El Aprendizaje significativo

Cady didn’t bother to ring the bell once. She did it thousands of times, making some sort of rhyme, and at the process nearly ruined my eardrums for life. I’d thought that either Mrs. Worthington or Alec would complain at the obvious sign of impudence but neither of them raised their voice.

“That must be Cady,” Gabriel said. His hands never left the kitchen counter as he cut through the fish nimbly.

Since Alec gave him the task, he did it religiously. Sometimes I wondered if he was a masochist at heart.

“Ugh! Should I?”

“You heard the boss.”

I didn’t even bother to conceal my groan as I opened the door and Cady’s bright red hair glinted through the porchlight.

Damn, her hair was really shiny.

“Heeeyy!” she greeted me with more warmth than necessary. “It’s you again!”

I smiled curtly. I took in the way she dressed. It was in (deliberately) shattered t-shirt and (deliberately) holed short jeans. Her legs seemed to go on and on forever, before then a pair of shiny leather boots engulfed her ankle.

Her teeth were small and straight and white, and when she moved her head, the glinting light caught the shine on her hair.

How the hell Alec managed to bed a girl in this league?

“Yeah, well, I’m here for dinner,” despite my previous nonchalance, she seemed to keen to talk.

Yeah, and I’m here to work. I wanted to say but then again, it was futile to be rude. She was, after all, a guest, and I was just another worker here.

“You’re the new maid, right?”

God, please make this girl stop talking.

“Yes, Miss,” I said, flashing a toothy smile. I only hoped that she knew that I meant to bite her pretty nose off if she dared to ask me another question.

Unfortunately, this Cady girl didn’t notice anything. Instead, she giggled, as if I’d just said something hysterical.

“Before Alec comes here,” her voice took an undertone. “So what have you two done?”

All thought of biting her nose off vanished as my mouth fell open unattractively at the question.

“Oh, I know what people are talking about Alec and the new, young maids! Spill it, I want to hear gossip.”

I’d tried, but my voicechord still refused to speak due to the massive amount of shock. I tried to find something akin to jealousy, a hidden anger, but all Cady showed was genuine interest in the probability of my affair with the Worthington son.

“Well,”

“What’s your name, by the way?”

I awkwardly stretched out my hand. “Andrea.”

“I’m Cady Valentine. Hi!” She grabbed mine and we shook hands. “On the second thought, I don’t want to hear anything. He can sleep around but he’s still mine, in the end. It’s always been like that.”

‘Mine’, in my opinion, is a really strong word. You can’t just say that someone is yours, and even though I’d have a boyfriend someday, I wouldn’t call him mine. It was like reducing the person into a property, and that wasn’t something I’d like.

“Hey, Cady!” Alec’s voice boomed from behind me. I flinched as Cady’s attention shifted from me to Alec’s thoroughly. She ran towards him and jumped to a hug.

“Remember that, honey,” Cady mouthed to me with a lascivious wink.

Millions of small needles pierced the inside of my chest as I saw both of them hugging, laughing and wrestled each other in a familiar body language. Alec didn’t even look at me to check whether I was pissed or not. He then instructed Cady to go straight to the dining room as the food was ready.

After Cady was gone, he lingered at his place. His front wasn’t exactly turned to me, but something about his stance gave off his desire to talk to me. I waited for him in silence, waited for him to say sorry for inviting his ex-girlfriend. Waited for him to say sorry for giving Gabriel such a hard time. He would do that. He always knew when to say sorry.

But he didn’t.

He left to the dining room.

-“So what I’m saying, Granny, that going to the school of design is Fan-tas-tiiiic and look at my nails! The paints had gone so deep my nails are permanently rainbow colored now!”

Cady had been talking non-stop since she got there. Since I was the one serving them, I had to undergo the torture of the talking-machine. Even Alec, tried as best as he could, couldn’t keep the face of interest anymore. I could tell because his palm prodded his jaw and his eyes stared to the table lazily.

