Alle Kapitel von Hot Professor Is My Step Dad : Kapitel 41 – Kapitel 50

LucianThe hospital smelled like bleach and death. And I so hated coming here.I didn't want to be here. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to turn around, to get back in my car, to drive anywhere that wasn't this place with its fluorescent lights and its too-quiet hallways and its walls painted colors that were supposed to be calming but just looked sick.But Sloane had asked for me.Her mother had called the second I actually wanted to reach the hospital as I had told Bonnie and just went home instead while I was staring at my ceiling, trying to figure out how to put myself back together. She won't stop asking for you, Lucian. Please. Just come. She's not...she's not doing well.So I came.The ICU was on the third floor. A nurse walked me through double doors, past curtained-off beds and beeping machines and the kind of silence that meant people were fighting for their lives. She stopped at a room at the end of the hall."Five minutes," she said. "She's weak. Please don't

44BonnieTwo days.That's how long I stayed inside. Two days of drawn curtains and silent phones and the kind of stillness that comes after an earthquake, when the ground has stopped shaking but you're still waiting for the aftershock.Bianca came over and we watched movies, ate popcorn but that didn't make me talk.Lucian texted throughout said something came up and he wouldn't be able to come.My mother tiptoed around me like I was made of glass and Marcellus just stayed in the guest room. He didn't knock, or push or even attempt to make out with me which was actually so very much consideration. He just left hot tea outside my door in the mornings and took the cold cups away at night.On the third day, I couldn't hide anymore."You can't stay in this room forever," my mother said, standing in my doorway with her arms crossed. Her voice was gentle but firm. The voice she used when she had decided something and wasn't going to change her mind."Watch me.""Bonnie.""I'm not ready.""

MarcellusI rounded up the last of the paperwork at four o'clock.The school was empty with most teachers gone, students long since fled to their buses and their cars and their after-school lives. I sat in my office with the door closed, staring at the same sentence on the same page, reading it over and over without comprehension.The driver was taken care of.That's what I kept telling myself. What I kept needing to believe. The body had been pulled from the river. The police were calling it an accident...a carjacking gone wrong, a struggle, a fall. There were no witnesses. No evidence. No loose ends.I had made sure of that.Minutes later, I drove home slowly.The streets were wet from an afternoon rain I hadn't noticed. The sky was gray, the kind of gray that made everything look washed out and tired. I thought about Bonnie. About the way she had looked at me when the news came on...the driver's body and the river.She knew.Maybe not the details. Maybe not the name of the man I ha

BonnieI slipped back into my room and closed the door slowly and quietly. The kind of quiet that came from practice. From too many nights of doing things I should not have been doing. The lock turned with a soft click that sounded like a gunshot in the silence.I leaned against the door and let out a breath I did not know I had been holding.The room was dark. I had left the curtains drawn earlier. I was back and no one had seen me. No one had heard me. The hallway had been empty. The stairs had not creaked. The pantry alibi was ready in case anyone asked.I pushed off from the door and took a step toward my bed."Bonnie."The voice came from the darkness near the window.And my heart literally stopped.My mother was sitting in the armchair by the curtains. Her legs were crossed and her robe was wrapped tight around her. Her face was half in shadow and half in the pale glow of the streetlight filtering through the gap in the drapes.She was waiting for me."Mom." My voice came out

BonnieThe house was empty when I got home.My mother's car was not in the driveway. There were no notes on the counter. No pots simmering on the stove. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the living room clock and the weight of everything unspoken pressing down on my chest.I stood in the foyer for a moment and kicked off my shoes then let my bag slide off my shoulder. She had said we would talk in the morning.Morning had come and gone. I left before she woke up. I slipped out of the house like a ghost leaving nothing behind. Just an empty cup in the sink and a note that said Gone to school. Love you.She didn't leave anything behind as a reply.That was the thing that scared me most. Not the confrontation. Not the questions. The silence. My mother was a texter. She used emojis and exclamation points. She sent updates about groceries and weather and things she saw on her walks. A full morning without a single message was louder than any accusation.I pulled out my phon