by Leddy Harper
“The same as everyone else,” I muttered under my breath.
He leaned even closer to me, practically sprawling on his desk. “I’m not like everyone else. I know I may be young. This is my first time teaching on my own. But do not mistake me as being like everyone else.” He sat back, giving me the space I so desperately needed. “I had a friend growing up that had it bad at home. From what it sounds like, your mom is just like his dad used to be. He used to terrorize Danny. Yell, scream, curse, say the nastiest things to him. Call him a retard, a faggot, every derogatory and disgusting word you can think of, his dad called him. Things no one should ever be called. Words no one should ever say. And it wasn’t just sometimes…it was all the time. He never laid a hand on him, so there was nothing my parents could do once they found out, other than give him a safe place at our home. This isn’t new to me, Bree. You’re not the first person I’ve ever met that has to deal with someone beating you down. Do you have friends or an adult in your life that you can go to? Even if it’s just someone to talk to?”
I shook my head, unable to answer his question without my voice breaking.
“I know it’s been a few years since I’ve been in high school, but even then, everyone had at least one friend. Didn’t matter if you were considered a nerd, a freak, a jock, or a loner…everyone had at least one friend.”
My eyes locked with his, and I had to swallow down the need to cry. “I get along with plenty of people, and can hold a decent conversation with most of my classmates. But when it comes to friends? How am I supposed to have one when they’re not allowed in my home, I can’t go to their houses, I can’t talk to them on the phone…and going out to the movies or the mall on weekends? Forget about it. So please, explain to me how I could possibly have a friendship with anyone.”
“So you really have no one?”
I shook my head, letting the words sink in.
I have no one.
“What about your dad? Where is he?”
“About four hours away with his new wife and my two stepsisters I’ve never met. I’m sure he even has a dog, maybe a cat. A big back yard with a fence and a pool. I have no idea, Mr. Taylor. I talk to him about once a month. He can’t help me.”
“Does he know how you’re being treated at home?”
I couldn’t hold back the pathetic laugh that bubbled up. “Considering my mom pretty much treated him the same way for almost twelve years, yes. I’m rather certain he knows what’s going on, and just doesn’t care.”
“I don’t understand why he wouldn’t care.”
I clasped my hands together on the desk in front of me. My mind became so muddled that I couldn’t hold back the pathetic tale of my existence. I had no intentions of telling him about my life, but something in me snapped, wanting to give him a piece of my mind, even if that meant exposing my past to a nearly complete stranger. “My parents met at a party in college—she was a year away from her law degree, and he had just become legal to buy beer. My dad had a hard time with women—he was shy, awkward, and reserved. My mom had a hard time with men—they didn’t much care for her bitchy and bossy attitude. Man-boy with no self-esteem meets man-eater with no respect for anyone, and you have my parents.
“She got pregnant very soon after they met, and despite his objections of having a child before graduating from college, they got married and had me. Since she was going to school to be a lawyer, and he hadn’t even gotten his bachelor’s degree, he dropped out to raise me. That was his second mistake—his first was not insisting she abort me. My mom has this idea in her head that in order to be successful, she has to have the perfect image. Be the perfect wife to the perfect husband and have the perfect child, all wearing perfect smiles on our fucking faces. So that’s what everyone saw. But at home, I witnessed something completely different. I saw a woman that only cared about her career. A man that grew to hate everyone. And a little girl that would never be loved because her mother could only love herself, and her father couldn’t even stand his own reflection.
“So one day, he up and left, unable to handle my mom anymore. And because of that, he couldn’t deal with me, either. I was the reason his life fell apart, because had my mother never gotten pregnant with me, he would have never been tied down and treated that way, and he would have finished his degree on time. After he left, my mom resented me because she could no longer convey the perfect image. She became a single mother. And to her, that is worse than just being single.” I pulled in a shaky gulp of air, feeling the weight of my life pressing down on my chest with the increasing pressure of my own insecurities. “It’s not that my dad is a bad person, it’s just that he reached his breaking point and shattered to pieces. His new wife helped pick him up and put him back together again—Humpty Dumpty’s fairy tale. And then she put all the parts back in place, yet she left out one critical piece. So while his heart mended and his life was rebuilt, it happened without me in it.”
“How do you know all that?” he asked, his words soft and full of so much emotion that each syllable felt like a stabbing pain behind my breastbone.
“Things my mom has told me during her fits of anger, things my father has told me, and things I put together myself while eavesdropping on their fights. Things I’ve figured out on my own from growing up and watching them.”
“Well, I have a few things I want to say. And I want you to listen to me very carefully, okay?” He waited for my hesitant nod before continuing. “Your dad’s first mistake wasn’t that he didn’t insist on an abortion. That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. You’re worth more than that, Aubrey. You hear me? You are an incredibly smart person, with a very bright future ahead of you, but only if you stop listening to the trash you’ve been fed. His first mistake was not getting out of that situation sooner, and more importantly, not getting you out of it, as well. And you really have to stop listening to your mother. Do what you have to until you graduate, and then get the hell out. And never look back. If she ever touches you again, and I don’t care if it’s by her hand or a door, you let me know. You let someone know. Anyone. You’re better than this, Aubrey. You deserve so much more. You are not unlovable. I’ve seen you for all of four hours total since I first met you, and a quarter of that time was spent with you yelling at half your class”—a smile spread across his face in jest—“yet I’ve seen enough to know this about you.”
