Teach Me to Please | Please Me #1 - Chapter 31: Chapter 31

The storm had stopped the next morning, yet the damage remained behind and people were already outside trying to clean up the mess in their front yards.
The house was flooded with warmth as I opened my eyes, my limbs tangled with the blankets and pillows as the amber glow of the firelight caught my eye. The power was back on. I took in a deep breath and let it out, prolonging it to stretch my arms out in front of me. Something felt off through. I reached beside me to feel nothing but emptiness. Roman was gone.
I turned on my side to see the vacantness of where he was supposed to be. Where did he go? Did he move to sleep upstairs during the night? Did I snore? Oh god, what if I snored?!
Footsteps from the kitchen echoed from the kitchen and my head shot to the direction as the noise travelled to where I was. Roman appeared in the doorway, bedhead and tired eyes, wearing the same sweatpants but a different shirt. A blue one bringing out his eyes. Two cups of coffee were in each hand as he walked over and noticed me awake.
"You're up." He said, his voice deep and rough. Why was morning voice on guys so sexy? I always sounded like a 13-year-old boy who was going through puberty.
"How long have you been awake?" I asked, sitting up, crossing my legs underneath the blankets.
"Only for about twenty minutes, you looked knocked out, so I left you." He placed one mug on the mantle and passed the other to me. "Careful."
I took the steaming cup between my hands and let the scorching heat sink into my palms.
"I didn't know how you liked your coffee so I just added milk." He confessed.
"That's fine." I replied. "I don't like black coffee, it's super bitter."
"Isn't it?" he agreed with a chuckle. "My dad drinks it and I sometimes think he's insane for doing so."
I laughed and took a sip. "Rya's the same. That girl can drink five cups of it a day." There was no lie. Rya was a certified coffee addict. I took another sip and let the piping hot liquid burn down my throat. "What time is it?"
"Eleven." My eyes widened. "Relax." He chuckled, "School's cancelled." I let out a sigh of relief. At least I didn't have that to worry about.
"Thank god." I sighed. I took a longer sip of coffee this time and observed him take one of his, moving to sit down next to me. A sudden awkwardness tingled in the air between us as the memories from last night came flooding through.
"Fuck, you taste so good." He groaned against my core, his voice dripping in pure seduction. "So fucking good." He thrusted his finger in and out harder, his tongue flicking faster.
Jesus, I needed help.
"Erm," I placed the coffee by my side, "When are your parents getting back?"
"My dad texted me this morning and told me they'd be back by the evening. They'd cleared the roads but there's mad traffic."
"Cool." I clicked my tongue and rested my hands in my lap. Say something, you idiot. But what could I say? Hey, so last night when you ate me out? No. Why didn't you want to have sex last night? Nope, not that either.
"So..." I drawled feeling the need to fill up the uncomfortable silence which only made it more uncomfortable.
"So..." Roman repeated, feeling the awkwardness too.
I coughed to clear my throat and ran a hand over my hair before saying, "Last night then..." he looked back at me with a faint blush spreading up his neck to his cheeks.
"Yeah..."
Say something more. Give me something here! "How did you... um... how did you learn to... do that?" I tried to form a sentence. Roman looked away and chuckled embarrassedly.
"I guess you could say I had good resources to study." He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Resources?" I echoed. "You mean porn? You studied porn?" a little laugh escaped my lips.
"I didn't study porn." He argued but a smile lifting the corners of his lips showed his slight amusement.
"Did you make little flashcards from it as well? Are they colour coded?" my laughter got louder as Roman got more amusingly annoyed.
He pushed my shoulder playfully, "No!" he groaned but still with a chuckle.
"It would have been amazing if you did. Totally a Roman move."
He shook his head and laughed. "Funny." He rolled his eyes. The laughter died down to mellow chuckles and I found myself staring at him. "What?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.
"How did you suddenly become so confident?" I swore only mere weeks ago he was babbling and blushing at the idea of making out.
"I don't know." He furrowed his brows and shrugged. "I guess because I know you well and you make me feel... I don't know." He shook his head, lightly chuckling to himself as if what he was about to say was the epitome of stupid.
"No, tell me! I make you feel what?" I tried to think about what I wanted his answer to be, but I didn't know it myself. I didn't know what I wanted him to say, what I made him feel. I was scared for some reason.
