph’s calls an