Back to You

  And then the room was silent.

  For a long moment no one moved, and Lauren exhaled a shaky breath as her shoulders slowly dropped away from her ears.

  She looked across the room at Keith, who was trying to play it off like he was unfazed, but the faint traces of panic remained etched on his face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Mavis hurry over to his desk and frantically scribble something on a sheet of paper.

  He stood quickly, folding it as he walked over to Lauren’s desk, the closest one to the door. “Please take this to Mr. Banks’ office immediately,” he murmured as he placed the note in her hand, and Lauren nodded as she pushed her chair back and exited the room of students still stunned into silence.

  She walked swiftly through the hall, her heart still pounding with leftover adrenalin, but when she glanced down at the paper in her hand, her pace instantly slowed. She licked her lips nervously as her eyes darted around the empty hallway, and then she looked back down at the note.

  It would be wrong to do it. She knew that.

  She pressed her lips together as she glanced around one more time, and then before she could talk herself out of it, she cut to the left and darted into the stairwell.

  Lauren took a deep breath, internally scolding herself as she unfolded the note with shaking hands.

  Michael Delaney was just triggered. He left class and is somewhere in the building.

  “Triggered?” Lauren whispered, her brow pulled together.

  She folded the note quickly, exiting the stairwell and continuing down the hall to Mr. Banks’ office. His secretary smiled up at her sweetly as she approached.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, this is a note from Mr. Mavis. It’s urgent.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Banks is in a meeting right now, but I’ll see that he gets it immediately,” she said, taking the note and smiling up at her again.

  “Oh, okay. Thanks,” Lauren said uneasily, and she took two steps backward before she turned and exited the office.

  So his name was Michael Delaney. She’d never heard of him before. What had she missed back there? She was hoping Jenn had been paying enough attention to figure out what had set him off like that.

  For some reason, she felt like she needed to know.

  As she turned the corner and started back down the hallway toward her class, Lauren’s eyes landed on the glass doors at the end of the corridor that led out to the parking lot.

  She could see someone out there, perched on the trunk of a car, and selective amnesia when it comes to Delgry before her eyes could confirm it, her mind already knew who it was.

  Lauren slowed, cautiously observing him as she neared the classroom. He was completely still, statuesque even, a far cry from what she had just witnessed moments ago. When she finally reached room 228, despite her better judgment, she continued on down the hall, slowly approaching the doors at the end of the corridor the way someone might approach an injured animal.

  He was sitting on the trunk of a car, his feet propped up on the bumper and his hat dangling lifelessly from his fingers as he rested his elbows on his knees. His head was bowed so that all she could see was his hair, full and dark and slightly mussed from the hat.

  Lauren watched him, the oddest feeling settling in her chest as he reached up and dragged his hand down his face before dropping his head back. His shoulders rose dramatically as he took a slow, deep breath, blinking up at the sky.

  And for some unfathomable reason, in that moment, she felt like she should do something.

  But what could she do? Go out there? That seemed like an incredibly foolish thing to do. He didn’t even know her. And besides, if she did go out there, what would she even say?

  Mr. Mavis had said he’d been triggered, but what did that mean? That he was dangerous? He’d certainly looked it back in the classroom; in fact, dangerous was an understatement.

  But right now? Right now, he just looked broken.

  He brought his head back down and closed his eyes, and as soon as he opened them, they fell on Lauren watching him through the doors.

  She gasped audibly as she whirled around; any fear she should have felt at that moment was completely overshadowed by the embarrassment at being caught staring at him for the second time. She darted back to the Health room without looking back, but she didn’t need to; she could still feel his eyes on her.

  He never came back to class that day.

  By the following period, it seemed everyone had heard about what happened. The story spread with alarming speed, along with a slew of other rumors about Michael Delaney.

  Everyone seemed to know him as Del. He was a sophomore, one year older than her. He’d been suspended in his middle school more times than anyone could keep track of. The only reason he hadn’t been expelled was because he was smart enough to manage good grades, despite the classes he missed due to detentions and suspensions. He didn’t have a father. His mother hated him. His brother was dead.

  And then came the ridiculous ones: “I heard he pulled a knife on a teacher once.” “I heard he’s been in prison.” “I heard he murdered his brother.”

  Lauren had no idea what was fact or fiction, what was true and what was exaggerated or embellished, but by the end of that day, she was pretty sure she had come to two accurate conclusions: Michael Delaney had a very troubled life, and the general population was smart enough to stay away from him.

  When Lauren walked into school the next day, she wasn’t surprised to hear students still talking about Keith Wagner’s near-death experience in Health class. She had expected that.

  But what she didn’t expect was to see Michael.

  Lauren had thought for sure he would have been suspended for the outburst, and that Health that afternoon would be relatively uneventful.

  But when she emerged from the stairwell that morning on her way to English class, she stopped in her tracks. There he was, leaning against the wall in front of the cafeteria, talking with two other boys.

