And I needed the dog.
I wouldn’t be able to live without those things.
I shook my head and tried to focus on the day. My second and third-hour classes were trading places. Students pushed through the door and chatted animatedly.
I continued to get ready for class while students took their seats. The second bell finally rang and I was happy to see that the majority of my students were in their places. A few stragglers raced in just as the bell stopped ringing and I waved my hand at their pleading faces.
“Be on time tomorrow,” I warned them.
They promised that they would be, even though we both knew they were lying. Tomorrow I would have to write them up. But it was only Monday.
I gave grace on Monday because Monday was the definition of awful.
I glanced around the room and noticed a few empty desks. Two of the kids had been excused from school today for a debate team meet, but one hadn’t been shared with me.
“Does anyone know where Andre Gonzalez is?” A chilled silence crept through the room and I immediately looked at Jay Allen. “He’s not marked as absent today. Is he skipping?”
I hadn’t been out of my classroom yet today. If there was gossip about his whereabouts, I hadn’t heard it yet.
My class was silent so I pressed them. “It’s better if you tell me.” When they continued to stare at me, I felt familiar fear. “Is he hurt? Sick? Did something happen to him?”
“Arrested,” someone called from the back of the room. “He got arrested last night.”
It wasn’t the most surprising news in the world, but it still dealt a painful blow. “Damn,” I whispered. I looked up and saw fear reflected in my students’ eyes. Fear and resignation. “How old is he?”
It was quiet for a long time before someone said, “Eighteen.”
Grief swirled through me and for a moment I thought I would be sick. I hated that he was an adult. I hated that he hadn’t been smart enough to get out of trouble on his own. But I hated more that I felt relief that he was off the streets.
And then I felt intense regret.
He had terrified me before Christmas break. And I had never gone to Mr. Kellar with what happened. I had been too afraid that Kellar would expel him.
It had been stupid of me. Dangerous even. But I wanted to give Andre a chance to finish school. I wanted to help him.
But I hadn’t. I hadn’t helped anything. I’d let him continue his wayward journey and now he’d gotten himself arrested.
My gaze tracked to Jay Allen, who sat with his head down, stabbing his notebook with a short pencil. He didn’t look up at me. It was like he knew what I was thinking.
Only I doubted Jay felt the same sense of loss.
It took me several minutes to pull myself together enough to teach. I struggled and stumbled until I found my rhythm. The class never fully engaged with me. They all felt the loss of one of their peers.
Unfortunately, it happened too often in this school. They weren’t always arrested. Sometimes they just dropped out.
Sometimes they were killed.
A chill slithered down my spine as I remembered how smart Andre could be… how far he could have gone.
When the bell finally rang, I knew I could have done so much better. Those were not my finest moments as a teacher.
I slumped back in my desk chair and tried to pull myself together for the rest of the day. The next hour was my plan period, so I had a little time, but it still felt like an impossible feat.
Long fingers tapped at the edge of my desk and I lifted my gaze to find Jay standing there with a determined expression on his face.
“Can I help you, Jay?”
“I know you never said anything to Kellar.”
His accusation felt strange like he wanted to call me out on it, but there was something more. I lifted my eyebrow, daring him to say whatever it was that he wanted to say.
“Why?” he finally asked. “Why didn’t you say anything? He threatened you. He threatened me!”
“Are you mad I didn’t turn him in because you felt threatened?”
He rolled his eyes at me and rubbed his hand over his shaved head. “Don’t be stupid.” He cut me a sideways glance that I interpreted as an apology for being rude. “But isn’t it your job to say something?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “I should have said something. He could have threatened another student. He could have brought another weapon to school. He could have truly hurt someone. I should have said something.”
“So why didn’t you?” His deep brown eyes searched mine intently, flickering back and forth, waiting for the truth.
So I gave it to him. “If I had said something, he would have gotten expelled.”
Jay let out a bark of mocking laughter. “So what! He ended up in jail, Carter. That’s way worse than getting expelled.”
I swallowed around the golf ball lodged in my throat. “Yeah, and if he would have gotten expelled? Would that have changed anything?”
Jay snorted, “No, he just would have ended up there sooner.”
“Exactly. I wanted him to avoid jail or prison or the lifestyle that he was so bent on having. I wanted him to have a chance at something better. I want the same thing for you and everyone else that comes into this classroom. I gave Andre a second chance and he squandered it. Nobody is more upset about that than me.”
“You don’t know the kind of neighborhood Gonzalez is from. They don’t give college scholarships to kids like him. They get their prison cells nice and ready because they know it’s only a matter of time.”
I expected Jay to be gloating over Andre’s fate, but I only saw an interesting mixture of regret and fear in his expression. Wondering if this was my chance to finally break through to him, I said, “They give scholarships to kids of every kind. It doesn’t matter what neighborhood, social class or family you come from. If you try hard enough. If you work hard enough, you can find a school that will want to take you.”
“So you’re saying Andre actually had a chance at college?”
