by Rick Wood
You okay?
Can’t be easy having to deal with the police.
I’m sorry you’re having to go through that.
Police are fine.
It’s Dad.
What’s he done now?
Nothing.
That’s the point.
He’s a waste of space.
Stop wasting your time on him.
Life would be far better if you stopped wanting him to be a part of it.
I know.
You’re right.
However much I agree, though, I can’t help it.
I want a dad.
I find my teddy. The one Mum gave to me on the day I was born. She brought it to the hospital for me when she went into labour. It is small and brown and a little bit faded but I cuddle it nonetheless.
And I cry myself to sleep, holding the bear in my arms.
34
Will
Fourth period arrives. The lesson I was both dreading and anticipating.
Destiny enters, giving me a subtle smile as she walks in and takes her seat at the back. I teach another mundane lesson going over previous exam papers with the occasional lecture about how their exams are imminent and they should show more interest. A boy stares out of the window and another chews his nails, and that’s the most life I get out of them.
The bell goes and I dismiss them, but ask Destiny if she would stay behind.
“Of course,” she says, in a way that probably seems inconspicuous to everyone else, but loaded with innuendo to me.
I check to see if anyone looks, or gives us another glance, if anyone’s suspicious. No one cares. They are all just desperate to get to lunch.
She saunters up to me from her place at the back of the class, her blazer slung over her shoulder and held there by the tip of her forefinger. A button is open on her shirt and I can see the flowery pattern on her bra. I don’t know if this is deliberate or not but I cannot show that I’ve noticed — she will interpret anything I do as confirmation of my love, and I need to ensure I do not say or do anything that can be misinterpreted.
“Sit down,” I tell her.
“You want me to sit?”
“Yes.”
I remain blank-faced. No expression in my voice. Nothing she can read into.
“Okay,” she says, slightly confused, and perches on the edge of a seat at the desk closest to me.
She still doesn’t cross her damn legs.
“Look at this,” I say, and place the pages I printed off yesterday on the table in front of her.
She picks them up tentatively and reads.
“Erotomania?” she says.
“Yes.”
“Is that to do with erotica? Because I—”
“Just read it.”
She reads.
She lifts the first page away and puts it on the table, reading the next. And the next. And the next.
Until she gets to one page in particular and just stares, open-mouthed.
“What is this?” she asks.
“Well, I imagine it speaks for itself.”
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because it explains what’s up with you, Destiny. You’re sick. Ill. You need help. You are convinced that you are in love with me and that I am in love with you, but it’s this… delusion. Called erotomania. It’s—”
“What are you talking about?”
I pause.
“I’m talking about what you are reading.”
“That has nothing to do with what I’m reading.”
“Yes, it does. Unless you’re not—”
She turns the piece of paper she’s staring at around and shows it to me.
She’s right, it’s nothing to do with erotomania.
“Shit,” I say. “No, that’s not what I meant to show you.”
“Are you checking up on me, is that it? You don’t trust me?”
I bow my head.
I told my printer to print all the pages I’d been looking at.
I forgot that included her Facebook profile.
“No, Destiny, that is there by mistake—”
She stands. Holding it out. Looking confused. Completely disregarding the pages on the table about erotomania.
And I don’t know what to say.
“This isn’t going to work unless you trust me,” she says.
I bow my head. Shake it.
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Unless, what, you wanted the pictures? Is that it?”
“No.”
“Because you could have just asked.”
“That’s not—”
“You know, I wonder what your daughter would say if she knew she had more than one scumbag in her life.”
“But, Destiny, I—”
Hang on.
Wait.
What?
“What did you just say?”
“I suppose it’s actually quite flattering,” she says, looking at her picture, her mood changing quite suddenly. “If you’d like, I could print this picture in colour, and frame it for you, and then you can keep it in your desk drawer. Not on your desk, I know, but you can take it out and kiss me whenever—”
“Destiny, stop. What did you just say?”
“What? About me framing this photo for you?”
“No. Before that. About my daughter.”
“What about her?”
“What did you say?”
She shrugs. “I don’t remember.”
“Then remember.”
“I don’t—”
“Is it you?”
“Is what me?”
“Dammit Destiny, this isn’t funny. Is it you?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
I can feel the rage firing through me. My arms are shaking, my knees are wobbling. I’m trying not to lose control.
“Are you Danny?”
“What? No, I’m Destiny.”
