by Jamie Knight
Before I can get some answers form him, I’m startled by the child’s loud cries.
I point back towards the cafeteria. “Go check on the kids, make sure they’re not misusing the microwave. We’ll talk later,” I promise him.
I run over to the crying child and pat her on the back to calm her down. I repeat to her that I’m here for her and apologize for whatever it was Bryan did. Being a kid, this gets her to turn her crying down to a mere, much more tolerable sniffle.
“Now what was it that happened?” I ask her.
“I finished my chips, and I wanted to finish my homework before my mom picks me up, and I asked Mr. Anderson to help me but he told me to do it myself, and it’s really hard, and — and — and,” she starts to cry again but I ensure her that I’ll help her with her homework and anything else she needs. This quickly turns her frown upside down.
Seeing as how it is only elementary school homework, her supposedly difficult work doesn’t take more than a few seconds for us to work out. It’s just a worksheet with vocab words and their definitions on it, and she’s supposed to write out sentences with those words in them. I help her out with the first couple of them and let her do the last handful.
“What’s your name, by the way?”
“Lucy,” she tells me. “Thank you for helping me. I’m sorry for crying.”
“Don’t be sorry for that,” I insist. “You should never be sorry for reacting to being hurt. You did nothing wrong. Bryan is the only one who should be apologizing, and I’m going to make sure that he does. You got a handle on the rest of this?”
She enthusiastically nods her head and continues working on her homework.
Without a second to lose, I run back to Bryan who is once again crowded by a small army of children who are no longer interested in heating up their burritos to an adequate temperature. He turns to me with a distracted smile that fades as soon as he remembers the reasoning behind my sour look.
“Scout, look—”
“Later. When the kids aren’t around, ‘cause, we’re supposed to be watching out for them,” I tell him dismissively.
As a woman in her early twenties, the last thing I want to feel like is someone else’s mother. Especially that of a grown man. He tries to avoid saying anything to me the entire time whilst also darting his eye at me for some reason. He knows I’m behind him, so I don’t know what exactly he’s trying to look for. Like a kid who’s trying to stay on his mother’s good side after having been berated for not cleaning his room.
An hour of strained tension passes slowly until kids start getting picked up. One of my favorite moments from the string of pickups is when Lucy’s parents show up. She hugs me before running to her mom and gave Bryan the stink eye on the way.
With the kids gone, I now have the chance to give Bryan a lot more than a stink eye.
He stands next to me, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “So now that all of the kids are gone, what’s the—”
“Plan? Are you going to say plan, Bryan? Because the only plan I have right now is to drill the idea into your head that we have to take care of these children. For fuck’s sake, I told you more than enough times that these children are important. Not to be corny, but these children are the future. And we can’t be fucking them up more than their parents are probably are. If their life at home is a living hell, we have to make sure that their time at school is the exact opposite. What part of that do you not understand?”
He steps back a bit and throws up his hands. “Fucking them up? Living hell? Scout, all I did was let a girl do her homework by herself, and—”
“Why?” I shout at the top of my lungs. “What? You can’t help a second grader with some basic English homework? Or was it some sort of ‘you know how to do it, do it yourself’ kind of mentality you football players get fed by your coaches and shit.”
“That’s not it,” he insists. “I just couldn’t be the one to help her.”
I push my hands, which are balled up into fists, down to my sides. “What do you mean? We were the only two people here and I wasn’t near her at the time. You were. She asked for your help. How is it that you couldn’t be the one to help her, huh? Tell me that, Bryan. Fuckin’ tell me that,” I scream at him.
No words come out during his fit of stuttering and stammering until I urge that he say something. Something real. Something I could work with.
“I wasn’t a great student, Scout. Alright?” He rans his hands through his brown hair. “That’s it. I just didn’t think I would be of much use to her,” he whines.
“And?”
Bryan seems completely befuddled by my responds. He frowns and looks away from me.
“What do you mean, ‘and’?”
I stamp my foot. “I mean that that’s not a goddamn excuse. The least you could have done is grabbed me so I could help her, like I ended up doing anything. Only if you had told Lucy that you were going to get me, so she wouldn’t have felt abandoned,” I explain.
He puts a hand on his neck. “It’s not that big of a deal. She got it done in the end, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. Thanks to me. But before that, she was crying her eyes out. I know you heard her. Hell, that’s what made you finally get off your ass and come get me.”
The look on his face is enough to tell me that he’s finally starting to realize what he did was wrong, but there’s something else that he’s not telling me. I wait for the other shoe to drop but I seem to have rendered him speechless with what I’m sure he’ll tell his football friends was bitchy nagging.
“I’m sorry, Scout. I messed up. Big time. But it’s not that I don’t care about these kids. You know, as a football player — or celebrity if I want to brag — there aren’t very many things that I’m insecure about. My abilities as a student is one of them. And that —”
I’m sick of hearing his excuses. As if an adult — or celebrity — couldn’t figure out how to string together a couple of sentences for a second grader. It’s hilariously sad to think that he thinks this will work as an excuse for his actions.
