by Nella Tyler
I groaned at that, but I couldn’t deny that I felt better having Peyton here. The situation was still a mess, but at least I wasn’t facing it alone. “The worst part about it is that I had to back out of my promise to Sophia.”
Peyton tilted her head to one side, a questioning expression blooming on her face. “What do you mean?”
“All of this stuff with Drew started because I told him I’d sit with him and Sophia at the Valentine’s Day lunch. Now, I can’t do that. Faculty and staff all attend this lunch, meaning Terry will be there. Actually, he’ll be emceeing the damned event, come to think of it. I can’t very well sit with the man that he just told me to break up with if I want to keep my job.”
Peyton rolled her blue eyes as a wicked smile stretched across her face. “I think you should just show up together, sit in Drew’s lap, and spend the whole damned lunch French kissing in front of everyone.”
I stared at her for a second before we both exploded into a raucous fit of giggles. The better part of the worry over losing Drew and disappointing Sophia so terribly disappeared in that hearty laughter.
“Can you imagine?” she asked, still giggling as she wiped tears from her eyes. She pushed her blonde ponytail over her shoulder and out of the way.
“You are out of control,” I said, laughing as I wiped away my own tears.
“You know what will help us get this figured out?”
I lifted my eyebrows questioningly.
“Ice cream. Do you have any?”
I laughed again, much lighter this time. “In the kitchen. Help yourself.”
She jumped up and took off in that direction. “We’re getting this figured out tonight, don’t you worry,” she called over her shoulder.
I sighed, but felt better now that she was on the case.
Chapter 31
Drew
Monday
I couldn’t believe I’d let the weekend pass without talking to Sophia about the situation with Abigail and the Valentine’s Day lunch. I kept waiting for the perfect opportunity, all the while keeping our day packed with fun activities to soften the eventual blow.
We went rock climbing all Saturday morning and afternoon and then went to a movie that she had been begging to see for a few weeks in the evening, stuffing ourselves with an unhealthy dinner of popcorn, chocolate-covered raisins, and jalapeno-laden nachos — Sophia got her love of hot food from me. By the time we got home that night, it was too late to have a serious conversation. Sophia was exhausted from the busy day and was barely able to change into her pajamas before collapsing into bed and falling instantly asleep. She hadn’t even rallied through our normal bedtime ritual of reading together.
Sunday hadn’t been any more convenient than Saturday. Brian showed up before Sophia was even awake, bearing gifts of doughnuts, coffee, and hot chocolate. I didn’t have the heart to tell him things between Abigail and me were done. Not with little ears in the house. I just acted like everything was fine and the three of us ended up spending the entire day together. The weather had warmed slightly, just enough to make an hour at the park possible. By the time Brian left, Sophia needed to get into the bathtub and then into bed. I kissed her goodnight, a sour feeling in my stomach at my own cowardice. She’d just been so happy all weekend. I didn’t have the heart to ruin it for her. And, bedtime wasn’t the proper opportunity to drop a bunch of bad news on her, anyway.
I drove to the school in silence, nodding and forcing smiles as Sophia chattered on about how much fun she’d had over the weekend and her hopes for her day. When she mentioned being excited about the Valentine’s Day lunch, I flinched, but didn’t say anything that might shoot her down from where she was currently hovering on cloud nine. Right now definitely wasn’t the time to tell her Abigail had pulled out. But I needed to do it soon. Tonight, I told myself. I had all day to figure out the best way to bring it up.
I arrived at work and was surprised to see that Brian had gotten in before me. Karen wasn’t in today, so his car was the only one in the parking lot. I went inside and the smell of coffee brewing hit me right in the face as I entered our shared office space. I breathed in that sweet aroma gratefully and headed straight for the coffeepot.
“Morning,” Brian said.
I grumbled something that sounded like morning, the better part of my energy and attention focused on pouring myself a mug of concentrated caffeine. It felt like I’d weathered one hell of a storm over the weekend. I was emotionally and physically drained after hearing Abigail’s bad news on Friday night. I kept my back turned to Brian, who had gone back to typing away on his keyboard in silence, until I’d taken a few steadying sips of my coffee.
Brian looked up, a smile on his lips that froze and faded away as soon as he saw the expression on my face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “It looks like your puppy died or something.”
My expression tightened at that, but I didn’t speak right away. I wasn’t sure where to start, but I needed to get this off my chest and find a way to move forward with the best method to break the news to Sophia. I’d lived with a sinking sensation in my gut for days, knowing that I was going to have to completely destroy her with this news. The poor kid had taken some real hits in her short life and I was loathe to add to them, even though I understood that the more I dragged this out, the worse it was going to end up being in the end.
Brian’s expression shifted from concerned to alarmed, his thick eyebrows lifting sharply. “Is everything okay with our girl?”
“Yeah, she’s okay. For now.”
His face fell, going back to looking deeply concerned again, and I loved him all over again for how much he loved Sophia. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I sighed as I crossed the small room with my coffee mug in hand and took a seat at my desk. “I didn’t tell you this yesterday because I didn’t want Sophia to accidentally overhear it, but Abigail and I are through.”
