I’m on day number five of molding young minds and ready to throw in the towel. Okay, not really, but I was not prepared. Every muscle hurts, not because I stood for a large portion of those five days, but because I was so nervous I clenched and tensed all week long.
For three and a half years I’ve been working toward this. What’s that saying about false hopes being more dangerous than fears? I challenge that person to stand in front of a class of high schoolers and say that with a straight face.
So many teenage boys made passes at me today I feel icky. And the girls? Wow, either I’ve blocked it, or they’ve gotten meaner since I was in high school a few years ago.
I shake off my pessimism and glance at the lone student left under my supervision. She’s why I wanted to do this. Girls just like Everly Kent. It’s her first week, too, and it’s hard to say whose was more craptastic.
School has been over for almost an hour now, but I’m still here waiting for her parents to pick her up. She stands at the sink rinsing out paintbrushes and palette cups.
My cell phone buzzes on the desk in front of me. Dinner tonight?
Can’t. I have tutoring. Call you after. I tap out the quick response to my boyfriend and then put my phone away.
I toss the last stale chip left over from lunch in my mouth and chew as I watch Everly scrub at old paint stains. It’s been as clean as it’s going to get for five minutes, but I think she’s working out her own issues.
She doesn’t look like a kid who ruined a semester’s worth of theater backdrops in a single hour. Though she doesn’t look all that remorseful either. Still, there’s something in the way she holds herself—angry, jaded, with just a dash of insecurity that she hides under thick makeup and a glare at anyone who looks like they might be a threat. If Everly can make it through this week, then I can too.
“I think those are clean enough,” I say.
My stomach growls and I toss the empty chip bag in the trash. I check the clock on the wall for the time. Everyone else is gone for the day. The halls are quiet and the parking lot outside my window is mostly empty. My mentor teacher, Mrs. Aaron, had to run to a doctor’s appointment right after school so I volunteered to stay.
Everly takes a seat in front of my desk and stares at her fingernails, picking at the black polish.
She hasn’t even apologized, but the pout of her mouth tells me she feels something…even if it’s only rage at being stuck here with me. Oh, to be a teenager again. The days of writing off your wrongs so easily and letting your parents sweep in and fix everything. I’m not even joking. I’d love to call up Mom and Dad and have them save me. Adulting really sucks sometimes.
I tap my foot, anxious to get out of here. I have a tutoring job in thirty minutes, and I really don’t want to cancel. The Allens pay well, especially considering their nine-year-old daughter is whip smart, and I need the money. This student teaching gig does not pay, which feels like a crime. I worked my butt off this week.
“Are your parents coming from work?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’m sweating bullets hoping that they’ll arrive soon so I can leave.
Before she can answer, the phone on my/Mrs. Aaron’s desk rings.
“Hello?” I say as I put it to my ear.
“Hi there. Mrs. Best is ready for Everly in the office.” Kim, the office administrator, talks in a sweet, warm tone that always sounds like she’s smiling. And she has been every time I’ve seen her.
“On our way,” I say too eagerly, standing before I’ve even put the receiver down.
Everly gets to her feet without question and follows me, slowly putting one foot in front of the other.
Finally, I’m going to be able to get out of here. I might even have time to drive through somewhere and grab something to eat before I go to the Allens. I spent too much time this morning trying to decide what to wear (my closet needs a serious overhaul) and forgot to pack a lunch. I thought it’d be fine, and I could grab something from the cafeteria, but none of the other teachers eat lunch at the cafeteria so then I felt weird about going and had to eat vending machine food. I’m starving.
As we round the last corner toward the office, Everly speaks. “Are they going to suspend me?”
I pause and turn to face her. “I’m not sure.”
She clutches on to her backpack, eyes on her feet. “He’s going to send me back.”
A pang of sympathy hits me. I don’t ask back where. Wherever she means, she isn’t happy about it.
“It’s going to be okay,” I promise, having absolutely no right to say it and regretting it immediately. I have no idea what her home life is like or what situation brought her here the last semester of her senior year.
I wanted to be a teacher for two reasons, and I am going to repeat them to myself every day, probably multiple times a day. Number one, my grandmother was a teacher, and she was the most magnificent person that ever lived. I loved her more than anyone in the world. People adored her everywhere we went. Her students grew up, had kids, and hoped they’d have her as a teacher too. They invited her to weddings and christenings like she was a part of the family. It was incredible to go somewhere with her and run into an old student. What she did mattered to people on a real and personal level.
