Getting Schooled

by Parker, Ali

  I nursed my drink. “I have no fucking clue what I want.”

  “Not yet. Give yourself time. Think it over. Don’t act too fast. A rash decision is already what landed you guys in this position. I know it had nothing to do with you; let me finish.” He held up his hand as I made to interrupt him to tell him the only rash decision was the one Emelia made when she decided not to tell me she was pregnant. “Everything is out in the open now. You guys can choose to make this thing work between you, because let’s be honest with ourselves, you two love each other. But you can also choose to shut that door. Just so you know, man, whatever call you make, I’m in your corner.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now,” John said, leaning forward, “put that damn drink down and get your shit straight. You’re better than this. Yes, she dropped a bomb on you, but you aren’t going to let that implode your life. Are you?”

  “I—”

  “Are you?” he asked, his tone commanding.

  I stared at my friend and he stared back at me. “No,” I growled. “No, I’m not.”

  Chapter 34

  Emelia

  My weekend had been rougher than the weekend I endured when I first found out I was pregnant. Like that weekend, my mother was there, holding my hand, promising me that the time would pass and things would work out.

  And like that weekend all those years ago, I had to face reality on Monday morning.

  I arrived at Annapolis Secondary at my usual time of ten after eight. Linden was at school, and I’d done my best to keep my emotions under lock and key when he was around. I didn’t want to burden him with the knowledge that something was wrong.

  However, he was an intuitive kid, and he’d put two and two together fairly quickly and sensed I was sad about something.

  He’d crawled into my bed last night and cuddled with me until we both fell asleep. He was a sweet boy with a heart as big as his father’s.

  The school felt the same as every other day. Kids wandered the halls, and some said hello, and I offered them distracted greetings in reply.

  I was searching for Jace.

  I couldn’t find him anywhere. Not in the break room or his classroom or the hallways. Before classes started, I had to abandon hope and head to my classroom to prepare for my scheduled lectures.

  It was a tedious morning. All I could think about was seeing Jace. Even if it was only from a distance. Students asked me questions, and I could hardly comprehend what they were saying well enough to provide them with any sort of answer that made sense.

  There was a consistent feeling in my chest that I was drowning.

  And that the surface of the ocean trying to swallow me was only growing farther and farther away with every passing minute.

  By the time lunch break rolled around, my stomach was in knots. I collected my lunch kit from my work bag and left my classroom to go to the break room. With any luck, Jace would be there. He might not talk to me, but if I could just steal a glance at him, I knew it would help.

  All I wanted was to know that he was okay.

  But Jace wasn’t in the break room. And he didn’t show up. I waited, unable to eat my food due to the nausea swirling around in my gut, eyes glued to the door, hoping he’d come, but he never did.

  John did though. He spotted me right away and came to sit at my table.

  “Hey there,” he said. His tone was compassionate. Warm.

  He knew.

  “Hi.”

  “What’s for lunch today?” He peered into my open Tupperware container and made a sound in the back of his throat. “Veggies and hummus. Yuck.”

  I had no wisecrack response to offer in return.

  John pulled a sandwich out of his bag and began peeling back the saran wrap it was engulfed in. I bet Marie made that for him this morning. Maybe they stood in the kitchen, making small talk, saying sweet things to each other, and then he gave her a hug and a kiss and put his hand on her belly before he left for work. Maybe she waved at the door.

  I wanted that. I wanted that more than I wanted anything in the world. And the man I wanted it with was suffering because of me.

  I couldn’t help myself from asking John the question that was hovering on the tip of my tongue. “Have you seen Jace today?”

  “He took the day off.”

  “Oh.”

  John shifted in his chair. “I talked to him on the weekend, though.”

  “You did?” I tried to contain my eager curiosity. “How is he?”

  John licked his lips. “I know about Linden.”

  “I figured,” I said.

  “He needed to talk to someone.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Really. I’m glad he confided in you. Thinking of him home alone was weighing on me. How is he?”

  John shrugged. “He’s handling it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  John wiped a bead of mustard from the corner of his mouth. “It means he’s having a hard time, Em.”

  I averted my gaze to the table. “Right. Of course.”

  John took a bite of his sandwich. Silence stretched on between us, and I wished I could blend in and become one with the chair I was sitting on. Then he sighed. “You just need to give him some time. He needs to process all of this. It was a lot. You dropped a bomb on him.”

  I winced. “I know.”

  “A happy bomb,” John amended.

  I arched an eyebrow.

  “Linden,” John clarified. “Jace isn’t mad about Linden. In fact, once he wraps his head around all this, I think he’ll be happy about Linden. How could he not? It’s just the lie that gets him. It’s the time he missed out on.”

  I fought back tears. I couldn’t cry any more. Surely, there were no tears left.

  “Em.” John put his hand on mine and squeezed. “This will work out. Okay?”

  I shook my head.

  “It will,” he said again, firmly this time.

  “How?”

