Fraternizing (23 page)

Inside the
classroom, I couldn't help but feel uneasy as Newsome stood behind Alex,
scanning on the room and landing on me a few times. Maybe it was the fact that
Alex and I had escalated our flirtations-- going all the way, but I had a
sickening feeling that he knew, and it was sending my mind in all sorts of
crazy directions. As far as I was aware, he didn't know about us, but my guilty
conscience couldn't be sure. Intense heat suffocated me as he looked out at me,
his eyes narrowing as if he was trying to steal information from my soul.

"…
so
your tests are coming back to you. A passing score is
seventy-two percent, a C, which is average. We are Marines. We are exceptional,
and anything but average, so if you find yourself down in this range, fix your
shit."

Alex's voice
shook me from my trance. Jensen took the liberty of passing back the tests,
slapping a seventy-four percent down in front of me. Shame and embarrassment
hit me as I looked from my paper up to the front of the room where Alex stood,
glaring at me. He softly licked his lips, turning his head slightly to the side
in a consequential manner, his eyes filling with lustful disappointment.

I couldn't take
it. I turned away from him. After the test, I felt like I hadn't performed
well. Something about the feel of it all, his eyes boring into me all while I
took the exam, had shaken my core, utterly distracting me.

"Open your
binders to the chapter on cryptographic codes and pay attention. You will have
another test at the end of the week, and those of you that scored
average
will need to redeem yourselves
to my satisfaction."

My eyes shot to
Alex as he spoke, seemingly as if I were the only person he was speaking to,
his statement filled with sexual innuendo.

My focus was
gone. There was nothing that he said that didn’t feel like a direct threat to
me, with sexual connotation thickly laced through it. All of the codes in the
binder read like a foreign language with no way of deciphering them. As soon as
Alex spoke, explicit thoughts caressed my mind. I’d finally had enough, so I
excused myself to go to the restroom.

I rushed into the
stall, locked the door and allowed my head to rest against the
side wall
. This just wasn't me. I wasn't this girl. Alex had
gotten into me, figuratively and literally, and turned me upside down, shaking
away the girl I once was and replacing me with some wanton creature that was
unfamiliar even to me. My thoughts, my dreams, my desires all zeroed in on him
and the feel of it all ripped through me, placing me on a steep ledge that left
me dangling from the edge, on the verge of falling off and crashing down. As
ominous as it was, like a train wreck happening before my eyes, I couldn't pull
myself away from it.

I doused a bit of
water on my face and dabbed it away with a paper towel before mentally bitch
slapping myself to get it together. I walked into the classroom, feeling
slightly better than I had before.

After staring at
codes for what felt like forever, we were finally excused for lunch. I scurried
out of the classroom, hoping to avoid Newsome who I swore was still peering at
me every chance he got. Or maybe it was my overactive imagination that had me
believing that. Either way, it made me wholly uncomfortable, and I needed a
reprieve from it.

I spotted Dalton
and made my way over to him.

"Hey. How
did do on your test?" His smile was brighter than the blistering sun.

"Ehhh… not
so good. I'm average," I joked. "What about you?"

His smile faded.
"I was top scorer in my class. Ninety-eight percent."

Guilt seemed to
overcome him, almost as if he shouldn't be sharing his good news when I had
none to report back in return.

"Congrats,
Dalton. And wipe that look off your face. I'll be fine. Just have to buckle
down, that's all."

Lane and Hutchins
walked over, inviting us out to Subway for lunch. Immediate thoughts of
Saturday scraped my mind, taking me back to my pick-up spot as Alex waited for
me and looked on from the distance.

"Yeah, I'm
starving. Let's go."

We walked to
Subway. Lane and Hutchins detailed their test scores and what it was that still
had room to work on. I didn’t feel the need to throw around my paltry seventy-four.
Compared to their eighties and nineties, I was ponderously pulling up the rear.

Subway was a
crowded mess. I guess it was better than a run to the greasy burger joint on
base, but it was so packed that it left barely any standing room, let alone
anywhere to sit.

This time when
the urge to go the restroom hit, I really had to use it. I gave Dalton my order
before trying to navigate through the throngs of people, finally getting to the
restroom where another crowd awaited me.

As I stood in
line, making small talk with another female Marine, a buzz went off in my
pocket. I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my cammie pants, fully expecting
to find a question from Dalton.

Alex: A 74%? You're better than average. I
would know.
J
I thought about punishing you like
Saturday, but you enjoyed that too much.

The innuendo
encrypted in his text made my heart race. I looked around at the other females
who stood around me, hoping none of them had noticed my flushed skin as I stood
staring and grinning at the words on my phone screen.

Me: Just a little bit. So what's the
alternative?

Alex: I'm still thinking…

Me: I think my teacher needs to
teach
me a little more. I learn better
in one on one
settings
.

A couple of
minutes went by before he got back to me.

Alex: Hey… text you in a bit. Major Kinsley
wants to see me.

For some reason,
that last message worried me. It laid ice over my body, freezing me where I
stood. Why would the Major want to see him? Had someone leaked something and
now he was being confronted with it? I waited, impatiently, on pins and
needles, anxiously anticipating his response.

But it never
came.

After returning
from the restroom, I sat down at one of the outside tables that Dalton, Lane,
and Hutchins found, awaiting his reply. I kept checking my phone, lying about
wanting to make sure that we gave ourselves enough time to eat and walk back to
the schoolhouse, but I was secretly wanting to see another text pop up from
Alex.

Maybe he had
gotten tied up with something and couldn't respond, but the longer I went with
nothing coming back from him, the more impatient I became. I wanted to believe
anything other than trouble lurked about, but my mind wouldn't let me. Was he
in
there
being read his rights, and I would be
next?
 