“Andre was brilliant, Jay. So are you. Every student that comes into this school building and shows up day after day has a chance. But we can’t make you take it. You have to decide that you want it… that you want to do something bigger than prison or jail or whatever.”
He rocked back on his heels while he thought about it.
“College isn’t easy, Jay. And maybe it’s too late for a scholarship. But there’s financial aid. There are options for you. Have you talked to Ms. Chase?” He shook his head. “Talk to her. Please. She can walk you through this better than I can.”
“Maybe.”
“What are you afraid of?”
His gaze snapped back to mine and it was lethal. “I’m not afraid of anything. You saw me with a fu- with a knife to my throat. Did I look scared then?”
I breathed through the rapid beating of my heart. “Then why won’t you try at this?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to try.”
I stood up and placed both hands on my desk, my attempt at looking intimidating. “It is. You have to do something with your life, Jay, or you’re going to end up just like Andre.”
He stepped back, ready to run. “You don’t know me.”
“I know that life is hard work. I know that growing up is the hardest thing you’ll ever do and if you don’t try at something, if you don’t make yourself into something, then you won’t become anything. What Andre did? That’s the easy way out. Getting yourself out of your neighborhood and through college? That’s going to be a lot of goddamn work. But it will be worth it. I swear to you, it will be worth it. The best things in life come with a price. Work hard for those things. Work so hard that you don’t know how to be lazy.”
Jay’s lips twitched and I held my breath, hoping to God I got through to him. “You swear more than any other teacher I know.”
“That’s because I’m the coolest teacher you know.”
The look
on his face told me he didn’t believe me. “Is this my second chance, Ms. C?”
I smiled at him. “I knew you were smart.”
He looked around us dramatically. “Shh, you’ll ruin my street cred.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled out a pass pad. “Do you need one of these? Are you late for class?”
“Yeah, but I just got Mr. Bunch and he doesn’t give a shit.” He started walking backward, out of my classroom. “Unlike you.”
“That sounds like an insult.”
“It might be. I haven’t decided yet.”
I laughed, despite myself. “Go to class, Jay.”
He gave me a sarcastic salute and disappeared out the doorway.
I sat back down in my chair, completely perplexed.
Kara appeared five minutes later with her lunch in hand and two Diet Cokes. She handed one over to me. “What’s with you?” she asked.
“Did you know Andre Gonzalez got arrested last night?”
Her eyes flashed with disappointment. “Yeah. It sounds serious. They caught him in possession, selling to minors.”
“Oh, my god.”
“He’s eighteen,” she added.
“I heard that.”
We were silent for a minute. “Jay Allen might come find you.”
“Which one is that?” I was just about to explain what he looked like when she said, “Oh, I know that kid. He was just in my office last week for harassing a teacher.”
“Which teacher?”
“Mr. Bunch.”
I nearly smiled, but caught myself. “He’s going to come talk to you again I think.”
“Mr. Bunch?”
I threw a chip at her. “No, Jay. I’m convincing him to go to college.”
Her eyebrows drew down and her shoulders sagged. “Do you think he’s serious?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Me too.” She sat down on the edge of my desk and opened her soda with a long, pink fingernail. “How’s the divorce?”
My stomach sank. I had just been contemplating texting him about Jay and Andre. Old habits die hard apparently. They die really hard.
“Uh, we’re still at a standstill. Neither one of us will budge.”
“When’s your next mediation?”
“Not until March. I guess I never realized how long this stuff took.” I stared down at my desk, cluttered with papers to grade, papers to hand back, pencils, whiteboard markers and other odds and ends. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?” I asked the mess.
Kara was quiet for a long time and when she finally spoke her voice was gentle and reserved. “Do you think you’re making a mistake?”
I looked up at her and tried to decide. “It’s normal to question something like this, right? At least I would think so. Except that I can’t stop questioning it. I can’t stop going over my marriage and the night we decided to get a divorce. I can’t stop thinking that there was more we could have done.” I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what I was really trying to say. “I just got finished telling a student that the best things in life are hard work and that he shouldn’t stop trying just because they force him to try harder. He should try harder and harder and harder until he gets what he wants. Isn’t the same true for me? For Nick and me?”
Kara frowned at me. “This is why I took so long to tell you about my divorce. I needed to leave Marcus. He was an awful person. But you… your circumstances are completely different. Neither one of you are bad people, you just… I don’t know, you fell out of love. That happens too. There are all kinds of reasons people get divorced. No reason is right or wrong, just different.”
But mine felt wrong. All of my reasons felt wrong.
I kept a running tally of them in my head. I always had. Everything he did wrong, everything I did wrong, everything that we did wrong together I tallied it up in my mind like the worst kind of scoreboard. And then I’d used that ledger to wage war on him and our divorce. I’d used it to attack him, to show him that we needed to separate and I’d held it over his head ever since.
Did that mean we shouldn’t get a divorce, though?