  John shrugged and released my hand. “I can’t answer that. But I know Jace. And I know you. And I know how good things were going between you two before shit hit the fan.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “This won’t break you guys.”

  I licked my lips. How was that possible?

  How could he forgive me for this? It wasn’t like I’d told a small lie. Or that I hadn’t been able to tell him because of some crazy reason, like I didn’t know his name when we hooked up and he was a mystery man from another country I was never able to track down.

  He was my best friend’s husband’s best friend.

  It came full circle. All I would have had to do was pick up the phone. It should have been easy.

  But I chose wrong.

  “Did you hear me, Em?” John asked.

  I nodded. “He won’t forgive me. And he shouldn’t. I messed up. This is too big.”

  “I know Jace better than I know myself. He’ll forgive you. Just you wait and see. And it won’t be the kind of forgiveness you think you deserve. It will be real, full, honest forgiveness. You just need to give him time.”

  “I don’t deserve it.”

  “It’s not about what you deserve,” John said simply.

  “Then what is it about?” I asked. I could hear the desperation in my voice and feel it in my throat. If I wasn’t so overwhelmed with grief over this, I might have been embarrassed. But I was overwhelmed. And devastated. And I didn’t care if he could hear it in my voice.

  “It’s about making the right choice right here and right now. It’s about looking at the bigger picture and figuring out what he really wants. And once that becomes clear, he’ll make the right call. He always does.”

  How did John know what the right call was?

  I put the lid back on my Tupperware as the clock moved toward the end of the lunch hour. My stomach grumbled with hunger, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to eat anything all weekend except a banana and a cup of yogurt.

  I’d been sick s
everal times.

  Guilt was a bitch.

  John packed up his lunch bag and got to his feet. “You’ll all be okay, Em. Trust me.”

  I nodded and stared at the top of the table. What did he know? He’d never been through anything like this. He’d never had someone tell him they hid a whole person from him for six years.

  John put a hand on my shoulder. “Hang in there. He’ll come around. Just you wait and see.”

  He made to leave.

  “John?”

  He looked back over his shoulder at me.

  “What did you mean when you said this is about Jace figuring out what he really wants? You said once it all becomes clear, he’ll make the right call. What did you mean? When what becomes clear?”

  John smiled. His teeth were startlingly white against his dark beard. “Don’t you know?”

  I shook my head.

  John looked at me like I was a child. “When he realizes how much he loves you, he’ll realize the rest of it doesn’t matter. And he’ll forgive you.”

  “Why?” I whispered.

  John shrugged. “Because that’s what love is.”

  Chapter 35

  Jace

  Paxton stuck his foot out expectantly, flashing his new white sneakers at me to lace up. I chuckled and took a knee in front of him, and he put a hand on my shoulder to balance himself as he strained to look past me out the living room window.

  He’d been waiting anxiously all afternoon for his mother to arrive.

  As a father, I wanted this excitement for him. Moments like this, where he was brimming over with happiness and anticipation, were few and far between, and I wanted him to revel in it, but I was still wary of how things could go down.

  Gwen could bail early and bring him home hours before he was ready to put an end to the evening.

  Or even worse, she might not show up at all. Her previous track record suggested this was entirely possible. I’d been biting my tongue for the last hour and a half to hold back from warning Paxton not to get his hopes too high. How could he not? His mother was coming, and he hadn’t seen her in approximately six months. That was a long time, especially when six months prior to that, he practically saw her every single day.

  Still, I was wary.

  When I finished lacing his sneaker, he put out his other foot.

  I looked up at him. “She’ll be here soon, buddy. A couple more minutes, I’m sure.”

  Paxton nodded but never took his gaze away from the window.

  “You’re sure you don’t mind going bowling?” I asked, patting his knee when the second shoe was tied up. “I know it’s not your favorite thing. I could talk to your mother and see if she’d be willing to take you somewhere else.”

  “That’s okay,” Paxton said.

  I sighed. The last time I went bowling with Paxton, he’d sat at our seats at the end of our lane and watched. He took one shot, which went directly into the gutter about three feet down from the line, and then he wrote it off and swore he would never come back.

  In time, he’d grow out of it.

  But I still suspected he might not have the best time tonight. Especially since Gwen’s boyfriend was coming. If it was just him and his mother, things might go smoothly, but throwing a stranger into the mix could make things dicey.

  I got to my feet, and Paxton hurried around me to stand directly in front of the window. He pressed his nose to the glass and looked both ways down the street. “Dad, what time is it?”

  “Four thirty-three.”

  “She’s late.”

  “Yes. Well, she’s not usually on time. Give her a few more minutes.”

  Paxton sighed dramatically.

  If she let him down, I was going to blow a fuse.

  I’d had a rough enough weekend as it was. Emelia and I hadn’t talked since Halloween night when she told me Linden was my son. I still felt like I’d hardly had a minute to catch my breath. Paxton spent the weekend devouring a shit ton of his Halloween candy haul and bouncing off the walls, so most of my energy had been spent on him.