“Do you realize that you’re just being selfish? That you’re a selfish person?” I ask him.
He drops his hands and stares at me. “How am I selfish?” he asks, clearly offended.
“You’re putting your own insecurities before the wellbeing and support of a child. A child, Bryan. Why don’t you realize that not caring about kids first and foremost is selfish?” I ask him.
Breaking his defensive shell, he takes a second to really think about his answer. He sighs and looks deep into my eyes. His blue eyes look sad.
“Okay, okay. You’re right, Scout. I was being selfish, and I have no right doing that. But I swear that that’s not me. It was a lapse of judgement and just… My not being a good student shouldn’t affect a second grader’s ability. I’ll admit to that. And I… I shouldn’t have reacted so rashly because my ego was slighted. It’s just hard having to come to terms with that fact. I was never a good student, and it caused me to have to rely on my money to get through college. I paid off some teachers to pass me. When, or if, they didn’t seem receptive to being bribed, I dropped the class and found a teacher who would pass me for money. It’s embarrassing but… that’s just how it is. I just didn’t want to have to admit that to you. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
I’m taken aback by his sheer honesty. It slowly breaks down all of the anger I had stored in me after seeing Lucy cry. It’s not enough to make me forgive him, but it’s definitely enough to make me reconsider being wholeheartedly angry at him. I won’t overlook the difficulty of him having to admit one of his biggest secrets to someone who is no more than a stranger to him. It wasn’t easy to hear, and I know it can’t have been easy to say it.
“Just think more about what you do around them. Please. I don’t want to have this conversation again, Bryan,” I beg. “These kids are everything to me.”
Bryan solemnly nods his head and apologizes for the huge mistake he made.<
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“It won’t happen again. Thanks for calling me out,” he says sincerely. “There are a lot of things I need to unlearn as a volunteer. And one of them is letting my insecurities get the best of me like that.”
An apology and a sincere proclamation of gratitude. The man continues to surprise me.
“Thank… you, Bryan. For actually listening to what I’m saying. I felt you getting a bit defensive for a second there, but in the end, you actually listened to my side of things instead of shutting me out and quitting. I don’t know a lot of men who would have done the same. And I should apologize.”
He perks up like a dog who had just heard their owner offhandedly say “walk”.
“I know you’re trying your best here,” I continue. “You haven’t been properly trained on working with these children and I shouldn’t be giving you hell for it on a near daily basis. You’re not to blame for being unprepared to handle a lot of the stuff I’m throwing at you,” I admit.
“You don’t have to apologize, Scout.”
“I do. I’ve been coming at you hard, from the get-go and it’s not fair to you,” I tell him. “Let’s just finish cleaning up and get out of here. Enough thanks and apologies, let’s just get today over with, huh?”
I expect him to walk away, but he doesn’t.
Chapter Eight
Scout
Bryan shushes me in a hushed tone and steps into my personal space. He wraps his arms around me and lightly plants his lips on the top of my head.
The two of us seem to freeze simultaneously. Neither of us are capable of fully registering what just occurred.
Bryan is the first to break away from our embrace and seems as embarrassed as I am confused. He clears his throat and wipes away some quickly forming sweat from his brow. Though he’s able to fidget and squirm as much as he wants, I still haven’t broken from my state of shock. The sensual tension between us just came to a head and neither of us know how to react to it properly.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, I should not have done that, I don’t know what came over me,” he says with fear in his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone what happened. It shouldn’t have happened. I don’t know what to say, that… I was… I should go. I’m sorry.”
He is so panicked that he doesn’t even wait for me to respond to his apologies. Not that I can. I’m still stuck in the moment when he pressed his lips on me. I liked it but I know I shouldn’t have. And I can’t even explain that to Bryan, as he’s walking away from me. I can’t know for sure, but something tells me he didn’t even look back as he ran out of the school with his tail between his legs.
How is one supposed to feel after a moment like that?
It was a good moment ruined by both of our paranoias. I can’t even imagine what is going through his head. He’s probably worrying about me going to the media, outing him as some sort of sexual harasser instead of thinking about the electric moment we shared. His brain was too loud for his heart to hear the truth. Something special happened between us just then. And it disappeared before either of us could realize it.
And he’s now left me alone to think about this until the next time he decides to show up to the headquarters.
The cleanup, the drive back to the headquarters, they are both short moments that move at a glacial pace for me. Since Bryan’s hug, time has moved much more slowly. It seems as though the universe wants me to relive that moment as many times as possible before I have to live another one. Over and over again, I experience that hug. In different angles that I couldn’t have possibly seen the hug happen from.
Roxanne snaps me out of my trance like state by nearly hopping out of her chair behind the front desk and running over to me to hand me a letter.
“It’s from Anais,” she tells me.
I can almost hear the damning church bells ringing in my head. The last thing I needed today was a letter from one of my higher ups.
