Chapter 31
Harper
Monday morning, I walk into my classroom and immediately see it.
A coffee cup sitting on my desk.
Starbucks. Vanilla latte. My order.
There’s a sticky note attached.
Thought you could use this. Hope you have a great day. - C
My stomach twists.
I pick up the cup, feeling the warmth through the sleeve, and glance toward the door.
Collin’s not there. He must have dropped it off before I arrived.
Which means he went out of his way. Got to school early. Brought me coffee.
And left a note.
I crumple the sticky note and toss it in the trash, but I keep the coffee.
Because I’m tired. And it’s Monday. And I need the caffeine.
But it still feels...wrong.
By Tuesday, the texts start.
Collin
How’s your day going?
Saw your class in the hallway earlier. They’re lucky to have you.
Let me know if you need anything. I’m here.
I don’t respond to any of them.
But they keep coming.
Wednesday morning, I’m in the teacher’s lounge making copies when he walks in.
“Harper,” he says, smiling. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I focus on the copier, willing it to work faster.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
Please don’t.
“What’s up?” I say, trying to sound casual.
“There’s this new coffee shop that opened downtown. I thought maybe we could check it out sometime. Catch up.”
I freeze. “Collin, you have a girlfriend.”
“I know. I just meant as friends.”
“Friends don’t get coffee alone when they’re both in relationships.”
“Right. Yeah.” He shifts his weight. “I just thought—”
“I’m actually really busy this week,” I cut him off. “The art showcase is Friday, and I’m drowning in prep work. So... maybe another time.”
It’s a lie.
Well, half a lie.
I am busy with the art showcase. But I would never say yes to coffee with him. Not now. Not after everything.
“Oh. Okay.” He looks disappointed. “Maybe after the showcase, then?”
“Maybe.” Another lie.
The copier finally finishes, and I grab my stack of papers. “I really need to get back to my class. See you later.”
I don’t wait for a response.
Just walk out of the teacher’s lounge, my hands shivering, the ick settling deep in my stomach.
This is what I wanted, right?
Collin noticing me. Collin regretting his decision. Collin showing interest again.
So why does it feel so gross?
By Wednesday I’m barely hanging on.
“Miss Mitchell, I don’t like my sun.”
I crouch down next to Ethan, one of my kindergarteners, and look at his painting. “What’s wrong with your sun?”
“It’s too yellow.”
“Suns are yellow, buddy.”
“But I want it to be orange.”
“Then make it orange.”
“But you said suns are yellow.”
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that this is why I love teaching kindergarten. The logic. The creativity. The absolute chaos.
“You know what? Your sun can be any color you want. Orange sounds beautiful.”
Ethan beams and immediately starts painting over the yellow with orange.
Crisis averted.
I stand up, surveying the classroom. Twenty-two kindergarteners, all working on their final art pieces for tomorrow’s showcase. Paper everywhere. Glitter somehow on the ceiling. One kid eating a crayon.
“Charles, we don’t eat crayons,” I call out.
“But it’s grape flavored!”
“It’s purple. That doesn’t mean its grape. Spit it out, please.”
Anna appears in my doorway, laughing. “How’s it going in here?”
“I’ve confiscated three crayons, two glue sticks, and a pair of scissors. So, about average.”
She steps into the room, carefully avoiding a paint puddle. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”
“Define ready.”
“Like, do you have all your hallway displays done?”
I gesture to the back table, where approximately forty pieces of art are drying. “Almost. I still need to mount half of them and hang everything in the hallway. Which I’ll probably be doing until midnight.”
“Need help?”
“You’re the best, but I know you have your own class to prep. I’ll be fine.”
“If you change your mind, text me.”
“I will.”
She glances at her phone. “Oh, also—did Collin ask you to coffee?”
My stomach drops. “How do you know about that?”
“He mentioned it in the break room. Said he wanted to catch up with you, but you were too busy.”
“Yeah. I am busy.”
Anna gives me a look.
“What?”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. But...are you okay? With him being so friendly lately?”
“I’m fine.”
“Because if he’s making you uncomfortable—”
“He’s not.” The lie comes automatically. “It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
Anna doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t push. “Okay. But if you need to talk, I’m here.”
“Thanks.”
She leaves, and I’m left standing in a classroom full of kindergarteners, wondering why “fine” feels like the biggest lie I’ve ever told.
By the time school ends, I’m exhausted.
I spent my entire lunch break hanging art in the hallway. Then I had to troubleshoot a last-minute printing issue with the programs for tomorrow night’s showcase. Then one of my students had a meltdown because his painting got accidentally smudged, and I had to help him create a whole new one.
Now I’m sitting at my desk, staring at my to-do list, and trying not to cry.
Finish hallway display
Organize student take home folders
Grade sight word tests
Prep for parent teacher conference meetings next week.
I just want to go home. Lay on the couch and eat an entire pint of ice cream for dinner.
My phone buzzes.
Ivy
Are you coming tonight?
Harper
To what?
Ivy
Bible study, our house?
Oh no.
I completely forgot about Bible study.
Harper
I can’t make it. I’m still at work.
Ivy
Awe man! Well, we will miss you!
I set my phone down and drop my head onto my desk.
I love teaching. I love my students. I love seeing their creativity come to life.
But right now, I’m so tired I could cry.
And all I want is to talk to Micah.
Which is ridiculous.