Maybe he wasn’t as toxic as I’d made him out to be, but there were still facts. We didn’t get along. We couldn’t stand each other. We were better off apart.
Right?
I met Kara’s concerned gaze and told her, “I’m sorry you went through this. I’m sorry that you were hurt so badly.”
She waved it off, “It was a long time ago.”
“It still cuts deep.”
Her gray eyes flashed with proof that divorce cut deep, so deep and jagged it was like death. The death of something sacred… something holy and set apart. Marriage, no matter how short or long, was bound in vows and promises made from our very souls. Severing that tie was like murdering a part of your body.
I felt that daily. I felt it in a way that I knew would never go away.
Kara could talk cavalierly about how she had to go, but she still went through this. She still grieved. She still let those vows wither and die.
“Thank you,” she whispered, blinking brightened eyes. “You’re a good friend.”
“You’re a good friend too.”
“And thank god we have each other. We can become spinsters together.”
“Can we get a cat?”
“Babe, we’ll get cats. Dozens of them. So many that our clothes will be covered in cat hair and we’ll have to pick it off our food before we can eat.”
“That’s disgusting.” But I smiled because I really did like that picture. I liked the idea that I would never be completely alone. I could always become a crazy cat lady with Kara and carpool with her to work daily.
My future wasn’t as bleak as I once thought it would be.
She sighed. “Okay, I have to get back to work. I think I was supposed to be in a meeting five minutes ago.”
“With who?”
“Kellar and that kid that flooded the boy’s locker room.”
I snorted a laugh. “Good luck with that.”
“I don’t need luck,” she mumbled on her way out the door. “I need someone else to flood a locker room so I don’t have to go.”
I watched her leave and waited another minute before I pulled my phone from my purse. I opened my text messages with every intention to text Nick. I had to tell him…
Something.
I didn’t know what, I just… what? I needed to hear from him?
But why?
My fingers hovered over the screen. I didn’t have anything to say to him. I was supposed to be furious with him for causing so much trouble during mediation. I should have wanted nothing to do with him.
And yet I couldn’t stop myself. It was like my body was possessed by the ghost of Christmas past.
Or a demon.
A demon that couldn’t get over her ex-husband.
Cheese and rice, there was something wrong with me.
I tossed my phone on the desk and crossed my arms. And my legs. And tapped my foot.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I picked it up again and scrolled through old messages. Finally, I settled on texting my mother. That was safe.
Need me to bring anything for dinner on Sunday?
Three minutes later, she texted back: Just be on time.
Oh, my god. Mom. I needed boundaries with my family. They were literally going to drive me over the edge if I didn’t put a stop to this.
The bell rang and I breathed a sigh of relief. I could lock my phone away now and I wouldn’t be tempted. At least not very much.
I bent over and unlocked my bottom drawer. But then, as if I was actually possessed, I pulled up Nick’s number and texted: Do you think there was more we could have done?
I pushed send and my heart stopped beating. I lost all my breath and I wanted to immediately take it back. I wanted to delete it and unsend it and erase this moment from time completely.
I needed a time machine or the Doctor or freaking Michael J.
Fox and the DeLorean.
I dropped my phone into my purse and slammed my drawer shut. Idiot. I was such an idiot.
I didn’t look at my phone until the end of the day. Until I’d gotten into my car and turned it on.
Then finally I allowed myself to see if he’d texted me back.
He had.
Of course, he had. I had never doubted that he wouldn’t.
Yes.
That was all he wrote. A simple, world-changing, confusing, mind-boggling, frustrating Yes.
Chapter Twenty-One
28. I can’t do this on my own.
Spring came overnight. One day I thought my toes would fall off if I stepped outside my house and the very next day the sun rose warm, bright and ready to melt every ounce of snow from Illinois.
It was amazing.
I had never been more ready for a change of seasons. This winter had been the darkest, gloomiest yet and I didn’t think I could survive much more of it.
Thank god, I didn’t have to.
The beginning of March brought all kinds of hope and anticipation for what was to come. I felt my heart swell in my chest and my spirits pick themselves up off the filthy ground. It was a new day, a new dawn and if I had the voice of an angel like Michael Bublé, I would have sung the shit out of it.
Instead, I decided to take Annie for a walk after school. I wore rain boots so we could stomp through melting piles of snow. She loved every second of it. I knew I would have to bathe her as soon as we got home, but we’d been cooped up in the house for so long that I didn’t care.
We just needed to breathe freely and move our winter-atrophied appendages.
Walking was beyond therapeutic. I didn’t just have cabin fever from being indoors for months; I had it from being in my own skin… in my own head. I was exhausted from myself.
But today felt different. The end of the school year was in sight, the end of my divorce was too. Maybe.
Hopefully.
And tomorrow was my birthday. Thirty-one.
I nearly had a meltdown when I turned thirty. I couldn’t stand the idea of aging into a new decade. I wasn’t ready to let go of my twenties and the youthfulness they represented. Thirties seemed too mature for me. Too grown up.