Learning to Love

by Julie Evelyn Joyce

  “Of course not. I think it’s a sign.”

  “Stop.”

  “You’re not getting any younger.”

  Rebecca blew out a sigh. “Thanks for the reminder. I gotta run.” She hurried toward the door, but Margaret was too quick for her, and the woman always loved to get the last word in. Competitive people problems.

  “Sweetheart, you’ve fought your whole life to make it to where you are, and I’m inspired by you every day, but love doesn’t have to be such a battle. Don’t fight it so much. You deserve to be happy, too.”

  There wasn’t enough time to unpack all the emotion Margaret’s words stirred up, so Rebecca stored them away for later. Forcing a smile, she nodded then left the office, making a beeline for the gym.

  12

  Will had been buzzing from the moment he heard the news from Patrick Dunn. An entire day with Rebecca. Yeah, he could probably think of a thousand better ways to spend six hours with her, most of them R-rated, but hey. Any bonus time spent together was a gift. He’d have to send Pete a thank-you card instead of get-well wishes.

  But as the morning wore on, he began viewing this unforeseen blessing as a curse. Nerves plagued him as he circulated between lab teams in the science room. Pete observed him on a daily basis from a teaching standpoint, but she never had. And her opinion somehow mattered more. She’d already taught him so much, given him invaluable advice, and he was terrified of screwing up in front of her. And screwing up had been his modus operandi thus far with teaching.

  He’d never experienced anything like it. The dramatic ups and downs. Adapting to the constant teenage mood swings, rebounding from failed lessons, and forcing himself to push through on the days when he felt like he was talking to a brick wall and even the wall didn’t want to hear the garbage spouting from his mouth.

  Thankfully, there wasn’t much teaching involved in today’s science lesson. The students were finishing up a lab they’d started on Wednesday, so he was mainly monitoring the groups, ensuring they had everything they needed and keeping the noise at a tolerable level. Oh, and trying not to stare at Rebecca’s ass in those yoga pants. He’d have to add whoever designed them to his thank-you card list.

  He’d been imagining what lay hidden beneath that clingy fabric when the bell rang and bedlam commenced. Rebecca sauntered over to him, her face the picture of calm despite the flurry of activity around her. “One down,” he said.

  She smiled. “Two to go.”

  He led the way to the bustling hall, which he was finally getting used to navigating. The key was to keep moving no matter what, keep your head up and your eyes peeled in all directions lest you get smacked in the face with a backpack. Yes, he’d learned that lesson the hard way.

  On this occasion, though, he was riveted by the woman next to him and the way she interacted with students along their path. Just about every single one of them knew her name. He heard shouts of “Hey, Miss Ledgerwood!” or “What’s up, Miss L?” She, in turn, greeted them by name, gave a few high-fives, and exchanged some banter with others. But the connection that stood out most to Will happened just before they entered the stairwell. A girl sat alone against her locker, hood drawn over her head like she was shutting out the world, a frown firmly set in place.

  Rebecca squatted down into her line of sight and said, “Hey, Angel. I love that sweater!”

  Angel glanced up, and her lips twitched the slightest bit at the compliment. Her mumbled “Thanks, Miss Ledgerwood” could barely be heard over the jumble of noise, but the way her solemn eyes held Rebecca’s made Will’s throat ache with yearning for his sister. Maybe that’s all Aly would have needed. A teacher who noticed her. A strong female influence. Someone who gave a damn.

  “You can stop by my office any time if you need to talk, okay? Rebecca said. “You know my door’s always open.” She rose to her full height.

  The girl nodded. “Have a good day, Miss Ledgerwood.”

  “You too, Angel.”

  Students began to disperse the closer they got to the PE office, and when the second bell sounded, signaling period two classes were in session, there were only a few strays Rebecca had to reprimand for being tardy.

  Once they were tucked away in their office and at their respective desks, he took it upon himself to tell her how she impressed the hell out of him. “You are amazing with the students.”