“Are you the one texting my daughter?”
“I haven’t texted—”
“For fuck’s sake! Tell me the damn truth!”
I kick a chair over. I want to seem intimidating, but I know it just looks comical.
Either way, from the look on her face, she is taken aback. She is shocked by my aggression.
Good.
She should be.
“Tell me now. I mean it. Just tell me.”
“Baby,” she says, stepping toward me, putting a hand on the side of my face.
I hit it away. She grabs her arm, clutching the muscle I just struck.
I know I shouldn’t hurt her, but it’s tough, so tough, when I know what I just heard.
“This ends now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t give a fuck about what you are doing with me — whatever you are doing with my daughter, you stop it.”
“Will, you’re scaring me.”
“Good. I’m glad. You should be scared.”
“But Will—”
“You hurt her, I’ll kill you. You understand? I will kill you.”
She looks stumped, at first. Shocked. Worried. Then her expression fades back into that stupid grin, that one she has that says oh you’re just being silly, and she places her hand on the side of my face again.
“You’re shaking,” she says. “You’re burning up. What’s the matter?”
I am staring at her, wide-eyed and perplexed, not sure what else to say. What is going on?
What is the truth?
What is happening to my life?
“Enough,” I say. “Go to lunch.”
“I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“I’m fine.”
“But—”
“I said I’m fine!”
A face hovers at the classroom door. A teacher. She asks if everything’s okay. I go to tell her it’s okay, but Destiny answers for me.
“I didn’t do my homework, Miss. Sir’s a bit angry.”
The teacher
nods and walks away.
“See?” she says, turning to me. “I’ll always take care of you.”
She leans her forehead against mine then kisses it.
Finally, she leaves.
I throw my coffee mug across the classroom, smashing it into pieces.
A few minutes later, I get the brush and dustpan and clear the pieces away.
35
Harper
The more I think about Dad, the more I think he’d be happier if he didn’t exist.
Life is what he seems to hate most, and if it was taken away from him, maybe things would be better; for both him and me.
Danny texts me at lunchtime.
How’s your day going cutie?
Okay. You?
Swell.
Lunch time detention for having my shirt untucked.
I’m sure my future employers will be devastated.
I laugh.
Then I get serious.
You know the other day, when you were talking about the best way to kill someone?
Yeah.
Were you really joking?
Sure.
Why?
Sometimes I think…
I dunno.
It’s your dad, isn’t it?
He’s a prick.
Ignore him.
You’re right.
But you can’t ignore him.
Can you?
No.
Then do it.
Kill him.
Make him suffer, or make it quick.
Are you joking again?
Do you want me to be joking?
I look at that last question for a while.
He doesn’t text again. He waits for my reply.
But I don’t know what to reply.
Just putting this into words, it’s wrong… It feels all wrong.
Got to go.
Lunch is over.
Talk later.
Okay.
Love you.
Love you too.
The bell for next lesson won’t go for another five minutes. I just want time to think.
I glance at the table adjacent to mine. Those girls with short skirts and dyed hair sit around boys with earrings and smooth skin.
My skin is blotchy and coated in acne, my belly rolls when I sit down, and I’m pretty sure my bra is too big. They make me feel stupid. Out of place. Like I don’t belong.
And I guess I don’t belong.
But I have a theory.
Those girls are like that because of their fathers. Their doting fathers, who heap money and presents upon them. Their fathers who they tell to go away when they give them attention, their fathers who tell them when their curfew is, their fathers who they slag off to their mates because they tried to help with their homework.
They have no idea how good they have it.
None of their fathers deserve to die.
I stare so gormlessly that the five minutes pass quickly and the bell goes. I sit at the back during Science, staring at the same girls who sit at the front and giggle and talk.
Even the teacher joins in with them, has a laugh with them, talks to them about nonsense that has nothing to do with osmosis. I know all about osmosis, I’ve answered all the questions from the textbook, I’ve done all the reading, but the teacher doesn’t care. She wants to speak to the confident ones.
And, again, I wonder where their confidence comes from, but I know the answer: their fathers.
It’s his fault I’m like this.
It’s his fault I keep my head down and don’t talk to anyone.
It’s his fault that I have no friends, that teachers aren’t interested in me, and that I go about my life unnoticed.
I walk home, lost in thought. I have tea with Dad, but he says nothing other than the obligatory “good day?” and “can you pass the ketchup?”