He sat back in his chair, the color draining from his face as his eyes went round. “What? Since when?”
“Friday night.”
“What the hell happened? I thought things were going so well.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, me too. But we hadn’t spoken much last week, and she invited me over to her place last minute. When I got there, she looked like she’d been crying and wouldn’t let me touch her, at all.” I rubbed my hand over the rough stubble on my chin, trying to force my mind away from the tragic look on Abigail’s sweet face and how full of sadness her beautiful green eyes had been. It hit me hard in the gut every time I thought of it. I could see breaking up wasn’t what she wanted, but she was doing it anyway, instead of working together to find a way out of this.
Brian hadn’t spoken during my protracted silence. He was balanced on the edge of his seat, waiting for me to continue.
“She told me the principal at her school had called her into his office and told her that he knew something was going on with her and a parent. He said that if it didn’t stop, her job was in jeopardy. He claimed he didn’t want a scandal at the school.”
It burned me up: that smug principal who had so easily dismissed my concerns over the Valentine’s Day lunch had now found a way to mess with my daughter’s equilibrium again. This was going to upset her so much more than simply not having a woman to sit at our table. I should’ve just invited Brian. Sophia loved him and would have come around to being excited at the idea of having her dad and backup dad at a table for three. Damn it.
Brian’s face had pinched into a tight frown during the brief recounting of my sorry tale. “He actually told Abigail that if she didn’t stop seeing you, she would lose her job?”
I nodded miserably and took a sip of my rapidly-cooling coffee. The air was colder than usual in here today. “I’m pissed, but how can I blame her for pulling away? She has to be able to pay her bills. And she also happens to love her job and be really good at it.”
“That’s not right.” He was shaking his head. “The principal can
’t legally tell her what to do during her off hours. It’s not like you were flaunting your relationship on school property or anything. She’s free to do whatever the hell she wants when she’s not at work.”
“She seems to think she’ll be fired if we keep dating. I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe you should go talk to this guy. He obviously thinks he can push Abigail around because she needs the job, but he won’t have that kind of absolute power over you. Level with him and tell him that he can’t legally fire Abigail over this and make it clear that he needs to back off.”
I was rubbing the back of my neck as I considered his suggestion. “I don’t know.” The idea appealed to me on one hand, but repelled me on the other. “What if Abigail’s upset that I went to her boss?” A significantly worse possibility occurred to me, twisting my gut even harder than it already was. “What if talking to this asshole ends up getting Abigail fired? She would never speak to me again, and she’d have every right.”
Brian waved off that concern. “That won’t happen. I’m telling you, he does not have the right to dictate what she does during her personal time. If I were you, I’d go over there as soon as possible and straighten this out. You and Abigail have something special. Don’t let that go to waste because some administrator wants to maintain an iron grip on one of his employees. These kinds of assholes are all the same. They wield power like little despots, but the smallest amount of push back puts an end to it.”
He continued to gripe, but I tuned him out to focus on my own thoughts. I couldn’t deny that it made sense to challenge this principal. I considered calling to make an appointment with him, but decided I didn’t want to give him the heads up. I’d just walk into the front office and insist on being seen. If he wasn’t available, I’d wait him out.
Feeling a little relieved now that I had the bare bones of a plan, I fell into my work, reviewing the dozens of emails I’d received over the weekend.
Chapter 32
Abigail
Monday
I spent the weekend dreading Monday morning when I would have to face Sophia — and later Drew in the afternoon car loop; I couldn’t keep giving Mrs. Wallace excuses of why I needed to miss unless I wanted her to start asking questions.
I’d cried multiple times after Peyton left my place late on Friday night. I felt alone and helpless, but my heart was also breaking for Sophia. She wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t attend the Valentine’s Day lunch, only that I’d told her I was going to come and then turned around and broken that promise. From what I’d seen of the Reid household over the last few weeks, there were pitifully few female role models for Sophia. I’d hoped to become something more to her than a teacher, but there was no way that could ever be now.
I paced my classroom in the morning, my nervous energy making it impossible to sit still. I hadn’t been able to sleep well for days. I’d gotten up a few hours earlier than I needed to this morning, loitering around my apartment until I felt like I might scream if I stayed inside of those four walls for even a minute more. I fled to the school, anxious for any kind of social interaction. But, besides the janitorial staff, I was one of the only employees there at six. I rearranged my classroom, reviewed and updated the next month’s worth of lesson plans, and finally got up to pace the colorful carpet while I kept anxious watch over the parking lot.
I was wringing my hands and staring out of the window when Drew’s blue pickup pulled into its usual space. I watched longingly as he stepped out of the truck, looking in the direction of the door to the school. He stood there, frozen and staring at the school, before shaking his head and going around to let Sophia out of the passenger side. He set her onto her feet and she took off in the direction of the crossing guard, a radiant smile lighting up her adorable face.