"Brave." He finally admitted. Brave?
"Brave?"
He shifted and sighed, "I feel like I can do anything around you, be anything around you, and you still wouldn't judge. You make me feel brave to try things I hesitate on. You make me want to jump straight into pure recklessness and it's terrifying but, somehow, I'm not scared."
I tried to muster up some words, but they all got trapped in my throat. You. You make me. I do that. Me. No one else.
"Cool." Cool? He says that and you say 'cool'? I didn't know what else to say. I just couldn't.
"You're doing it again." He grabbed his mug and took a long sip of coffee I was sure had cooled down by now.
I blinked a few times and shook myself out of whatever I was in. "Doing what?"
He laughed lightly, "Staring."
"Yeah, well..." I wasn't staring that much, was I? "What you said was... sweet."
"Sweet?" he raised an eyebrow.
I rolled my eyes as glanced away, trying to conceal the blush creeping on my cheeks. "Believe it or not, not many guys actually say sweet things to me." 'Nice ass' or 'you're hot', weren't necessarily the most endearing comments to hear all the time.
"Yeah, like I believe that." Roman muttered, some sort of bleak sarcasm scathing under his breath. A tinge of irritation sparked inside of me from that comment.
"People want to fuck me, Roman. Not hang out, not go on picnic dates, not give me a simple kiss, not even have a small, meaningful conversation. Just fuck. Cold, hard fucking. So, believe it or not, they don't say things like that." I snapped.
He seemed to pull back at my bitter tone and examine my demeanour for a second. I kept my hard stare at him, my guard slowly creeping up. Sometimes I felt as if Roman got me, other times it felt like he was on the other side of the world.
"I... I just assumed that –"
"Well, that's what you do, isn't it? You assume. You have since day one." I moved to get up and noticed my discarded thong by the sofa. Great. I picked it up as well as the pair of sweatpants I discarded last night too, hastily pulling them up my legs, rolling the waistband and ankles up to fit me.
"Sienna, I didn't mean to –"
"Just leave it, Roman." I huffed and reached for my clothes from last night I left crumpled by the TV, but now they were folded and placed neatly on the coffee table. He must have done that this morning.
"Sienna –" he grabbed my arm to stop me from reaching for my bag. My eyes met his and saw his confused expression. "Why are you pulling away from me?"
"I'm not." I protested.
"You are. Look, I'm sorry if I struck a nerve or something but –"
"I have seen past everything with you." I suddenly spoke up without even thinking. "You have confessed god knows what to me, Roman, and I've never tried to judge or once deny what you felt. Yet, as soon as I confess something, you go back to the drawing board everyone else has made of me. Oh, Sienna's the stupid, egotistical, popular girl. Oh, Sienna could never have actual issues. Oh, all Sienna does is buy shoes with her daddy's credit card, blah, blah, fucking blah."
"Would you calm down?" his features turned stern.
I scoffed and pulled my arm out of his grip. I felt so stupid get completely annoyed at how much his little side comment aggravated me, but it was true. Roman had this vision of me he assumed before even knowing me, and instead of drawing up a new board of who I was, he went back to the old one to try and add things together. It was frustrating. I had to admit, I had my own assumptions of Roman but that was before really getting the know him. I listened to him, I tried to understand him, I drew up a new picture. Why couldn't he do that with me?
"I'm going home." I huffed. I hoped the buses were still running or I'd have to ask Rya for a ride.
"No, wait!" he followed after me and grabbed my wrist. "Tell me what I'm doing wrong." Tell him. Tell him what you want. Tell him everything.
I fucking couldn't.
And it hurt like hell.
"Forget it." I pulled out of his grip once more and turned on my heel to the door. He didn't follow me after that, just stood there in the doorframe like an idiot.
❦❤︎❦
To say I hated myself for the rest of the day was an understatement. However, it wasn't really myself I hated, it was many things in my life I couldn't control that shaped me as sappy as it sounded. That was what I always believed people meant when they said they hated themselves because, at most times, it were the things that happened to us that made us who we were.
Saturday came and, to my unpleasant surprise, I got a call from the hospital.
"Is this Sienna Callum?" a monotoned voice down the phone asked.