I lie in bed, staring at the last message between me and Danny and, before Felix comes over to draft more fake messages with me, I text the boy I love.
I’ve made up my mind.
About what?
I don’t want you to be joking.
You don’t?
You’re right.
He’s not a dad.
He’s nothing.
The world would be better off without him.
His reply arrives just as the knock on the door comes from downstairs and I hear Dad greeting Felix.
I am so glad you said that.
36
Will
There’s another note on my desk the next morning. Not even in an envelope this time. She’s getting reckless.
See you at lunch time?
Love you X X X X X X X X
And below that is an imprint of her lipstick created by a kiss.
I teach her class first period. She sits at the back, her bag on her lap, and her phone behind it. Students often do this and think I don’t notice. Of course I notice, I just don’t care enough to tell them to stop. What’s the point? Deny your education. Don’t learn anything. What difference does it make to me?
Except now I am interested. She’s texting someone. Who is she texting?
She keeps lifting her eyes from her phone and smiling at me. Like she knows I know. Like she’s happy about it. Like she’s smug.
I want to scream across the classroom, and I want to demand that she hands her phone over and tells me who she’s texting. I have the right to do that as her teacher. I can confiscate a phone if she’s on it. Demand to know who she’s texting.
But what then?
I’m too afraid of her. If I say anything that upsets her then she goes blabbing away to the Headmaster and I’m in prison by dinner.
So she gets away with it.
When the class leave, she smiles at me, and says, “Goodbye sir,” with that same silkiness to her voice. A few students turn their heads. They are beginning to notice.
Lunch time arrives, and I’m sat at my desk, brushing sweaty hair out of my face, staring at an email I’ve been trying to write for more than half an hour.
Destiny walks in and shuts the door. Puts her bag down. I take it and put it behind my desk so she can’t get to any knife she might be holding.
This is the day it ends.
One way or another.
This is the day I break her until she won’t want to love me anymore. If the only way to stop this is to hurt her, then maybe that’s what I have to do. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of my daughter — if she is indeed pretending to be this Danny guy.
“How’s your day?” she asks.
“Shit, Destiny. My day has been shit.”
“Oh, why?”
She goes to massage my shoulders but I push her off. She stumbles backwards and looks a little upset and it makes me a little pleased. Hopefully, the more upset she is, the more she’ll hate me.
“Because of you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You are ruining my life, Destiny. Ruining it.”
“But aren’t I also the one who makes your day better?”
“No, Destiny, you’re not. Your appearance yet again only makes it considerably worse.”
“But—”
“Get this into your head, Destiny, we are not in love, we have never been in love, and we will never be in love. I am your teacher and I should have reported you a long time ago.”
She looks at her bag. It’s behind my feet. There is no knife for you to threaten me with now, you little bitch.
“You get like this sometimes,” she says. “It’s okay, I know what you’re like. Sooner or later—”
“There is no sooner or later, you idiot. Don’t you get it? I don’t just not love you. I hate you. I despise you. I loathe you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
She looks at her bag again.
I step forward, pushing her back.
“I rue the day you first walked into my class. I rue every day that you attended my lessons. I don’t want to know you, Destiny, I don’t want you in m
y life, I don’t want you in my daughter’s life. I want you to stop texting her, and I want you to leave me alone.”
Tears accumulate in her eyes.
“But… You promised…”
“I promised nothing.”
She looks at her bag.
“You’re not getting to the knife,” I tell her.
She reaches into a nearby tub of stationary. Takes out a pencil sharpener.
“What are you doing?”
She places the pencil sharpener on the table and hits it with her palm. It cracks. She takes the small blade from it and holds it over her wrist.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Destiny, why?”
“Tell me you love me.”
“Why, Destiny? Why? This is the question that I really can’t get, that I’ve been racking my head about — why me?”
“It’s always been you…”
“But why? I’m pathetic. I’m a useless husband, useless teacher, and as it’s turning out I’m a pretty useless father too. I’m not whatever you think I am.”
“You just don’t see—”
“I’m nothing, Destiny.” My voice quietens. My frustration turns to resolve. I feel my own eyes wavering as I hold back tears. “Nothing.”
“Will…”
“I am not worth this. I am not worth your love, and I am certainly not worth your life. So put the blade in the bin and go. Please, just go.”
She goes to cut herself but doesn’t. Her arms drop to her side. The blade falls from her fingers.