I frowned at that. Maybe she’d taken the news better than I expected? That would be a relief. I was riddled with guilt and would give anything to make sure she wasn’t hurt by what had gone down between her father and me.
She arrived in the classroom shortly after Drew drove away from the parking lot. She was still grinning. She came running to embrace my legs in a big hug. I blinked, surprised, and had a few seconds to force a smile onto my face before she glanced up at me with her soft brown eyes.
“Good morning, Miss East.”
“Good morning, Sophia,” I replied. The look on her face was like a knife to my heart. Had Drew told her the bad news? There was no way she could be this happy if he had, right? The Valentine’s Day lunch was this weekend. Was there a chance that she didn’t care about it anymore? That seemed fantastically unlikely.
“How was your weekend, sweetheart?” I asked, smoothing back a few wild strands of hair from her face. She was wearing her hair loose today, but had worn a knit cap, which had messed up her hair when she took it off. I could hear loud voices and footsteps in the hallway. Sophia wasn’t as early as usual, and there was only a minute or two before other students would start streaming into the classroom, excited over our after the weekend ritual of sharing what we’d done since we all last saw each other.
“Great!” she exclaimed, that pretty little smile cranking up and nearly causing me to flinch away from it. There was no way she knew about my canceling on the lunch this coming Saturday. My heart sank to see how happy she still was and know that, because of me, she was going to be disappointed in the very near future. I kept the smile pasted to my face as she went over all of the fun things she had done with her dad and Brian over the weekend. She’d been very busy. I could see that Drew had gone over the top with the fun activities, probably in anticipation of how disappointed she was going to be once she found out about the ruined lunched plans.
She had circled back to talking about the rock climbing, extremely excited and proud to have made it halfway up one of the advanced walls, when the rest of the class started coming in, the kids talking and jostling each other as they went to their desks. I encouraged Sophia to go to her seat, as well, my heart lodged firmly in my throat.
I couldn’t let any of that bother me right now. I had a job to do and once I started doing it, I knew I would feel better…at least until the end of the day when I saw Drew in the car loop and all of my emotions came crashing over me again.
The morning fell away in a frenzy of focused activity. Since I planned each day of instruction down to the minute, I only had to follow the detailed itinerary I’d made up for myself, jumping from one subject to the next and taking the kids along with me. By the time lunch rolled around, I felt lighter than I had since Friday afternoon, though I was still dreading the time when I’d have to look at the hurt in Sophia’s eyes that I’d helped cause.
“Okay, class, let’s line up for lunchtime,” I announced. “If you brought your lunch, get it from your cubby without pushing or running and then line up.” I watched as the children obediently and enthusiastically did as they were told, the noise level spiking the way it always did when they were free to roam away from their desks. They were always especially restless after the weekend.
Once the kids were lined up, we walked out into the hallway, right on time, and I nearly slammed into Mrs. Marconi, who was standing just outside of the door to my classroom.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Abigail!” she said, and the kids laughed at the use of my first name, as though they’d overheard a curse word.
My stomach dropped at the sight of her, despite the smile on her face. She didn’t often bring good news from the front office. “Is something wrong?”
The smile she gave seemed incredibly fake. That only made my stomach plunge even further towards the floor. “Mr. Clarkson would like to see you in his office about a matter of some importance.”
I lifted my eyebrows, but felt unable to speak, even as I could hear the children around me growing restless. They were good when I kept them on task, but idleness invited chaos. My goal during the day was never to give my kids an opportunity to become bored. Students tended to act out when they lost i
nterest.
“It’s lunchtime,” I finally managed to force out.
“I can take the kids to lunch. Mr. Clarkson is waiting on you in his office.” Her face was tighter, but she was still wearing the smile, probably for the kids’ benefit. She started to lead them away before I could really respond. I watched them go, my pulse racing as my mind went off in all different directions, anticipating the worst. But what could Terry really have to say to me now? I’d ended things with Drew. What more could he possibly want?
I hurried to the front office, my low heels clicking on the bare floors. Terry’s door was slightly ajar, but the secretary was gone, probably for lunch. I knocked lightly.
“Come on in,” he called.
I pushed the door open and froze, drawing a sharp breath that sounded enormous in the small room.
Drew was seated in front of my principal’s desk. He’d turned to face the doorway as I came in, and his brown eyes were very serious and determined as they met mine.
“What’s going on?” I asked, somehow managing to keep my voice under control. The rest of me was rioting. It took every shred of my inner fortitude to walk from the doorway to the only vacant chair in front of Terry’s desk, remaining calm despite the way everyone was staring at me. I kept my eyes pointedly away from Drew’s face, choosing to focus on Terry, who looked as uncomfortable as I felt. At least I wasn’t the only one suffering.
“Mr. Reid came in today to speak to me about the matter we discussed last Friday,” Terry said in a controlled tone that was highly unlike him. He was usually extremely laid back, which had made our conversation last week doubly concerning. Whatever was going on right now felt much worse. I had no idea what the hell Drew thought he was doing showing up here and discussing our personal matters with Terry. After last Friday, we no longer had any personal matters.