“And then I met a lot of crazy, and I mean craaazzeeeyy people there and-“

A thousand and forty three, a thousand and forty four. This had to be some sort of record. The red-haired girl had just sat here for ten freaking minutes and already she said over one thousand words.

Mrs. Worthington didn’t seem to have trouble with it, though. She nodded and smiled as she ate the sushi. If anything, she seemed perpetually amused by Cady’s shenanigans as a freshman in college. Even when it involved hints of threesome and over-the-top parties.

I poured more orange juice to Cady’s glass. She might be a locomotive of talking, but she drank like fish. Her food had been mostly untouched, but she’d emptied her drink for more than five times.

Cady was sitting next to Alec so I willy-nilly had to go through him, no matter how much I hated it. When I bypassed Alec, I felt something potentially hazardous.

I felt his hand against my back, and then slowly, moved downside and settled at the small of my back.

To be exact? Pretty darn close to my ass.

I stopped midway.

I craned my neck, trying to see his face. But Alec purposely had his face turned towards Cady. His mouth forming a smile as he nodded at whatever she was saying.

I knew better than that. That smile wasn’t the smile that he used when he’s listening. It’s the kind of smile that he used after he’d done something mischievous.

Something like, almost touching my butt.

I poured more orange juice to Cady’s glass, and since Alec’s was half full, I poured some to him, too. As I leant towards him, I whispered to his ear.

“I hope you know that what you did can count as sexual harassment at workplace, Alec.”

He was quick to whisper back to me. “Is it sexual harassment when you’re not complaining?”

I bit back a curse, and then circled around the table as Mrs. Worthington had also emptied her glass. Aside from Alec, both women didn’t seem to notice me much as they were busy talking about nudism in art.

And then I saw Alec’s fingers beckoning for me. When I got there, he asked me to slice his salmon so that it was easier for him to eat.

“Slice the salmon?” I tried to confirm his spoiled ass. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I imagined.

“Slice the salmon,” He nodded.

Scratch that. He was worse.

I didn’t even bother to do a good job on it, since Mrs. Worthington’s attention was still on Cady. I just beat to the fish until it was nothing but mush. When I turned to Alec, eager to see his reaction to it, he only smiled back at me. Revenge was gleaming on his green eyes.

“Now feed me.”

Damn.

I took a look at Cady and Mrs. Worthington, but both were still engrossed by their conversation to even notice that the sole man of the house was making a fun at the poor maid. Realizing that no help would come, I sighed as I tried to stuff some of the fish meat on the fork.

Alec couldn’t stop smiling as he watched me struggle with the bits of the fish. He gestured to Cady. “Jealous yet?”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Okay,” he said cheerily as his mouth enclosed to the fork that I was giving him.

“I swear, when it hits 9 o clock…”

“I’ll run and lock myself in my room.”

I stuffed the fork forcefully into his mouth. “That’s not fair!”

“Now you talk. Poor Gabriel. He cooked all of these, and still you’re set to break his heart. How’s that for being fair?”

“I don’t wanna do that…” my voice trailed off as I saw Cady finally recognizing me.

Her big eyes widened even more, and then her mouth formed a huge smile. “Oh, and Adrian, is it ok if you slice my salmon, too?”

Now, three things that made her actually polite offer pissed me off beyond belief.

First. She got my name wrong.

Second. She followed Alec’s path and asked me to cut her food for her.

Third. The whole time she was saying that, she was caressing Alec’s arm up and down up and down slowly.

My eyes were automatically set on her jaw, but before any of my violent instinct kicked in, Alec got in between us. “It’s Andrea. And I can cut it for you. Andrea’s doing a bad job at it, anyway.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Alec,” she pinched both of Alec’s cheeks and gave all her might on it. Alec’s laughed sounded alarmingly monotonous as he did the deed.

From my peripheral vision, Cady’s hand snaked closer to his collarbone.

“Anyway, what do you think about it?”

