7

I didn't go back home immediately just as Ryan instructed.

I knew I was digging my own grave. I knew what he very well had in mind to do to me behind completely closed doors. I knew the wrecking implications it'd have on my future and career as a teacher — that's if I was lucky to get another teaching job after this — and also, I knew it was a stab to all my principles and self-dignity as a mature adult.

I knew it all. But I was stuck. Stuck in between the devil — Ryan Churchill and his dirty-hot mouth — and the deep blue sea — his irritably, hypocritical mother and my forbidden passions.

I decided to spend the afternoon window shopping. Normally, whenever I had a lot on my mind to think about, the sight of nice things I could buy as decorations or gifts helped me relax. And what was more pretty was that I still had a lot of cash to burn from Principal Churchill's bribe paycheck. I'd paid father's medicalbills for an entire year, and a six-month rent advance. The rremainder; a whopp