Chapter 28
CHARLIE
I have no words to describe the havoc the last nine days have wrought on my heart.
First, there was the surreal high of last Saturday.
The hike with Myles where I tricked myself into reading so much into his actions and looks that I’d set myself up for the perfect storm of heartbreak on Sunday when I’d stumbled across him and Rachel together in the woods.
Then there’d been the dull, aching realization of how foolishly I’d allowed my hopes to run wild and the crappy reality of the fact that I needed to do what Gemma advised and give myself some distance from Myles.
Not forever, but just while I licked my wounds and reminded myself of the fact that, while he will never, can never feel anything more than friendship for me, that isn’t the case when it comes to Rachel Beck.
Or whatever other women make their way into his life.
Loving Myles and having his friendship comes at a cost. It may hurt like it’s going to shatter my heart, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay.
And then there was Wednesday—
The staff room, surrounded by every last one of my coworkers, is not a place I can let myself think about last Wednesday. About Cyril—
Biting my lip, I glance up at the ceiling, willing the tears back from my eyes. Myles gives me a soft nudge from the chair beside me. Checking. Because, somehow, I can tell he totally knows where my mind’s gone just now.
Regardless of whatever is going on between Myles and Rachel Beck, I hadn’t wanted to go to anyone but Myles after I’d left the vet’s office. And even before that, when I’d tried and tried to reach him, I hadn’t wanted anyone but him beside me as I’d said goodbye to Cyril.
When he hadn’t answered my calls, first on the way to the vet’s office, and then after, as I’d driven the half hour back to Riverside, I’d felt more alone than I’ve ever felt in my adult life.
It’s a harsh commentary about my relationship with Ben, I know, but I’d felt more alone in that car, with the calls just ringing through to the end, than I did the moment his eyes had locked on me, neighbor’s hot brother frozen, mid-thrust into him.
I’d gone to Myles anyway though.
Calling Gemma or even my parents would have been too hard.
I’d have had to talk too much. Explain over the phone, which I knew would only make me break down more.
Even if it hadn’t been for that though, it still would have been Myles, out of anyone in the world, I would have wanted most in that moment.
And he had been there for me. He’d wrapped me up in his Myles-ness and held me until I could breathe again without the breaths feeling like they would rip my throat raw from trying to pull them in past the tears that just wouldn’t stop as soon as I’d closed myself in my car and driven away, alone, from the vet.
Like always, he’d been everything I needed.
Things have gotten easier since then. Still raw and painful and heartbroken without Cyril, but easier.
Myles had insisted on coming over and packing away Cyril’s bed and food dish and other belongings for me. “Just in case you need them again,” he’d told me.
I was glad he hadn’t said, in case you want a new cat. Maybe someday I will, but right now, I only want to remember Cyril.
Cyril’s leftover food, he’d driven into town to donate to the local humane society for me.
With an effort, I pull my thoughts back to the present as Principal Garland goes over the week’s announcements in our afterschool staff meeting. Usually, our meetings are on Wednesdays, but since there’s only school today and tomorrow this week, Monday it is.
“Finally,” he says, and ohmigod, finally has to be the best word I’ve heard all afternoon.
“I have an opportunity if anyone is interested.
This Wednesday through Friday, Central Washington University is offering a training on positive behavioral supports and interventions, led by one of the researchers who helped develop the system.
“As our school behavioral specialist, Mr. Marlow will already be going, but our superintendent informed me this morning that there is funding available for two other staff members to attend. Food and lodging will be provided, as well as reimbursement for gas mileage, and of course, pay for the extra hours worked. I understand this is short notice, but are any of you interested in this opportunity?”
If it hadn’t been for the call I’d gotten from Gemma on Friday, I’d be seriously debating volunteering.
It’s a fact that I should probably be thoroughly ashamed of, given that my motivations have precisely nothing to do with a desire to overhaul my classroom behavior management strategies (which seem to work just fine as they are, Mickey Dutch notwithstanding) and everything to do with the prospect of the extra time with the flannel-wearing, sensitive, sweet, hunk of a man sitting at my side. Sorry, not sorry.
On Friday though, Gemma had called me, practically shouting, as she’d announced that she’d managed to get us tickets to Hamilton after all.
The two of us have been planning to see it forever, ever since it was announced that the show would be coming to Seattle this April, anyway.