Whatever the case, the
thought of it was nauseating, and that was the last thing I needed to do was
rile suspicion with unsuspecting people sitting around me.
 

When we were back
at the schoolhouse, I stood outside next to the only pillar that even hinted at
a piece of shade. Dalton stood next to me, rambling on about something that I
paid no attention to. I glanced down at my phone a few more times, hoping that
Alex had responded, and I had somehow missed it.

Still nothing.

I blew out a
breath, letting it take my frustrations away, when a new set of annoyances came
charging at me. Allen was bragging about being the top scorer on the test. He
and his pompous attitude were enough, but now that he'd done something that
warranted his overly boisterous bragging, I couldn't deal with it any longer.

I walked away,
pinching the bridge of my nose. When I looked up, Alex, Jensen and Newsome were
walking up, Castillo not far behind. They were patting Alex on the shoulder and
smiling as they walked along.

"Good
afternoon, gentlemen," I said out of necessity because not speaking to
passing instructors would give Castillo, or even Jensen, ammunition to tear
into me. It was also to catch Alex's attention. My voice came out much weaker
than I had intended. Jensen and Newsome nodded their heads, acknowledging my
greeting. Alex turned his head but gave nothing in return.

 
I stepped to the side, Castillo's eyes
landing on mine. They were dipped in just the perfect amount of venom, trying
hard to intimidate me, but I stood my ground, giving it back without being too
obvious.

"Good
afternoon to you too, Pfc. Bennett," she coldly greeted, the acid in her
tone much too obvious.

I wanted to roll
my eyes and turn and walk away from her, but the uniform I currently wore
prohibited me from doing it. "Good afternoon to you as well, Sgt.
Castillo." I couldn't wait to spit her name out. The feel of it rolling
off my tongue put a bad taste in my mouth.

She sneered,
grinning in such a pretentious manner as she stood with the guys, knowing full
well that she was getting under my skin for a reason that couldn't be discussed
out in the open. Annoyance took over, leaving my chest in a rampant, heaving
mess. It was all I could do to release a bit of steam while still keeping my
composure for any unwary eyes.
 

I looked to Alex,
giving him a covert smile, but he simply looked through me as if I didn't
exist.

My heart fell.
I’d hoped he would look back, give me something to show that he had to put up
an act around his colleagues, but he never did. I hated myself for feeling so
much with that one little
act
, but if I had learned
anything about nothing to do with me.

I walked back
into the classroom dreading the second half of the day. Being encased in four
walls with him and his sudden and erratic change in demeanor wasn't a pleasant
thought.
And I was right. The rest of the day had a very
stale aura to it. When I left, he still hadn't looked at me, still hadn't sent
any signals to me. I might as well have been just another student in the class
to him because that was exactly what I felt like.

Chapter 15

Alex

Avoiding Cassie was harder than I’d imagined.

 
I thought for sure that if I told myself
I could stay away from her, act like she had no effect on me and treat her like
any other female Marine, that it'd get done.
 
Quite the opposite happened.

I was trying to
get back on track since I'd been told that I was picked as NCO of the Quarter,
and within that brief, minuscule minute, all of my indiscretions came roaring
back at me like a rabid animal.

My mind replayed
pictures of her.
H
er heart
melting smile, her beautiful, naked body in my hands, those beaming green eyes…

All of it flashed
through my head in a continuous cycle that was silently destroying me, but I
had to stick to my guns. The more I thought about what we had progressed to,
the more I realized just how wrong it all was.

I took my eyes
off the ball because I was hell bent on getting a taste of something overly
enticing. I should have followed my first instinct to just avoid her because
now I was stuck with the fucking guilt of deviating from the Corps, my driving
force in life, and putting myself in a predicament that would leave me
emotionally exhausted no matter which way I turned.

I'd gotten all of
Cassie that I could have ever wanted, and she certainly did not disappoint, but
that wasn't the point. The point was that following the needs and wants of my
dick, no matter how persuasive it could be, hadn't done me a bit of good. In
fact, it had gotten me into more trouble than I'd probably seen in my entire
childhood combined.

But I couldn't
find the strength to just wash my hands and walk the fuck away.

I lay on my bed
late Wednesday night, sifting through the text messages she'd sent me
throughout the week with no response. As badly as I wanted to respond, I just
couldn’t do it because by responding, I was thrusting myself back into the same
spot that had mind fucked me, had ripped my integrity away, and left me
worthless.

Cassie: Hey! Is everything okay?

Cassie: Text me to let me know you're good.

Cassie: Ignoring me through text and in
person is so cool of you. Not sure what I did, but you shut down quickly. WTF?

Cassie: Well, thanks for being a prick,
Alex.

The
self-restraint I had somehow lost the second my eyes landed on Cassie had come
back to me. As much as I wanted to respond, to even pick up the phone, call
her, hear her soft and sensual voice, or even just listen to the light breaths
leaving her delectable mouth, I just couldn’t do it.

Had I been
everything I was supposed to be since meeting her? Fuck no. I had turned into
quite the opposite, and I had no choice but to find myself, the old Alex, the
overly motivated and gung-ho Alex, who let nothing come between
me and the mission
. Never before had I been tempted to such
extremes and failed so miserably.

So why was finding myself killing me in the process?
Had I
become someone else? The answers to those questions didn't come easily. They
played with my head, dangling me over a cliff, threatening to drop me with no
help in sight. I was lost…lost without a soul around to help me through it.

A hard knock
pounded on my bedroom door.