Number two—and this one is harder to put into words that don’t sound lofty and cliché—I want to make a difference. My life has been…easy. Not always, certainly not now, but for enough of my life that I feel like I owe it to the universe or something. I saw how much of a difference my grandmother made and I want to continue that. I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say it just feels like what I’m supposed to be doing.
Maybe I won’t be the teacher that my grandmother was, but if I make a difference for just one person, then I think it will have all been worth it. And I guess Everly Kent is as good of a place to start as any.
“I will do what I can,” I say to her as I place my hand on the doorknob for the school office.
“Thanks.” Her hazel eyes lift to mine, and I get the smallest of smiles.
Kim tips her head to the back of the office. “Everly, you can go right in.”
The girl next to me mumbles her thanks and heads toward Mrs. Best’s open door.
She walks in and takes the empty seat in front of the desk. I follow, then linger in the doorway unsure if I should be here for the meeting or not, but I can’t plead my case for Everly on the other side of the door.
“Miss Vaughn,” Principal Best says. One of her dark brows inches higher as if asking, what are you doing here?
“Hi. I was just bringing Everly here from the classroom, but while I’m here I wanted to say that I would be thrilled to work with Everly to fix the damage,” I say, then quickly add, “if that’s okay with you.”
“Sit.” She waves her hand to an empty chair. “I was just talking with Mr. Sharp about the damage.”
I finally let myself look at Everly’s father. His name and hers swirl together in my head like a tornado waiting to swoop down and destroy. And when I meet his green gaze, that’s exactly what it does—wreck me.
I’m no longer the capable woman starting a new job, but a brokenhearted teenager crying over the boy sitting across the room. Except he’s not a boy anymore.
Tyler Sharp is all grown up. I already knew this. His face is everywhere in this city, but no amount of media exposure prepared me for seeing him in person.
“Piper,” he says, my name a jagged whisper from his lips.
Still, it knocks the air from my lungs. I’m still walking forward to my seat, gaze locked on his. I ram into the side of Principal Best’s desk and buckle forward on impact.
Tyler stands quickly like he’s going to come across the room to help me. I hold up a hand and grimace as pain spreads down my leg, but it’s nothing compared to the one in my chest.
I glance up at him from where I hunch over rubbing my knee. My high school love. My only love, if we’re being technical.
He’s dressed in shorts and a Wildcat T-shirt like he came straight from the arena. I have so many questions, none of them appropriate for my new boss to hear.
I scramble to stand upright, ignoring the sharp pain and slapping a smile on my face. “Tyler. Hi. I didn’t realize…” I glance at Everly. His sister. He spoke of her often while we were together, but I never met her, and I definitely didn’t expect to run into her here. Her gaze ping-pongs between us for answers.
“I’m student teaching here.” I take my seat and a deep breath.
He nods but doesn’t speak. He doesn’t take his eyes off me either and I finally look away first, giving Principal Best my attention.
“Great, well,” she says, clasping her hands on the desk. “I’ve already explained to Mr. Sharp the damage to school property.”
Everly winces. I think she’s finally realizing just how bad it sounds when put in those terms.
Principal Best looks right at Everly. “I know that moving to a new school halfway through your senior year of high school can’t be easy, but it doesn’t excuse what happened today. A lot of people worked really hard on the backdrops that are now ruined.”
I sneak another glance at Tyler. His jaw is tight, mouth in a straight line as he watches his sister like he’s waiting for an explanation.
“Ev?” His voice is quiet but stern.
“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know that’s what they were.”
He rakes a hand across his jaw, back and forth, while he looks up at the ceiling. His mouth moves but no words come out. Finally, he speaks where we can hear him. “What does this mean for Everly? Will she be suspended?”
Principal Best sits back in her chair, hands still clasped but now at her waist. She’s quiet, mulling over what to do. Finally, she says, “I believe that you didn’t do it maliciously, but in the future, if it doesn’t belong to you, I think it’s safe to assume you shouldn’t be painting on it in your free time. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“It won’t happen again,” Tyler says.
“Good.”
“Is that it?” Tyler’s voice sounds like he can’t believe she’s getting off this easy.
“Well, the backdrops are still unusable, and we have a much-anticipated theater performance coming up in a couple of months.”
“I will pay for the damage, of course,” he says.
“That won’t be necessary.” Mrs. Best’s gaze slides to me. “Are you sure that you would like to oversee the work required to repaint the backdrops?”