Alec’s eyes widened a little bit as he was taken aback. “About what?”

Cady threw a flirty smile to Mrs. Worthington. When she didn’t respond in any way, she drew back her attention to Alec. “About us getting back together? I thought that’s why you and Granny suddenly contacted me again!”

Okay, so I admit it.

I’m a fucking coward.

Without any alarm, even without I’m realizing it, my feet had brought me to bolt out of the dining room. I could hear Alec got up from his seat, but then I didn’t hear his steps following me. But of course, he wouldn’t do it.

After all, there was a statuesque, sleek-haired, fox-faced beauty practically asking him to date her.

And what I am? A girl with serious need of anger-management. A girl who needed to work odd jobs to stay afloat.

A girl who didn’t have the guts to actually know what she really wanted.

We were just not meant to be.

“Andrea?”

When I looked up, I saw Gabriel’s warm brown eyes clouded with concern. I wished that my vision were a little blurry so I knew that I cried, but everything was crystal clear. My eyes didn’t even feel hot. But then, as I saw him, I felt a leapt of jump inside my chest.

“What’s wrong? You look… you look disturbed,” Gabriel carefully raised a hand to tuck stray hairs behind my ear. My skin tingled as his finger touched mine, and then the question came up out of nowhere.

“Do you like me?”

He jumped, or well about to, as my question registered. It was amazing how, in such short time, his cheeks started to have rich color of pink. That was when I finally realized that I liked seeing him blush. I liked to know that I was the cause of it. I liked to be in control.

“I like you,” he said in a very low voice.

His honesty brought a smile to my lips. “Really?”

“But I think you like Alec.”

As of now, the smile turned rueful. “Really?”

Gabriel shrugged. His upper teeth showed a bit as he bit on his lip. I could tell that there was an internal battle within him, but what his decision, I wouldn’t know.

“I told you before not to fall for him.”

I nodded. “You did.”

“Well, clearly one way or another he’s gotten into you,” there was another shrug, although this one was slower; a gesture that he’d deliberately did to conceal his disappointment. “That’s what he’s really good at, anyway.”

“I don’t want to like him.”

There was a dead silence as both of us registered the word vomit that I’d made. My hand was already on top of my mouth; unable to comprehend where the hell that came from.

“Why don’t you? He’s rich, he’s good-looking, he’s charming. Hell, if I were a girl, I’d definitely go for him.”

A spontaneous laugh broke out of me. “Oh, Gabriel. I’d love to see it.”

“Fortunately for me, I’m a guy with straight preferences,” he smiled at me, and we held eye contact for a while.

That was when I saw that the smile faltered into a mask of sadness. A disguise for a pained heart. “He broke your heart, huh?

I couldn’t look at him; I couldn’t even voice anything out, so I only nodded.

“So I’m the second choice.”

My throat felt dry as tremor built up on my skin. Shit. Shit. What the hell I was trying to propose to him?! I couldn’t even begin to think why I’d stoop so low into using him.

“I’m sorry,” I said abruptly. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You wear your heart on your sleeve. I can read you like an open book, and what I’m reading now is that you want me to help you to forget him.”

The matter-of-factness was ridden on his tone. There was usually a warm atmosphere exuding from him, but as of now, I could only feel cold. Bracing myself, I looked up to see him, but all I could read nothing. His face was shadowed; although that lifted cheeks suggested that he was smiling.

“I’m so stupid,” he muttered. It was meant to be private, and guilt punched onto me as I heard it.

“You know why I’m stupid?” he was asking me a question; his brown eyes were so dark it was nearly black.

There was a smile plastered on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. In fact, his whole face held no tangible emotions and it scared me.

“Because I know what I’m getting myself into, but still I can’t stop myself from jumping at any chance to be with you.”

That was when I felt it.

A thundering, desperate pounds within my chest, clamoring for attention. My stomach pitted, and everything inside my body felt liquefied. Gabriel’s words reached my core, and my heart and brain responded positively. I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to talk, but then the neurons inside my veins somehow forced my to lift my hand to touch his cheek.

