LEO'S POV
I wanted to kiss her when the reality crashed back like cold water. What the hell was I doing?
I was holding my student in my arms, in a hotel bed, in the middle of the night. Her face was inches from mine, her lips slightly parted, her eyes dark with something that looked like desire.
This was wrong. She was my student. She was twenty-two years old. She deserved better than a broken man who woke up screaming from nightmares.
This was exactly the kind of situation that could destroy my career. Destroy both our futures.
I pulled away from her so abruptly that she almost fell backward.
"I'm sorry," I said, scrambling to get off the bed. "I shouldn't have... that was inappropriate."
"Leo—"
"No, it was wrong. You're my student, and I'm your professor, and I had no right to—"
"You had a nightmare. You were upset. It's okay."
"It's not okay." I ran my hands through my hair, pacing to the window. "None of this is okay."
I could feel her watching me from the bed, and I hated how distant I was being. But distance was what we needed. Distance was safe.
"Can I get you some coffee?" she asked quietly. "There's a machine down the hall, or we could call room service—"
"I need to get out of here."
"What?"
I was already grabbing my jeans from the chair, pulling them on over my sleep pants. "I need air. I need to walk."
"Leo, it's three in the morning."
"I don't care."
I pulled on a t-shirt and headed for the door, but I could hear her getting up behind me.
"Wait," she said. "I'm coming with you."
"You don't need to—"
"I'm not letting you wander around Los Angeles alone in the middle of the night. Especially not after what just happened." She sounded older. Just like how mom used to scold us when we were boys.
It almost made me smile.
I wanted to argue, but she was already putting on shoes and grabbing the room key. Within minutes, we were walking through the empty hotel lobby and out into the cool night air.
Los Angeles was different at night. Quieter, almost peaceful. The streets were mostly empty except for the occasional taxi or late-night delivery truck. We walked in silence, our footsteps echoing off the pavement.
I didn't have a destination in mind. I just needed to move, needed to clear my head, needed to put some distance between myself and the memory of how right it had felt to hold her.
We walked for twenty minutes before I realized we were heading toward the ocean. I could smell the salt air, could hear the distant sound of waves crashing against the shore.
The beach was completely deserted when we reached it. Just endless sand and the dark expanse of the Pacific stretching out toward the horizon. I sat down heavily on a piece of driftwood, and Zoe settled beside me without a word.
For a long time, we just sat there listening to the waves.
"You want to talk more about it?" she asked finally.
"About what?"
"The nightmare. The accident. Elena."
I was quiet for so long that I thought she might give up and suggest we go back to the hotel. But she just waited, patient as always.
"We were coming back from a concert," I said eventually. "The Los Angeles Philharmonic. Elena loved going to concerts, even though she wasn't a musician herself. She said it helped her understand why I was so passionate about music."
"She sounds like she was a good person."
"She was the best person I've ever known. Patient, kind, generous to a fault. She volunteered at a children's hospital on weekends, reading to kids with cancer."
"How long were you together?"
"Five years. We met in graduate school. She was studying social work, and I was finishing my performance degree. We were going to get married the following spring."
Zoe was quiet, but I could feel her attention like a physical presence.
I continued. ”She died instantly. I spent two hours trapped in the wreckage with her body."
"Leo, I'm so sorry."
"I should have let her drive that night. She offered, but I said no. I always had to be in control, always had to be the strong one. If I had just—"
"Stop," she said firmly. "You can't do this to yourself."
"Can't do what?"
"You can't keep blaming yourself for something that wasn't your fault. You need to forgive yourself."
"How can I?" The words came out angrier than I intended. "How can I forgive myself for being alive when she's dead?"
"Because she would want you to live. She would want you to be happy."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. Anyone who loved you enough to spend five years with you, anyone who was going to marry you, would want you to find peace. Would want you to heal."
I shook my head. "You don't understand. I'm broken, Zoe. The accident didn't just damage my hand. It damaged everything. My ability to trust, to love, to believe that good things can last."
"You survived for a reason, Leo. Maybe the reason is to help students like me discover their potential. Maybe it's to create beautiful music that touches people's hearts. Maybe it's something else entirely. But you survived, and that means something."
"Elena didn't survive."
"No, she didn't. And that's tragic and unfair and horrible. But the only thing you can do for her now is to pray for her soul to find eternal rest. And to live the life she would want you to live."
I stood up abruptly, brushing sand off my pants. "Everyone leaves eventually, Zoe. Everyone I care about either dies or gets tired of my baggage and walks away."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? I know what people call me at school. The monster who destroys students' confidence. You should leave too, before I break you the way I break everyone else."
I started walking back toward the street, but before I could take more than a few steps, I felt her arms wrap around me from behind.
"Leo, stop."
I froze, her embrace anchoring me to the spot.
"Turn around," she said softly. "Look at me."
Slowly, I turned in her arms until we were face to face. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but there was something fierce in her expression.
"You're not a monster," she said. "I've seen you at your most vulnerable. This isn't the first time you've let me see past your walls. But that doesn't make me think less of you. It makes me admire you more."
"Zoe—"
"You have no idea how much I root for you. How much I want to see you happy. How much I want to see you playing piano again, really playing, the way you did that night in the practice room when you thought no one was listening."
"You heard me playing?"
"I hear everything about you, Leo. I notice everything. The way you smile when you think I've made a breakthrough. The way you protect your injured hand. The way you look at me sometimes like you're seeing something that scares you."
"It does scare me."
"Why?"
"Because I'm falling for my student. Because you're twenty-two and I'm thirty-five and I should know better. Because everyone I love ends up getting hurt."
"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered. "I'm not leaving."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do."
We stood there on the beach, her arms around my waist, mine hanging at my sides because I was afraid to touch her. Afraid that if I held her again, I wouldn't be able to let go.
"Leo," she said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the waves. "Kiss me."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can."
"It's wrong."
"It doesn't feel wrong."
And she was right. It didn't feel wrong. It felt like the most right thing in the world.
I reached up and cupped her face in my hands, my thumbs tracing over her cheekbones. She closed her eyes and leaned into my touch.
And then I kissed her.