Though I created this foundation and built it from the ground up, I wasn’t the only one working on it and I certainly wasn’t rich enough to fund this whole thing. I’ve had backers since, but the one person I had to rely on from the beginning was Anais. A rich friend I made in high school who turned into more and more of an authoritative figure as we grew older and she grew more in control.
Roxanne continues, “She came in to deliver it herself and said it was urgent. She also seemed a bit upset that you hadn’t gotten back to her after the many voicemails she had left.”
She sent them to my work phone and of course I haven’t replied, I never use my work phone.
“I’ll be in my office,” I tell Roxanne.
As if my day couldn’t get any worse, now I have to spend some time in my office. Calling it mine feels so foreign. I’m hardly ever in my office unless I’m dropping off some papers or interviewing someone.
With time still being stretched out in my head, I feel like being here alone with this letter is like a year-long prison sentence. While the envelope looks professional, the letter itself reads more like a Twitter rant than it does a letter sent from the director of a charity.
Scout,
You’ve failed to return my calls, emails, or texts. Part of your responsibilities as program lead including communication with the organization’s director, especially when it comes to the urgent topic of the organization’s finances. Mr. Grady Banks has informed me that after a conversation with you, he has given you a week to remedy the situation. I don’t know what situation he’s talking about, but Mr. Banks has made it clear that he is open to cutting our funding. I have been left in the dark about this situation otherwise, and you’ve been about as much help. Even when I come into the headquarters, I can’t seem to get a hold of you. I’m leaving this notice with your receptionist and I expect a response some time before he decides to cut our funding.
It no longer makes sense financially to keep this organization running without major backers.
Please contact me before the week is over.
Anais Song
Founder and Director of CHILDREN OF THE FUTURE
For fuck’s sake, I can’t catch a single break today.
Explaining to Anais that I used to date Grady and that the ‘situation’ he referred to is his blackmailing me might just be the death of me. I’ll die of embarrassment, all because I haven’t been able to tell anyone about Grady’s highly unprofessional and unethical actions.
I could try to pin it all on him but after enough bickering, he’d want to take it to court, and that’s not something I can afford.
If she’s giving me until the end of the week to explain all of this to her, I’m going to take full advantage of it and try to come up with a proper, albeit untruthful explanation for why Grady is likely going to pull our funding. Hopefully, before then, I can talk to Bryan. There’s a lot we need to talk about after today, but most important is finding out whether or not he can replace Grady as Children of The Future’s main backer.
There’s no way I’m going on a fucking date with Grady, so Bryan is my one and only hope.
Chapter Nine
Bryan
“I fucked up,” I yell into the phone. “I fucked up big time, Palir. I don’t know what to do, I’m fucked. It she goes out an tells anyone, my career is fucked!”
“...You didn’t drop or hurt one of the kids, did you? I know I told you I’d back you through anything, but —”
“Goddamn it, Palir, no! I’m not some kind of idiot, I just… I kissed Scout,” I admit.
Palir takes an undeserved sigh of relief, “Jesus. Alright, that’s a lot more manageable than hurting a kid.” He chuckles. “So, you kissed Scout, what’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that she can go to the media about it. ‘Big football player sexually harasses caring, big-hearted charity worker’, oh, people would eat that up like candy. I can already see Buzzfeed and TMZ running away with that headline. What the fuck am I supposed to do, man?”
“What are you supposed to do? You run w
ith it!”
“Meaning?”
He laughs. “Meaning that… you are a very famous, rich, and hey, it’s 2019, I’ll say it, one damn attractive S.O.B. who is adored by many. If you just showed a bit more skin in those GQ covers and talked a bit more about all the banging you do, I’m sure you’d be considered some sort of sex symbol. You don’t think there even a slight chance that Scout could have enjoyed that kiss? And maybe you even left the poor girl with the female equivalent of blue balls?”
“First of all,” I tell him, “I don’t do nearly as much banging as you and TMZ think I do. Secondly… I don’t think Scout sees me like that.”
“How did she react when you kissed her?”
Thinking back to the moment, I find myself unable to give him a straightforward answer. I can’t, for the life of me, think of what Scout did after I let go of her.
“I— I can’t remember… I kissed the top of her head and then… I just freaked out and ran out of there,” I admit.
“HOLD ON!” He yells. “Bryan, you… You kissed her on the top of her head? Not even on the lips or… Bryan, what are you even whining about? Have you seriously been worked up over this all night? You almost gave me a heart attack making me think you hurt some kids. But you didn’t even — I mean, you shouldn’t have kissed her obviously, but it certainly could have been worse,” he explains. “Do me a favor, bud. Take a breather and think about this. You didn’t do anything too shitty. And if things do start seeming a bit off to you, try working some of your charm on her. Don’t fuck yourself over this. Think about it. Now, I gotta go run some errands, I’ll call you later today. And I repeat, don’t fuck yourself.”
Palir clicks off without a proper farewell, leaving me alone to think of my next move.
Unlike yesterday when I showed up without having been asked, I’ve been waiting at home for a call from Scout or at least the perpetually grinning receptionist, Roxanne, from the Children of The Future’s HQ.