The tears I’d held onto since walking into his classroom slipped past my lids and trailed down my face, leaving warm, salty tracks on my cheeks. I didn’t even have enough strength to stop them or wipe them away. All I could do was stare into his icy-blue eyes and believe him. My God, I actually believed him.
“Do you hear me, Aubrey? Do you understand me?”
I nodded, my words catching in my throat.
“You come to me next time.” He scribbled something on a sticky note and then slapped it on the front of his desk, right in front of me. “Call me if she ever does anything again. I don’t care what time it is.”
“I’m pretty sure handing your phone number out to female students is frowned upon. This may be your first year teaching, but I’d assume that’s common knowledge.” I tried to joke with him, tried to lighten the heavy situation with my own ironic humor.
He shrugged with a sly grin on his lips, the tension slowly fading away. “Yeah, I’m sure it is. But I don’t care. I won’t allow any of my students, male or female, to live in an abusive home and not have anyone to turn to.”
I folded the small yellow paper and curled it into my fist. “Am I your new Danny? Your new project? Is that what this is? I think you have a hero complex. You just want to save the poor, defenseless teenager.”
“Call it whatever you want, just as long as you have someone in your corner. That’s all I care about. Whether it’s me, or a girl in your gym class, I don’t care. You don’t deserve to live like this, Aubrey. And the faster you figure that out, the better your life will be.” He finally unwrapped his sandwich. “Now eat,
” he said with a grin and a sparkle in his eyes.
I had wanted someone to talk to for so long, but I had no idea that it would’ve come in the form of a sexy, demanding history teacher. How ironic.
I was the girl he couldn’t protect.
And he was the guy I couldn’t touch.
“You said my call made things worse… What does that mean?”
I shrugged, contemplating how open I wanted to be with him. I had already told him things I’d never told anyone. This new openness felt strange, but good, too, like I had someone in my corner, just this once. “Just a lot of yelling, fighting. Well, not really fighting, because that would mean it went back and forth. But it didn’t. I sat there and took it. I didn’t get physically hurt, if that’s what you’re asking. She was pissed and made it known. That’s all you really need to know.” I expressed my contentment silently as I turned my eyes to the side to peer at him, letting him understand that I was okay.
“So,” he said after taking a bite of his own sandwich, “are you going to tell me what happened to your face now? The truth?”
The corners of my mouth curved upward as I picked out the onions and shook my head. “No. You don’t need to hear what she does to me. You already know the truth. You don’t need to hear the fucked-up story of it all.”
He laughed and it caught my attention, making me look his way. “Aubrey, I understand you’re a teenager, and teenagers like to cuss. In times like this, when it’s just you and me, you’re allowed as long as it’s not directed at me, but please refrain from it during class.” His grin remained, growing larger and larger as he spoke. “I know I’m young, but I can’t allow my students to talk like that. It’ll give me a bad reputation.”
“How young are you?” I asked, and then prayed that he wouldn’t deem that inappropriate. The question had popped into my mind and crept onto my tongue before I could stop it.
He placed the sandwich on the opened wrapper in front of him and cleared his throat. “Twenty-four.”
“Soon to be twenty-five? Or did you recently have a birthday?”
His lips twitched as if he wanted to smile but fought against it. “I just turned twenty-four a couple weeks ago.”
I hummed to myself and nodded. “That’s cool. My birthday is next month.”
The overeager grin won and broke free across his face, showing off his straight set of pearly white teeth and the dimple on one side. Yet he kept his eyes down and didn’t say a word. My stomach dipped at the thought that he’d been thinking the same thing as I was.
Only one more year.
The rest of the week went by with ease, both at school and at home. Mr. Taylor’s class went back to normal, and it was as if no one remembered the outburst I’d had on Thursday. And as for my teacher, he greeted me in the morning like he had every morning before, and taught from his podium like usual. Like I said, back to normal—except for the quick exchanging of glances from across the room. The ones where we’d catch each other’s eye, and the split second of silence that followed burned like a spark of electricity igniting in my lower belly.
He’d ended class a few minutes early and headed back to his desk. The way his eyes kept lifting to where I sat, yet not quite making contact with mine, left me to believe he’d wanted to speak to me after class. But that had been interrupted by Rebecca when she lingered at his side with her hip pressed against the edge of his desk, her jean skirt riding up her thigh.
“Is this your girlfriend? Maybe your wife?” Her question caught my attention, causing me to snap my head up. Her fingers lightly touched a picture frame while her eyes remained glued to Mr. Taylor’s face.