I’d touched him thousands of times. I’d hugged him a lot, and even then, this touch felt alien. Whereas before there was nothing sizzling as our skin touch, now all I could feel was tingles.

“Gabriel…” I whispered. “You misunderstand. I never want you to- God, I never even think about it.”

He laughed, his voice loud and clear. “You never think with your feelings, Andrea. That’s your problem.”

And then he closed the gap between us. I’d tried to push him back, because as of now, my feelings for him wouldn’t be a match for his. But he miraculously didn’t care. And I wasn’t sure who started it, but we leant against each other, and as my eyes closed, I could feel his eyelashes brushing against mine.

And then his lips.

He was careful, that was one thing that I noticed. He was taking extra caution, and only letting our lips touched slightly. Like the rest of his body, his lips were warm. They were a little wet, but I didn’t mind.

Slowly, almost gingerly, he moved his lips against mine. It was still very gentle, and he was doing it slowly, as if testing waters. The desperate thumping on my chest made me clutch at his shirt, asking for more more more.

But Gabriel was too much of a gentleman to go for it thoroughly. His hands even still dangled on his sides.

And here I am, peeking at his close-upped long eyelashes.

There was no questioning that hesitations colored our situation richly. This was getting awkward, and I was too embarrassed to make any move that could potentially enforce the awkwardness, like one-sided passion. I tried to speak, but as it came out as a moan, he thought it differently. His hand moved to my back, and his other hand pressed my head against him, deepening our kiss.

It wasn’t open-mouthed, but his desire for me was so palpable that I couldn’t help but respond. Our bodies fit each other easily, and for the first time, I could really appreciate him building up his muscles to be so hard and sculpted, and not just in a health sense. I found my hands roaming against his chest, but when it reached a deep gash on his sides, we both stopped.

When I looked at him, I felt different than before. He was still the same old Gabriel. He still had a mop of

ringlets, he still had warmest brown eyes I’d ever seen in anyone. But there was something slightly different now.

He became taller, broader, and in a way, more virile.

I blushed hard as the last word came into my mind.

“Well, that was-“

“Was I awkward?” Gabriel asked tensely.

“No, no. I mean, it was a good kiss.”

“Be honest. I haven’t done a lot of that before.”

The way he was so insecure about it amused me. I also hadn’t had much experience with the whole dating hoopla but never did any of that thoughts crossed my mind. Against my will, I sniggered, which made Gabriel look even more worried.

“Oh my God. You laughed. I was horrendous, wasn’t I?”

At this rate, I couldn’t even stop myself if I wanted to.

-It took me a lot of assuaging words to convince Gabriel that 1. No, he wasn’t a bad kisser. 2. Yes, I’d love to kiss him again. And 3. We’re going to rock Mc. Gregor’s party.

And then, since Mrs. Worthingotn had been shouting for my name, I had to go out to the dining room and pour more juices. My eyes had been eyeing Alec and Cady, the later seemed to find herself comfortable snuggling to the former profusely.

Since it was already so late when the dinner finished, Cady proposed if she could stay at the house. Of course Mrs. Worthington allowed her, and even gave her the guest-room. Alec stayed quiet as Cady jumped around,

‘happy to be in the family again’ as she said.

Whatever. Bitch gets what she wants, and I’m not in any way bothered by it. No. Way.

I made my way to the front gate. Gabriel had wanted to drive me home, but he still had dishes to do and I saw the lines of weariness wore him out, so I told him to stay.

Just before I reached the gate, it opened automatically. From behind, I could hear the sound of engine howling.

“I’ll drive you home,” Alec’s head peeked out from his Mercedez.

“Just fuck off, Alec.” I said as I went out from the gate and started walking on the pavement. Just seeing his face

“Just fuck off, Alec.” I said as I went out from the gate and started walking on the pavement. Just seeing his face

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