Eight
E lizabeth pulled a stack of papers from one of her bags, along with a red pen, and began marking the papers.
The corners of Scott’s mouth lifted in a slight smirk. “I thought schools were moving away from using red pens to grade papers.”
“I’m using red because I ran out of ink in my green and purple pens. They have gotten so many answers wrong, my pens have run out of ink. They deserve the color red.” Elizabeth drew a line through several answers on the paper, counted them up, and wrote a number on the top of the page. “I stopped writing in the correct answer for them. Now, we go through each question, and I make them write in the correct answers themselves. It hasn’t helped.”
“They’re struggling with similes.” Jake supplied Scott with a further explanation.
“Similes use like or as and metaphors don’t.” Everyone knew that. It was one of the first rules every teacher taught their students.
“I think you need to surrender and write the tip across the top of the quiz.” The little blond working behind the counter at the espresso machine offered her suggestion.
“I’m considering it.” She pulled some quizzes from the stack and handed them to Jake. “Make yourself useful.”
“Don’t you have any pictures I can grade? I like handing out emojis.” Jake asked.
“They are smiley faces, not emojis. And not until Monday, but I’ll be sure to save them for you.” Elizabeth hadn’t looked up from the quizzes and drawing red marks through the answers on the page.
The woman sitting next to Scott had changed since he’d last seen her. At best she had been awkward and odd, but never worried about what others thought of her. Now, she still didn’t worry about what others thought about her, but she’d lost her awkwardness. She was still odd though, if the little yellow Woodstocks on her blouse were anything to go by.
“You didn’t even come back for her mom’s funeral.” Jake accused him.
Scott looked away from his friend’s loaded stare. He couldn’t defend his action, or inaction as the case may be, and he didn’t try to. “I know.”
Jake refused to give up. “Why man? Why didn’t you even call?”
“What do you want to hear? I was barely in my twenties. My mom left my dad, and I hated him and never wanted to see him again. I was stupid and selfish. What else is there to say? That I regret it? That I wish I could go back and do things differently?”
“It’s a start.” Olivia deigned to glare up at him from her phone.
He reached for the cup of coffee Lauren brought and sipped. He didn’t know how she knew he needed it, but she had spiked his coffee. Just enough to numb the edges of the memories rubbing him raw.
Scott twisted the cup of coffee on the table. Moving the handle from three o’clock to six o’clock then back to three o’clock.
“How’s she doing?” Not wanting to hear the answer, but needing to ask the question, anyway.
“Some days are better than others. Just like everyone else living here.” Elizabeth answered. “She has a small group of loyal friends who come to Beans & Buns because if she loses the business, she won’t have anything else. But there’s only so much we can do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? You got out. Don’t ever be sorry about that. You did what we all wanted to do.” Jake bit into his cookie.
Scott continued spinning his cup of coffee, Jake chewed on his cookie, Olivia scanned her phone, and Elizabeth graded papers.
Scott hadn’t seen or even spoken with any of them since he left town. He hadn’t bothered to return any of Jake or Olivia’s calls, and eventually those calls stopped coming. Not even a quick email. He also stayed off all the social networks, so they couldn’t keep in touch that way either.
Silence was better than insincere noise.
Scott got out. And he never looked back. Not until he had to. And now he was back in Iron Creek and forced to face everything and everyone he left.
He looked up and caught Lauren looking at him through the window into the kitchen.
As he watched her flutter around the small bakery, a few strands of hair slipped from the elastic thing she used to hold the strands in place. She’d stop whatever it was she was doing, pull the elastic thing off with one hand and hold her hair with the other, then twist her hair around before wrapping the elastic back around her hair. She never let her hair down.
The more he thought about it, he couldn’t remember any time she’d ever worn her hair down. He imagined it, though. He imagined what her hair would look like hanging down past her shoulders. Wondered what it would be like to comb his fingers through it. How it would feel against his skin. Or would look spread out across his pillow.
He smiled, and she looked away from him. Closing his eyes, he fixed the image of her in his mind. He would have taken a picture, but that crossed a line into creeper mode. Plus, it was fitting. The image he stamped into his memory would be the only thing he wanted to take away from Iron Creek when he left.
With a quick glance around the small shop, Scott recognized too many faces. Instead of the feeling of happiness that he should have been experiencing, guilt swept through him in an overwhelming wave that threatened to drown him. He needed to get out of the bakery. Grabbing his plate and cup, he looked over at Jake. “I’ll catch you all later.”
“Sure. Talk to you later.” Jake answered back without bothering to hide his disbelief that he would actually see Scott later.
Elizabeth didn’t say anything, she just lifted her hand and sort of waved at him.
Olivia glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow then just as quickly returned to whatever she was looking at on her phone.
Scott brought the plate and cup to the counter. “What do I owe?”
The little blond behind the counter shook her head. “Nothing. On the house today.”
Considering the pointed comment from Elizabeth about how not well Lauren was doing, the coffee and delicious bar shouldn’t be on the house today or any day. “Thanks, but really, what do I owe?”
“Nothing. And it comes right from the boss, not me.”
Lauren might not accept payment from him, but she couldn’t refuse something if she didn’t know it was happening. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his money clip, and tugged a hundred-dollar bill from the small bundle of cash. The little blond watched him the entire time and gave him an encouraging nod. He stuffed the bill into the tip jar, gave his watcher a quick nod, then turned and walked out of the bakery before Lauren could come out and catch his cowardly escape.
He’d put off stopping by his father’s house long enough. If he didn’t go now, he’d wait until the last minute.