  She stood there for a second, expecting to feel fear surge through her body after everything she’d heard and witnessed the day before, but even as the thought crossed her mind, his lips parted as he laughed at something one of the other boys had said.

  There was nothing frightening about him in that moment: the lighthearted laugh, his casual stance against the wall as he bounced a small blue rubber ball mindlessly on the floor, flicking his wrist and catching it effortlessly without ever removing his attention from the conversation.

  Lauren stepped to the side, safely shielded by the mass of students in the hallway, and studied him, trying to see what she knew she was supposed to be seeing.

  Trying to make the danger appear.

  But for some reason, all she could conjure up was the image of him totally vulnerable on the trunk of the car the day before.

  And when he laughed again, this time the hearty sound of it carried down the hall to her, and suddenly Lauren felt like the people who spewed those rumors yesterday must have accidentally confused him with someone else.

  She had to find out.

  Without even fully deciding to do it, she squatted down on the side of the hallway and pulled her Health notebook out of her backpack before tearing out the two pages of notes she’d taken the day before. She looked them over briefly before closing the notebook and shoving it back into her bag, tossing it over her shoulder as she stood.

  And then Lauren walked toward the three boys standing outside the cafeteria.

  As she closed the distance between them, there was a split-second when her resolve wavered and she thought about turning around, but then Michael looked at her, having noticed her approaching, and she knew she had to follow through.

  “Hey,” she said softly when she reached them, and the other two boys turned to look at her, saying nothing.

  She glanced at the others before looking back at him, and she almost lost her nerve. His eyes were the darkest brown she’d ever seen, almost black, and his lip
s were full and pink, the kind of lips women would kill for. His face, like everything she knew about him, was purely contradictory. That cherubic mouth with those penetrating eyes: he was too lovely to be menacing, but too intense to be innocent.

  The three boys stared at her, waiting.

  She held out the pieces of loose-leaf she’d torn from her notebook. “These are the notes you missed yesterday.”

  Michael glanced down at them, unmoving.

  “In Health,” she clarified after a few seconds had passed.

  He lifted his eyes back to hers, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the boys nudge the other and nod in her direction, followed by muffled laughter; she lifted her chin slightly, her eyes still on Michael and her hand extended, offering him the papers.

  Finally, he reached forward, taking them from her and glancing down at them.

  “Thanks,” he said absently, and then he shifted his body so he turned away from her to face his friends again.

  And she knew the conversation was over.

  Lauren stood there for a second before she turned and walked away, and she heard that same muffled laughter again. She had no idea if his friend was laughing at her or not, but it didn’t matter. She realized she wasn’t feeling embarrassed, or surprised, or disappointed by the turn of events, because she had gone into the situation without any expectations.

  It was an experiment. She was just testing the outcome, not anticipating one.

  While he had been civilized, he certainly hadn’t been friendly. And that was fine. Now at least she had her own opinions of him, based on her own experiences, not some crazy rumors. He wasn’t a monster per se. He just wasn’t very nice.

  At least she had made the effort.

  She walked through the door of her English class, her head held high, feeling proud of herself.

  In Health that afternoon, Lauren kept her eyes dutifully on Mr. Mavis or on her notebook, never allowing them to cross the room to him, although he remained in the periphery of both her vision and her mind for most of the period.

  “Miss Monroe?”

  Lauren glanced up from her mindless doodling, startled out of her musings.

  “Can you name a common mistake most people make when attempting to sober up a friend?”

  She sat up a little straighter, running her hand through her hair. “Um, well, you’re not supposed to have an intoxicated person try to walk it off.”

  “Not true,” a male voice interrupted, and she looked over to see one of the juniors in the class shaking his head. “The worst thing you can do is let a drunk person lie down. It allows their vital systems to slow down, which increases their chances of getting alcohol poisoning.”

  Lauren opened her mouth to respond just as another male voice said, “Actually, she was right.”

  Her eyes flitted across the room to where the voice came from. Michael was looking down, watching his fingers twirling his pen as he spoke. “Physical activity can’t make your body metabolize alcohol any faster. Your liver works at the same pace, no matter what you’re doing. And the last thing a drunk person should be doing is walking around. Or doing anything physical, for that matter. A drunk person will have impaired balance, impaired reflexes, and a wasted person won’t have any. The chances of them hurting themselves are too great of a risk.”

  He lifted his eyes then, looking at the boy who had spoken, charging him with his stare. “So maybe you should check your facts before you try to make someone else look stupid. That way you won’t end up looking like a moron yourself.”

  There were a few stifled gasps and giggles before Mr. Mavis chimed in. “Okay, Mr. Delaney, that’s enough. But yes, you and Miss Monroe are right, an intoxicated person should never be asked to engage in any type of physical activity, even walking…”

  As Mr. Mavis continued with his explanation, Lauren looked across the room at Michael. He was watching her, and when she made eye contact with him, he didn’t turn away. Instead, the corner of his mouth lifted in the faintest hint of a smile before he straightened his expression and dropped his eyes, watching the pen weave between his fingers again.