“Yes,” I say with confidence that is entirely for Everly’s benefit. Maybe a little for Tyler. I don’t want him to see me sweating, not over the job and definitely not over him.
I catch his eye and swallow thickly when I find him staring back at me.
“We could work on it after school if that works for your schedule,” I say to him and Everly, keeping my eyes on her.
“Seems fair,” Tyler says. “Everly?”
Her tone doesn’t sound like she thinks it’s fair, but she agrees.
“Okay. It’s settled.” Mrs. Best stands, as does Tyler. She extends a hand to him. “Thank you for your time.”
“Likewise,” he says, drops her hand, and places it at Everly’s elbow.
I wait for them to leave first and then shuffle out behind them into the hallway.
“I’ll meet you outside,” Tyler says to his sister.
She doesn’t need any more encouragement. She takes off out the front of the school without so much as a thank you.
He’s taller. Broader too. His face has less of the boyish softness than it did when I knew him. It feels like a lifetime ago.
“I had no idea she was…” My voice trails off. “I didn’t realize your family had moved here too.”
Too. Meaning, I knew he was here. I did. I’d have to be completely oblivious not to know. Wildcat Hockey is everything in this city, and Tyler has been getting a lot of attention as a rookie with star potential.
“They didn’t. Just Ev. She’s staying with me.”
“Oh.” I have a whole host of questions that I no longer feel close enough to him to ask, but still wonder. I never met his sister while we were dating, but I saw pictures. She was thirteen, then, and I never would have put it together without him showing up here.
“It’s good to see you, Piper,” he says. “I hoped I might run into you someday. I didn’t imagine it like this.”
My heart beats wildly, but anger flashes too. This boy broke my heart in a million pieces. We dated for the most amazing eight months. We lived in different cities, so we were mostly long-distance, but somehow it felt like he was with me every second of the day: texts, all-night phone calls, weekend visits cramming in hours of making out and kissing until my lips hurt. I loved him so much. I thought he was my forever. Maybe that’s dumb at eighteen, but I’ve never met anyone that made me feel like he did. Not before him and not since.
He broke up with me the night of my high school’s big spring dance. He was supposed to be my date, but he got held up because of hockey. That happened quite a bit, honestly. His schedule was intense for a high school kid. I got it. Like I said, I felt a connection to him without needing to be with him every day and I was fine with being the one who had to make concessions like traveling to visit him on weekends instead of him coming to see me. I loved him so much. None of that mattered.
But when he called that night to tell me he wasn’t going to make it, he said he couldn’t keep disappointing me. He said, ‘I love you, Pipes, but right now this just isn’t meant to be.’ He left me standing alone at a high school dance, dateless, in the rain. Okay, fine, it wasn’t raining, but I cried so much that it looked like I’d walked through a storm.
It took me a really long time to move on. Then five months ago he moved to my city where I have had to see his face plastered everywhere I go.
And now he’s right in front of me.
“You too,” I say, but don’t quite meet his gaze.
“Thank you for what you did in there.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
His mouth lifts on one side but it isn’t quite a smile. “I figured, but I’m still grateful.”
“She seems like a good kid.”
“Does she?” he asks with a bitter laugh as he runs his hand through his dark hair.
Since I don’t know how to respond to that, I just nod.
“Is your number still the same?” He pulls his phone from his pocket. When I don’t answer, he looks up from the screen at me. “In case I need to get in contact with you about Everly.”
“Oh, uh, if you need anything you should contact Mrs. Best or Kim in the office.”
He taps out something and my phone buzzes in my pocket. I’m sure he can hear it, but I don’t make any move for it.
Tyler wraps his long fingers around his phone and finally smiles at me. Really smiles. With all that teenage Tyler charm I fell in love with four years ago. But there’s something else in it too. Regret? Pain?
I’ve dreamt about this day. How I would look (ahhh-mazing!), what I would say (oh, so many things—all perfect and cutting), and most importantly, the validation I would feel when I realized he no longer makes my body come alive with a single look.
Instead, I’m standing here in a thrift store dress that’s a size too big, I can’t seem to make anything coherent come out of my mouth, and worst of all his stare still ripples over my skin like electricity.
It pisses me off. All of it.
“I should go before she takes off with my car. It was really good to see you, Piper. I, uh…” He shifts like he’s trying to figure out how to say whatever is on his mind. Eventually he shakes his head. “I’ll see you.”
Only when he’s out the front door do I release a breath and pull out my phone to read his text.
You look even more beautiful than you did four years ago.