"Erm, yeah?"
"There's an emergency and we need you here right away." An emergency? What the hell could be an emergency? I swear to god, if someone ruined all those papers I organised in that shitty storage room I was going to start a fight. She hung up before I could ask for more and so I decided to get down there as fast as I could in case I was truly needed that badly. Although I didn't know how it could be so urgent if I was needed for it. All I ever did there was sort out stupid papers.
It was busy on a Saturday, mainly packed with little kids who thought it was a good idea to stick Lego up their noses or teens with skateboarding accidents.
I was about to go up to the front desk to the annoying bitch when a hand yanked mine and I stumbled to the corner of the doors.
"You came!" she squealed excitedly.
"Poppy?"
"It's Melody today." She smiled and slipped her backpack covered in bunnies to her shoulders. This name thing was starting to get on my nerves but I went along with it for her sake.
I cocked my head to the side, "But I thought that the hospital said there was an emergency?"
"It's me, dumbo. I made the nurse tell you that so you'd get here quicker." I noticed the familiar water bottle in her hands she took a long sips from. "They're letting me go out today! Isn't that exciting?! I get to go out for a whole day!" how long has she been in here to make a whole day of the outside world seem so liberating?
"Then why do you need me here?" I was fine moping about my life back home, I'd rather not do it in public.
"Because I need a friend, silly. Plus, I want to go shopping and you look like someone who knows how to shop." I was taking that as a compliment.
I looked back at the front desk, "Don't you need to sign out?"
"Already did that." She dismissed. "Now, let's go." She grabbed my hand and essentially dragged me out. For an extremely small and bony girl, she had a lot of strength.
The bus ride to the mall was one of the longest of my life. The whole time, Melody was bubbling and beaming about shopping, asking me questions about fashion brands such as Gucci and H&M. The enthusiasm on her face made every other enthusiastic look in the world seem like they were streaming with misery.
Once we got there, her excitement only heightened. She was like a kid in a candy store.
"Look at these!" she squealed at the Converses in the shop window. They were mint green and had adorable giraffes on them. "Aren't they amazing?"
"Yeah, cool." I replied, it wasn't as nice as I planned it out to be. She turned back to me and frowned.
"You seem down." I was down. Fucking Roman made me feel so down.
"I'm not down." I argued. "Just... tired."
"Of shopping?"
"Of boys."
"Ooo boys! Tell me!" was I really going to tell her all about Roman? Eh, she doesn't know who he is, so you might as well.
"Okay fine." It was just then that my stomach had to let out the loudest rumble ever. "But we have to get food first."
She hesitated for a second before slowly nodding her head.
We ended up in Five Guys much to Melody's request for some reason, but I only ordered a regular fries and a milkshake. Melody went all out a got a burger, some fries and six chicken nuggets. Where did she leave all this food in her body?
We sat in the booth as she took long and harsh sips of her water. "Okay, now tell me." She picked up a nugget and broke it in half.
I lightly groaned and rolled my eyes, "So, there's this boy."
"And what's he like?"
"Well..." how did you even describe Roman to someone that doesn't know him? "He's extremely smart but sometimes he can be really dense." That seemed to do it for now.
She let out a laugh and dipped the nugget in ketchup. "Sounds like my brother."
A cocked an eyebrow, "You have a brother?"
"Yeah." She picked up a fry, "He's annoying." Fair enough. I didn't have any siblings and neither did Rya, but we sometimes referred to ourselves as sisters which meant, at times, we did get on each other nerves. "Anyways, continue." She gestured on, accidently dropping the fry in her hand on the floor.
"He's tutoring me." I took a sip of my milkshake and explained, "And – well, we're not in the same social group at school meaning it's kind of a secret."
"Ooo, forbidden romance. I love it."
"There's nothing romantic about it." I quickly denied. "We're just friends." She snorted. "What?!"
"Said every future couple ever. Gone on."
I scowled at her but nonetheless continued. "Sometimes I feel like he really gets me, like he sees through what I hide from everyone else, and at other times, I don't."
"And what are you trying to hide?"
Tell her. Who the hell is she going to tell? That random, old lady that gives her almonds? "That I –" a tinkering ringtone cut me off. I noticed Melody's phone light up with the contact name 'Bro' with a blue heart. She rolled her eyes and pressed decline.