  Later that afternoon, when Lauren opened her locker to put her books away, two pieces of paper sailed out and fluttered to the ground. She recognized her own handwriting and realized they were the Health notes she had given Michael, but when she bent to pick them up, she saw something scrawled on the back in a jagged print that was unfamiliar to her.

  She turned the paper over.

  Hey Red—thanks for the notes. Del

  And though she pressed her lips together, she couldn’t suppress her smile.

  August 2011

  Lauren left that day before he came back to pick up his daughter, so she didn’t have to see him again.

  But she was still reeling.

  She hid it well, falling right back into the children, putting all of her energy into them. It was easy to get lost in a room full of eleven preschoolers.

  But now that she was in the car on her way back home, all she had were her thoughts and the silence, and she didn’t know what to do with either.

  Lauren leaned over and grabbed her cell phone, holding down the speed dial for Jenn. Although Jenn was still back in Scranton, they made it a point to meet for dinner once a month ever since Lauren had moved to Bellefonte, and their record was nearly flawless. And while she’d be seeing Jenn that weekend for their monthly dinner, she knew there was no way she’d be able to wait that long.

  “You better not be cancelling on me,” Jenn said as her greeting.

  Lauren smiled weakly. “I’m not. I just need to talk.”

  “You okay?” Jenn asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You’re freaking me out here, Laur. What’s going on?”

  Lauren took a breath before she said, “I saw Michael today.”

  “Michael?”

  “Del,” she clarified.

  “What!” Jenn shrieked. “Is this a joke?”

  “No.”

  “Holy shit,” she said. “Hold on.” Lauren could hear the sounds of shuffling before the sound of a door closing, which meant she had just shut the door to her office. When she did that, she meant business. “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t say anything. I froze.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jenn said, her voice equal parts disbelief and disappointment. “You didn’t let him have it? We rehearsed what you would say! You used to dream about it!”

  “Yes, we rehearsed what I would say—when we were eighteen. You realize that was eight years ago, right?”

  “Eight years, eight days, it doesn’t matter. He still deserves a piece of your mind.”

  “I was at work, Jenn!”

  “So you didn’t speak to him at all?”

  “No, I did. But it was just really awkward.”

  “I still can’t even wrap my head around this. Michael Delaney,” Jenn said, her voice incredulous. “What exactly did you say?”

  “Just stupid formalities. ‘It’s good to see you.’ ‘How’ve you been?’ And then he registered his daughter and he left.”

  “What a jerk,” Jenn said, her voice now full of disgust. “I can’t believe you even talked to him. I can’t believe you didn’t spit in his face.”

  “Yeah, it would have been a great move on my part to spit in the face of a parent on my first day,” Lauren said. “With a child, no less.”

  “Lauren,” Jenn said in a warning tone.

  “What?”

  “Are you really going to sit there and make excuses for him?”

  Lauren sat up a little straighter as she felt herself growing defensive. “I’m not making excuses for him. What happened was years ago. That’s not an excuse, that’s a fact. He came in to register his daughter, and I registered her. I don’t see what the big deal is. Can you stop preaching at me, please?”

  “I’m not preaching,” Jenn said, her voice softening. “It’s just that…you’ve always had selective a
mnesia when it comes to Del.”

  “Trust me, I remember everything that happened with Michael Delaney.” And that time, when she said his name, she felt a twinge in her chest, the faintest echo of the pain that had nearly crippled her all those years ago. The corners of her mouth turned down slightly.

  “Good. Keep it that way,” Jenn said. “So, what’s his daughter like?”

  “Very sweet,” Lauren said, regaining her composure. “Her name is Erin. She didn’t say more than a few words today. Mostly kept to herself. Really polite.”

  “Well she must take after her mother then,” Jenn said, the disdain back in her voice, and Lauren shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Know anything about her?”

  “Who?”

  “The mother.”

  “No, there was no information about a mother on her registration forms.”

  “So he abandoned the mother of his child? How out of character!” Jenn said in feigned shock, and Lauren sighed.

  “We don’t know if that’s what happened.”

  “Sure we don’t.”

  “Okay,” Lauren said with a shake of her head. “I think I’m gonna go. I’ll see you this weekend. And just so you know, holding grudges gives you premature wrinkles.”

  “Yeah, well, in this case, not holding them would make you a wrinkle-less fool,” she retorted.

  Lauren frowned, because as much as she didn’t want to admit it, Jenn had a point.

  When Lauren got to work the next morning, Erin was already there, and she exhaled a sigh of relief. She didn’t think she could talk to him again. As childish as it was, she had already decided she would hide in the classroom so she wouldn’t have to see him when he dropped Erin off; but now, it was a non-issue. Maybe she would be lucky and he’d drop her off early every day.

  They started the day with the morning reading circle; for the first two weeks, they’d be working all together. After that they planned on dividing the class into three comprehension groups: the strongest, the average, and the struggling, so that they could individualize instruction.