But, between Rosa and Myles and teaching, and Gemma’s work schedule blowing up when she’d been poached from the small magazine she’d started out working for by the Seattle Times, both of us had forgotten to buy tickets until the show had already sold out.
“They’re for Thursday night,” she’d squealed, “so there’s no reason you can’t go!”
I had felt a bit guilty when I’d pried it out of her that Rosa was the one who managed to find the tickets, but there were only two, which meant that she wouldn’t be going with us.
“It’s okay though,” Gemma had promised me. “Rosa likes musicals, but she’s not crazy about them. She knows how much you and I have been wanting to go, and she’s just glad we’ll be able to. Besides, we both want to cheer you up after the shit week you’ve had.”
That of course led us down a road of a few tears over Cyril, followed by mushiness, giggling over how sweet Rosa is and how happy I am for Gemma that she’s found someone so wonderful.
So needless to say, tempting as three straight days with Myles sounds, even if it is at a professional development seminar, I am not missing Hamilton.
“Anyone?” Mr. Garland scans the room, checking faces like he’s surprised that none of us are jumping up and down to give up our three days off.
“I’d go if I could.” All heads turn toward Janice Dawson, whose voice just carried through the avoidant silence.
Usually when someone says something like that, they’re just trying to excuse themselves, but from the way Janice is shaking her head, she looks dead serious.
“I can’t drive in the snow over the pass though.
Or in the dark, and there’s just no way to get there in time on the first day without leaving Tuesday night or before sunrise on Wednesday, so—” she sighs heavily, looking pointedly over at Myles.
Beside me, I can feel him go tense in his chair.
“—Unless I have a way to get there that doesn’t involve me driving…
” She leaves that sentence dangling uncomfortably as Myles reaches up to rub at the back of his neck.
I know what he’s going to say before he opens his mouth. Of course he’s going to. He doesn’t really have a choice. “Do you want to ride with me?”
Janice’s face lights up like she’s just been offered a free tropical vacation, not three days of dry professional development training.
“Oh, you wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who can tell just how stiff and miserable Myles’s smile is.
Janice Dawson is just about the most insufferable coworker anyone ever had, and I know she drives Myles in particular nuts.
She’s always in his office, endlessly pouring out pleading explanations for why she’s sent him students that everyone knows she’s escalated to the point of blowing up.
She’s also the queen of gossip and has positively no respect for boundaries, privacy, or what anyone may or may not want to hear about her personal life (mostly caring for her elderly mother) and long list of her and her mother’s (sometimes highly personal) medical issues.
Add in the fact that Myles knows as well as I do that the only thing I truly hate about my job is having to listen, day in and day out, to Janice screaming at her classes through the wall between our classrooms, and she has landed very squarely on his (very short) list of people he utterly cannot stand.
Now he is doomed to over four hours each way, trapped in a car with Janice. Plus however much she glues herself to him at the trainings and in the evenings after.
“Excellent.” Mr. Garland claps his hands together. “One more taker? Now that Mr. Marlow has offered chauffeur services?”
At my side, I can feel Myles turning toward me. If I weren’t so totally hyper-attuned to his presence, I don’t think I’d have even noticed him moving, but as it is, it’s like I can feel the change in the air pressure just from him shifting that tiny bit.
I’ve been so wrapped up in my feelings about Cyril, I haven’t told him yet about Hamilton. And honestly, in his panic over getting stuck like this with Janice, I don’t think he even remembers right now that I’d planned to go home to see Gemma and my parents over those three days.
“Please Charlie?”
He barely whispers it. So quietly that it’s almost just the brush of the air from his lips I feel instead of really hearing him.
“I’ll go!” I’ve probably shouted it too loudly, and the way my hand shot up into the air is total overkill, but I don’t care.
Nor do I care that half the staff is staring at me like I’ve just lost my mind.
All I care is that Myles is beaming at me with so much gratitude that my skin heats like he’s just reached out and touched me.
“Thank you.”
He doesn’t even whisper it this time, just mouths it, and as I watch his lips move, just the tiniest peek of his tongue visible as he overexaggerates the forming of the words, a tingle runs down my spine, spreading out through every nerve in my body.
I know he’s just grateful that he won’t be trapped alone with Janice now, but it would be so easy—so dangerously, horribly easy—to trick myself into believing that there’s more to the depth of feeling now shining out of his endless, dark, gorgeous eyes.