  I felt like I was going through the motions but not actually sitting in the moment. It was like I’d been plucked out of my own life, removed from the current situation, and put down somewhere else. Somewhere numb.

  It was hard to sort out how you felt about something when you couldn’t feel anything at all.

  Paxton drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “Now what time is it?”

  “Four thirty-four.”

  He hung his head back and groaned.

  I smiled. “She’s coming, kiddo. Take it easy.”

  The minutes ticked by. Paxton went from pressing his face against the glass to folding his hands on the windowsill and resting his chin on them. His eyes flicked back and forth, looking both ways down the road, and any time he caught movement, he’d raise his head, take a breath of anticipation, and then let it out as he lowered his chin back down.

  On the eighth time he did this, he looked back over his shoulder at me. “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Emelia’s here.”

  “What?” I moved to the window.

  Paxton pressed his index finger to the glass and pointed out at the street where Emelia was exiting a cab. She was wearing a loose gray sweater, faded blue jeans, and her usual white sneakers. Her hair was up in a thick, messy ponytail.

  She kept her eyes cast down when she turned from the cab and started making her way up the driveway to the front door.

  Paxton knocked on the window.

  Emelia paused and looked up. Our eyes locked first. She wrung her hands together. Then she saw Paxton waving frantically, and a smile touched her lips. She lifted a hand, waggled her fingers at him, and proceeded up the drive to the front door.

  I wasn’t ready to see her. I’d asked for space. Why was she coming around here? I needed more time to sort this out. When Paxton was out with his mother, I planned on sitting alone in silence to consider the curveball she’d thrown at me and try to figure out where my place was in all this mess.

  I was going to have to ask her to leave, and I didn’t like that she was putting me in that position.

  Again.

  Paxton raced for the front door and opened it for her. She was on the threshold, smiling down at him when I came around the corner from the living room. Her gaze flicked to me, and her smile faded a little.

  “Hi, Jace,” she said softly.

  “Hey.”

  Paxton gave her a hug. “Guess what, Emelia?”

  Her gaze lingered on me for a brief second longer before she turned all of her attention to my son. “What?”

  “My mom is coming to pick me up. We’re going bowling.”

  Emelia’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh. Really? Wow. That’ll be fun.”

  Paxton nodded eagerly. “Yep. We’re going bowling. And then for dinner. And then maybe ice cream. Mom said ice cream only if we have time. But I think we’ll have time.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Emelia agreed.

  Paxton rushed back to the window.

  Emelia locked eyes with me. There was hesitation written all over her. I wondered if she regretted coming over here as she licked her lips. “How have you been?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t really know, to be honest.”

  She grimaced and went to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, then remembered it was up in a ponytail and awkwardly let her hand fall back to her side. “Can we talk?”

  “Emelia, I don’t think I’m ready for that. I haven’t wrapped my head around everything, and I just need more—” My phone rang in my pocket and cut me off. At first, I didn’t realize it was my cell ringing. The new phone I’d bought to replace the one I smashed on Halloween night didn’t have the same ring tone options as my old phone. I fished it out and groaned internally when I saw Gwen’s name flash across the screen. I glanced up at Emelia. “Give me a second. It’s Gwen.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  I answered t
he phone, and Emelia stepped out of her sneakers to join Paxton at the living room window. She started up a conversation with him as I ducked into the kitchen to take the call. Worry was already taking hold of my gut as I held the phone up to my ear.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  Gwen was mid conversation with someone else when I answered. I assumed it was her boyfriend. They were somewhere loud with music in the background. “Jace?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’m not going to be able to come by today. We lost track of time and—”

  “I don’t give a shit what excuse you have,” I growled. “I’m done with this. You hear me, Gwen? Done with it. I’m not going to allow you to keep treating our son like this.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “Overreacting?” I barked. “I’m reacting appropriately. I’m fucking done with this. With you. You’re a heartless woman, Gwen, stringing our son along like this. He’s been waiting for you with his face pressed up against the fucking window. He’s told everyone you’re coming to see him. He couldn’t sleep last night, he was so excited. And now, just like every single God damn time, I’m going to have to go in there and disappoint him. And it’s going to destroy him.”

  “Don’t yell at me, Jace. I’m not your fucking wife anymore. You can’t talk to me—”

  “I can talk to you however I damn well please when you’re hurting our child.”

  “You’re being dramatic.”

  I laughed. The sound was full of spite and anger and no mirth. “Yeah. Of the two of us, I’m the dramatic one. Go back to whatever it is you’re doing, Gwen. Drinking. Fucking. I don’t care. But this ends now. Got it?”

  “Are you trying to keep my son from me?”

  “No, you’re doing that all on your own.”

  I hung up the phone, tossed it down on the kitchen table, and braced myself on the back of one of the chairs. My shoulders bunched up as I took deep and steady breaths to try to control my temper.