  She tugged on her ponytail, a nervous gesture for her, he’d noticed, and turned to him.

  “All of them,” he continued. “Every age, every grade. They know you, respect you, admire you. How are you so good with them?”

  A faint blush tinged her cheeks. “I’ve been here a long time. You get to know them, and they get to know you.” She shrugged, as if what she revealed was common practice. It wasn’t. “I guess I just try to give kids who don’t really feel like being here a reason to show up every day.”

  She gave him a reason, that’s for sure. Many, many reasons. “You’re a special . . . teacher.” He wanted to say “woman,” but he hoped the long pause got his point across.

  The blush deepened, and she fiddled with loose papers on her desk. “I’m, uh, gonna check on my class, make sure everything’s okay in the gym.”

  He really needed to stop scaring her off, but it was getting harder by the day to pretend that he wasn’t fantasizing about her every night. “No worries. I’ve got lots of photocopying to do. We’re in health after lunch.”

  “Ah, right. Okay. Let me know if you need any help. I shouldn’t be too long.” She grabbed her whistle from her desk drawer, hung it around her neck, and hurried out the door.

  He didn’t see her again until the bell rang for third period.

  The health room was a shoved-out-of-the-way, barely-big-enough classroom on the second floor. The desks were arranged in a semi-circle facing a whiteboard with a distinct impression of a fist in its center, and the projector, Pete had informed him, periodically overheated and shut itself off for an indeterminate amount of time, so “be prepared with backup notes in case.” The posters tacked to the walls were an odd mix of new and old, ranging from anti-vaping campaigns to outdated visuals of the food guide pyramid.

  When it became clear Rebecca wouldn’t be joining him for lunch, he’d gone up early to prepare for his afternoon lessons. He’d be presenting on the topic of nutrition and had already loaded a documentary on the dangers of fast food and how the public was manipulated into craving it. Because he was a glutton for punishment. But he also knew a thing or two about the subject and could approach it from both sides—the big-money-advertising side, and the life-altering-health-impacts side. This is where I start making a difference, Aly. I promise you.

  He’d gathered from conversations with Pete and Rebecca that health class was equally dreaded by teachers and students, but he was excited to have a platform. That he could finally speak from experience.

  His senior boys class began filing in shortly after the bell. Rebecca escorted the last of the guys into the room, whispering to Will that she’d found them downstairs walking in the opposite direction of the health room. “Sorry I missed you at lunch,” she added. “I was on supervision.”

  Will loved that there was a legitimate reason she didn’t join him, and the fact that she felt the need to share it with him spoke volumes. “Busy day for you.”

  “Nah.” She smiled. “You’re doing most of the work. Speaking of, anything I can do to help set things up?”

  “I think I’m good. We’re gonna have a quick discussion at the start, and then I have a documentary for them to watch and some questions they can answer.”

  She reached for the stack of handouts he’d printed. “I’ll distribute these.”

  “Thanks.” He walked to the whiteboard and wrote the word “NUTRITION” in capital letters at the top with a marker he’d thought to bring. Good thing, because there didn’t appear to be any extra supplies laying around. When he circled back to face the boys, he was pleased to see they all had the handout and a
pencil to write with, but none of them looked ready to learn. Three sat with their noses pressed to their phones, and the rest huddled together, talking, laughing, listening to music.

  Let the games begin. “Okay, guys, grab a seat and we’ll get started.” His announcement earned him an indifferent glance or two, but that’s it. He tried to garner their attention again. “Boys, listen up, we need to get rolling here, or we won’t have time for the full lesson.” If anything, his raised voice resulted in them talking louder and cranking up their music to drown him out further.

  He almost laughed at the scene before him. He’d delivered presentations and proposals at the ad agency to huge corporate clients after mere hours of preparation, running on zero sleep, and on the rare occasion when they flopped, he’d regroup, find a new spin, and reel them back in. Here, he couldn’t even make it past the initial pitch. The kids weren’t biting. And he hadn’t a clue which bait to use.