I watched it all closely, from his expression to the inappropriate smirk she wore. But what warmed me the most was when he moved the framed picture out of her reach and said, “She’s someone I care a lot about, and that’s all you need to know.” His confession would’ve caused my blood to run cold, thinking of him with someone, but for some reason, his eyes met mine, calming me before I could get upset. Yet it did cause me to question my initial reaction. As if I had some claim to him. The thought of him with someone else made knots form in my stomach and my head spin.
That one glance made no sense to me, and I pondered it for the rest of the day and most of Saturday morning. We’d had a heartfelt conversation on Thursday, but after that, our verbal exchanges had become nothing more than any teacher would engage in with one of their students. A part of me wondered if the connection I’d felt had only been one-sided, but then he’d catch my eye. He’d look at me, pierce me with an intense gaze as if silently telling me something, and then I’d find myself believing there was more between us.
Crazy, right? He was my teacher. I was his student. His underage student. And he was seven years older than me. It had to have all been in my head. Nothing more than a naïve girl seeing what she wanted to believe when an attractive, older man gave her attention. I was smart enough to see the truth.
Those were the thoughts that consumed me, took over my dreams Friday night, and ate away at me until I finally forced myself to snap out of it. Saturday afternoon, I decided to head up to the library. Mom had been quiet ever since her explosion on Wednesday night after coming home from work and yelling at me for the questions she had to field off. The questions caused by Mr. Taylor’s intrusion. My mother didn’t like when anyone involved themselves in our lives. I didn’t know how to take her silence, so I eased into a conversation with her. I told her I wanted to check out some books, knowing she wouldn’t have a problem with me leaving the house. The weekends were always the hardest at home when we were both trapped inside together for endless hours. Just as I’d hoped, she allowed me to go, and then agreed to pick me up at six when the library closed.
That gave me almost three hours to wander around and enjoy some peace and quiet sans the awkwardness of being in the proximity of my mother. It was heaven, so naturally, the time went by too fast.
I chose to wait outside the library doors on a bench to be picked up, foreseeing how it would end if she had to wait for me. What I hadn’t expected, though, was to have company.
“What are you reading?” A deep voice overhead startled me until I pulled my nose from the book in my hand and peered over the tops of the pages. Stunned at who stood in front of me, I couldn’t speak or move. I could only watch as he took the empty space on the bench next to me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, nearly breathless from the shock of him being so close to me, his subtle cologne consuming me.
“It’s a library, Bree.” His small laugh was enough to calm me to the point where I could finally take him in. I had seen him for five straight days, all of which he’d worn dress pants with shiny black shoes and a nice button-up shirt adorned with a tie. So seeing Mr. Taylor dressed in dark-washed jeans and a sweater was odd.
Not odd.
Nice.
He looked really, really nice, and I had to fight the urge to gawk at him. I closed the book in my hand and shrugged, wanting him to at least think I was at ease around him, even though that was the complete opposite of how I felt. My insides were shaking, and it had nothing to do with the cooling temperatures.
His gaze dropped from mine to my hands before reaching out and taking the book from me. “Animal Farm. This is one of my favorite books. Have you read this before? Or are you getting it for school?”
Embarrassment filled me as I searched for the answer that wouldn’t make me sound anything like the teenager I was. “I’ve read it before. I really liked it and wanted to read it again with fresh eyes. Sometimes, when I have to read something for class, the essence of the story is lost on me. And reading it for fun allows me to see it differently…like with a different perspective, I guess.”
He tilted his head as he stared at me, his eyes locked with mine, his mouth remaining closed. Finally, he shook his head and looked away. “Are you sure you’re a high school student?” He pulled his attention back to me with squinted eyes and a furrow
ed brow.
“Why?”
“Because I never remember sixteen-year-olds talking like you when I was in school. They were always worried too much about their appearance and who they dated instead of reading books for fun to get a different outlook on them.”
“Seventeen,” I corrected. “I’ll be seventeen in a month.”
“You think that makes a difference?”
All the wind in my sails deflated, leaving me insecure all over again. “I guess not.” My shoulders dropped and my head fell forward. No matter how much I wanted to hide my reaction, it seemed impossible to keep my body from betraying me.
He shifted on the bench to face me, squaring his shoulders in my direction. “I only meant that even at seventeen, kids don’t think like you. They didn’t when I was your age, and since I started teaching, I haven’t noticed any. Why aren’t you challenging yourself more? Why aren’t you in better classes? Honors classes are good and all, but you could be doing so much more.”
“I don’t have the time.”
“What do you mean? What time do you need for accelerated classes?”
“My mom has these…expectations of me at home, and if I took more than I am right now, I would fall behind. I’m only taking these honors courses because I needed the weighted GPA. My mom expects nothing less than a solid four, so I figured the added weight would help me get there.”
“What kinds of ‘expectations’ does your mom have of you?”
“Normal house stuff. Cooking, cleaning, laundry.”
“You do it all?”
I nodded, fearing where this conversation was headed.
“So you never get to do anything normal?”
“I’m at the library, aren’t I?”
He shook his head and peered out at the parking lot. His lips scrunched up as if he’d tasted something sour. His obvious disgust at what I’d told him was written all over his face. “You’re going to college, right? You plan on getting out?”