"Did you need to take that?" I asked worriedly.
"Nope." She shook her head only for her phone to light up again with the same contact name. "Ugh, give me a sec." she picked up the phone and answered with a harsh, "What?!"
As I finished the rest of my milkshake, my bladder stirred and I knew I needed to go to the bathroom. I excused myself and quickly rushed to the bathroom by Pizza Hut.
As I washed my hands, I gazed deeply into the mirror, studying the random features gawping on my face, reminding me of someone I've never met. I studied the way my eyebrows arched, the deep, umber brown colour that swam around my pupil, almost matching the obsidian tone. I studied how my top lip was bigger than my bottom, how my cupid's bow was significantly prominent.
I swallowed hard and tore my eyes away, picking up a paper towel to try my hands, throwing it in the trash before walking back out.
When I got back to Melody, she had finished her phone call and her tray was completely cleared of all food.
"Damn, you eat fast." I chuckled as I sat back down.
"Consider me anger eating." She huffed.
I picked up my final fries and reached over to dip them in her ketchup. "Brother troubles?"
She huffed, evidently irritated, once more. "He never lets me have any fun. He's just like my dad."
I finished up with my fries and stared back at her, "Too overprotective?"
"That, but just like how my dad focuses too much on my illness, my brother keeps pretending that it doesn't exist. That I'm going to get better, and it's annoying." Not distressing, not upsetting. Annoying. I couldn't image how hard it was for her to know the inevitable for everyone was coming so soon to her – stealing her of so much.
"I'm sorry." Was all I could say.
She brushed it off and grabbed her bag. "Don't be." she carefully zipped it up and placed it around her shoulders. "Let's do some more shopping. I don't want him to ruin my day."
Still, I couldn't take my mind of the fact she was so full of life yet had little of it given to her. Placing a smile on my face, I nodded and grabbed my bag, collecting our trash to throw away.
For the next half an hour, we walked around shops talking about all kinds of things. Turns out Melody wanted to be an artist and open up an art studio one day. We ended up in a paint shop and she bought herself two small canvases and a wooden pallet to mix her paints on. She explained to me how she loved to paint frogs and rabbits because, in her opinion, they were the cutest animals on earth, and as a Lana Del Rey song came on, we both simultaneously, unconditionally murdered the lyrics, laughing about it when we realised.
However, it was only when we were going down the escalators, I noticed that something wasn't quite right with her. Her skin was flushed, and she seemed to be having trouble carrying her backpack.
"D'you need me to take that?" I offered. Without hesitation, she handed it over to me with a thankful smile. I took the bag on my arm and almost toppled over with its weight.
"Jesus, what d'you have in here? Bricks?" I joked but she didn't laugh. Okay, something was genuinely wrong.
"I... I like to keep prepared." She smiled weakly.
As we got to the bottom, we stepped off, and I was about to ask whether she wanted to go into H&M considering she was so excited talking about it on the bus. Having said that, as I turned back to her, I clocked how glued she was to the spot, her knees wobbling.
"Hey, are you okay?" I hurriedly walked over.
"It's fine. I'm just –" she placed the heel of her palm to her forehead and then one to het chest, fisting it so she tugged at her sweater. All I could see next was in slow motion as she fell to the floor, collapsing almost like paper drifting down to the floor.
"Melody?!" I exclaimed and kneeled by her side. Her eyes were closed, her face sickly pale. She felt so small in my arms, practically nothing. "Hey, wake up!" I gently slapped her cheek. She wouldn't. Shit. Fuck. I should've listened in that First Aid workshop they made us take in Junior Year.
I pulled her bag off my shoulders, trying to search for something to help her, something about her condition. An EpiPen, some sort of medicine. Anything.
I couldn't find any of it. In fact, all I could find was... food? Food. The food from lunch. It was all in her bag? What the hell?
Sifting through the mushed fries and burger, I checked back down at her, panic rushing through my body like adrenaline screaming down a rollercoaster. Where was her pulse? Was she alive? No. No. she had to be alive. I wasn't going to let her die. She could do anything but die. Not around me. Not now. Not ever.
"Someone help!" I cried.