  The tips of his ears burned. He paced the floor, fighting the urge to ask Rebecca for a bail out, but she beat him to the punch.

  “Excuse me!” Every head turned her way. “You boys have exactly three seconds to sit down, close your mouths, and show some respect before I get Mr. Dunn in here to start throwing out suspensions!”

  Will blinked in awe as the boys took their seats, tucked their phones away, pulled out their ear buds, and gave him their undivided attention.

  “I want those phones, boys.” Rebecca picked up an empty box from the back of the room and placed it on the teacher’s desk. “Put them in the box. And next time you have health class, leave them in your lockers.”

  One by one, they stood and surrendered their technology to the cardboard prison. Rebecca moved next to Will, her lower lip trapped between her teeth. Jesus, he wanted to kiss her. To soothe her bruised flesh with his lips and tongue and thank her for dragging him above water.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to overstep there.”

  Still staring at her lips, he shook his head to clear it. “Classroom management isn’t my strong suit.”

  “It’s the trickiest part of teaching, and it’s something you never master because every class is different. So you have to adapt along with them.”

  “They listen to you even more than they listen to Pete,” he said, louder than he’d meant to.

  “That’s because she looks better in yoga pants,” Jamal Harrison retorted, much to the amusement of his peers.

  Rebecca narrowed her gaze on the young man. “Harrison, remind me to tell Coach you’re running laps next basketball practice.”

  Jamal groaned, then apologized for the comment. Poor kid. There probably wasn’t a soul in there who didn’t agree with him.

  “All right,” Will said, returning to the whiteboard, “let’s talk about nutrition. What does the word mean to you?”

  The guys tossed out several answers relating to food, energy, calories, etcetera. Ryan Purnsey’s mocking answer of “bacon burger with double cheese meal deal” served as the perfect segue to his lesson. “Thanks, Ryan. I was hoping someone would mention fast food. How many of you eat fast food at least two or three times a week?” Every hand shot up. “Fast food is one of the most heavily advertised sectors in our economy, and you know who the primary target for those ads is? You. Teenagers, youth . . . They want to hook you while you’re young so they have a customer for life.”

  “They’ve gotta be drugging that food, man. I crave it all the time.”

  Will smiled wanly. “Cody, the drug you’re referring to is a combination of fat and salt and sugar. But I won’t get into that too much yet. First, I’ll play a documentary for you guys about the fast food industry and its impact on our health as a society.”

  He wiped off the board, turned on the projector, and circled behind the computer to press play on the DVD. Rebecca aided him by flipping off the overhead lights. “Make sure you guys pay attention, and I’ll pause it every now and then so we can take up your responses to the questions on the handout.”

  Rebecca stayed on the far side of the classroom and leaned up against the wall while the documentary played. He took a position on the opposite wall, spending more time watching her than the screen. Any time she’d glance his way, he’d quickly avert his gaze and pretend he was checking on the boys. There was no need. You could have heard a pin drop. He’d purposely selected this documentary because it followed a group of teenagers for a ten-year period to examine the overall effects their diets played on their physical and mental health and wellbeing.

  If anyone at the agency were there, or the clients he’d once represented, they’d be appalled by his actions. Call him a hypocrite, a traitor, a sellout. He had been a sellout. He just didn’t realize he’d sold out one of the people he loved most: his sister. Was it any wonder she had body image issues when all three of the men in her family worked in an industry that poured nothing but toxic stereotypes down her throat?

  A girl being interviewed in the documentary reminded him of Aly. Whenever she came on the screen, his heart clenched. Shy, quiet, sweet. She had an eating disorder. In one scene, she sat on her bed, unwrapped a cheeseburger, and followed it with two more. In the next, she purged every last bite from her stomach. He stared down at his shoes and pressed a fist against his chest. Guilt stabbed through him, re-puncturing old wounds that still hadn’t healed. Will concentrated on breathing, inhaling slowly, then exhaling.