Because Micah is probably at Bible study right now, hanging out with Gray and everyone else, having a great time.
And I’m here, alone, mounting kindergarten art on foam boards.
I grab my phone and pull up our text thread.
The last message is from this morning.
Micah
How’s your day going, Freckles?
Harper
Chaotic. Kindergarteners + paint + glitter = disaster zone.
Micah
Sounds about right. Hang in there.
I should text him. Tell him I’m overwhelmed. That I could use some encouragement.
But I don’t.
Because I don’t want to bother him.
So I set my phone down, grab another foam board, and get back to work.
I’m three spoonfuls into a pint of cookie dough ice cream when my phone buzzes on the cushion beside me.
Micah’s name lights up the screen.
A video call.
I look down at myself. Oversized hoodie, hair piled into a bun that stopped being intentional two hours ago, probably a stress line permanently etched between my brows at this point.
I let it ring once.
Twice.
Then I pick up anyway.
“Hey,” I say, angling the phone slightly away from the ice cream.
He’s sitting back on his couch, relaxed. The kind of easy that only exists when someone has nowhere else to be.
“Hey.” His eyes move over my face for just a second. “I missed you tonight.”
I go still.
Something in my chest does a slow, traitorous tilt.
He clears his throat. “I mean—we all missed you tonight. Bible study wasn’t the same without someone dramatically sighing every time Gray wouldn’t stop talking.”
“I don’t dramatically sigh.”
“Then what would you call it?”
“I exhale with intention.”
The corner of his mouth pulls up. “Right.” He settles deeper into the couch. “How bad was it today?”
And just like that, something in me unravels.
“Okay, it was a lot,” I say, pulling my knees up to my chest. “The showcase is tomorrow night and I still have to finish the display boards, and the projector in my classroom has been glitching all week so I had to borrow Mrs. Patterson’s which means I have to figure out her remote which has like forty buttons, and three of my kids still haven’t turned in their artist statements, and I promised the parents it was going to be this whole beautiful thing and now I’m sitting here eating ice cream at nine-thirty wondering what I was thinking. ”
Micah doesn’t try to fix it. Doesn’t jump in with solutions or tell me it’s going to be fine in that hollow way people do when they just want you to stop spiraling.
He just listens.
“The projector thing is genuinely stressful,” he says when I finally stop. “Everything else? You’ve got it. You’ve been building up to this all semester.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve watched you wrangle a room full of preschoolers at church with the focus of someone planning a military operation.” He raises an eyebrow. “You can handle a parent showcase.”
I laugh despite myself, pressing my face into my hoodie sleeve for a second. “I just want it to be good for them. The kids worked so hard.”
“Then it’s already good,” he says simply. “The rest is just logistics.”
I don’t have anything to say to that. So I just sit there for a second, phone propped against my knee, ice cream forgotten.
This is the thing about Micah that I can’t quite figure out. Talking to him feels like setting something heavy down. Like I didn’t realize how much I was carrying until he was there and I wasn’t carrying it anymore.
A beat of comfortable silence settles between us.
“What are you eating?” he asks, nodding toward the pint in my hand.
I tilt it toward the camera. “Cookie dough ice cream.”
“Out of the carton?”
“It’s been a long week, Micah.”
He nods slowly, like that’s a completely reasonable medical decision. “Fair enough.”
I pull my knees tighter to my chest. “What are you doing?”
“Watching TV.” He glances off screen. “Nothing good.”
“Then why are you watching it?”
“Because it’s on and I’m tired.” He looks back at me. “Very complex reasoning.”
I smile. “Sounds about right.”
He shifts slightly, propping his elbow on the armrest. “How are your students feeling about tomorrow?”
“Nervous. Excited. Camo is convinced his painting is going to be in a real museum someday.”
Micah’s mouth curves. “Camo?”
“Cameron. He told me on the first day that only his grandma calls him Cameron so,” I shrug. “Camo it is.”
“And is he right? About the museum?”
I think about the painting in question—chaotic, bold, inexplicably featuring three dinosaurs and what I’m pretty sure is a self-portrait in the corner. “Honestly? Maybe. The kid has zero inhibitions. That’s half of what makes great art.”
Micah is quiet for a second, just looking at me with that expression I can never fully read. “You really love this, don’t you?”
It’s not quite a question.
“Yeah,” I say, a little surprised by how easily it comes out. “I really do.”
He smiles then. Not the polite one, not the amused one. The real one. The quiet kind that does something completely unfair to my ability to think straight.
By the time we hang up, it’s almost eleven, and I feel measurably more human than I did an hour ago.
I set my phone down and stare at the ceiling.
It’s been almost a week since I’ve seen him in person. No fake dates, no manufactured reasons to be in the same space. Just texts here and there, easy and low pressure.
And yet somehow that call just felt more real than half the actual dates I’ve been on in the last two years.
I reach for the ice cream again, frowning at nothing in particular.
He said he missed me. And really, I miss him too.
I’m still thinking about it when I pick up my phone to set an alarm, and out of habit my thumb drifts to Facebook.
Where I end up scrolling.
Where I end up seeing something that literally stops my scroll.
Collin Matthews went from In a Relationship to Single.
I stare at it for three full seconds.
Then my phone buzzes in my hand.
Collin
Hey Harper, how’s your night going?
I throw my phone across the couch cushion.
Then I sit there, ice cream melting, staring at the wall.
Crap.
I press both hands over my face.
What have I done.