  “Dude, all this show’s doing is making me crave a cheeseburger.”

  Jamal’s words twisted in his gut like a knife, delivering the final blow. As the other boys echoed his sentiment, Will moved closer to the edge of darkness. Anguish turned to anger. They didn’t see the girl or her struggles. Her story didn’t matter. Goddammit, she mattered! Pushing off the wall, he stomped to the computer and ejected the DVD. Heat flushed through his body. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth together. He spun back around to face his students, who, for the first time, appeared genuinely scared of him.

  “This isn’t about a cheeseburger,” he growled. “These are real people with real lives. You have no idea what that girl is going through, the struggles she faces on a daily basis, how much she’s hurting inside. Maybe she binges on fast food to numb the pain or because she feels invisible and it’s the only way she can cry for help. What if this happened to you or someone you loved? How could you not do something?”

  He stared ahead, paralyzed by the icy-cold chokehold of grief, barely registering when Rebecca took him aside and told the guys to hang tight for a few. She guided him into the hall just outside the classroom and waited for him to meet her gaze.

  Her eyebrows were drawn together in worry. “You okay?”

  Will shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know what happened.”

  “Why don’t you take a walk? I can handle these guys for the rest of the period. I’ve also got nutrition lessons I can use with the tens next period, too, so don’t rush back, all right? Take all the time you need.”

  He wanted to thank her but was terrified that if he opened his mouth, he’d break down in front of her. Instead, he nodded once and hoped his expression conveyed his appreciation.

  She rested a hand on his forearm. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  With a gentle squeeze, she let go and re-entered the classroom. His classroom. Teaching the students that he should have been teaching. What have I done? What the hell am I doing here?

  The boys were understandably shellshocked when Rebecca returned, but she assured them all was well. It wasn’t her place to say anything more, especially considering she didn’t have the full story. She slid the DVD back into its slot and resumed the documentary from where they’d left off.

  What was it that triggered him? She remembered last week, when she’d found him in the office after her workout and she’d asked him why he’d switched careers. He’d said something about wanting to make up for mistakes he’d made. Was it a career-related mistake, or more personal? Maybe the
two were linked?

  She’d felt his eyes on her as the documentary played, but she didn’t give in to the temptation. At least, not until she noticed his change in posture, his measured breaths. Jamal’s comment had set him off even further, and fear gripped her as he’d stood in front of the class on trembling legs, like he was a man on the precipice of a mental breakdown.

  Will seemed so sure of himself most of the time, but there were clearly ghosts from his past that still haunted him. Guilt he carried with him. Whatever it was, it’d been enough to cause a startling outburst. She just hoped he’d be able to bounce back from the undoubted emotional toll.

  The rest of the period ran smoothly. She hadn’t paused the video, thinking they all needed the distraction, and was surprised when many of the boys handed her filled-in answer sheets. “Thanks, guys,” she said. “Enjoy your weekend!”

  Will hadn’t shown up for fourth period. Part of her breathed a sigh of relief. The worst thing he could do was rush back and put his own health at stake. But she worried about him. Managing a class of loud and immature tenth graders kept her busy, but not busy enough that she couldn’t steal furtive glances at the clock on the wall. She walked them through an interactive food nutrition facts activity, which took the majority of the period to complete, and capped things off with a fun quiz game they could join through an app on their phones.

  Never had the three o’clock bell sounded sweeter to her ears. The boys sprinted from the room, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. Rolling her shoulders back, she tidied up, collected worksheets, pencils, and Will’s DVD, then powered off the computer and projector. Her legs felt heavy, her neck stiff. The day had been more taxing than she anticipated. All the more reason she looked forward to the girls’ night at Gwen’s later on. Giving the room one final scan, she headed for the door to lock up, only to find Will on the other side. “Oh, hey.”