Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Peace and quiet…
Emma reclined into her chair, her shoulders relaxed as she clicked through the PowerPoint slides she’d been fine-tuning since this morning.
The tapping of her mouse was the only sound filling the office, a rare and welcome tranquillity after the chaos of the first period of lessons.
She had two full hours before her next. Two glorious, uninterrupted hours.
Still, a hint of restlessness stirred beneath her calm exterior.
As much as she valued the peace, Emma couldn’t help but miss her old routine.
Last year’s schedule had been fuller and more hands-on.
Back when she wasn’t the head of department…
before the added responsibilities shifted her away from the classroom.
She missed the energy of it. The connection with students.
The feeling of teaching. Yes, she still taught, but she often found herself with free time this year.
Free, Emma snorted. You wish it was free.
Still, she couldn’t complain. This had been a huge step up for her.
Just be grateful for the opportunity.
She was. Of course she was. The promotion had come with a raise and, weirdly, a lot less chaos than she’d feared.
Emma had anticipated a mountain of stress, sleepless nights, and juggling a million things at once.
But her knack for organisation and delegation had kept things flowing smoothly.
She thrived when it came to structure. It was in her nature to keep things neat, in order, and under control.
Her cursor hovered over the next slide when she heard voices just beyond her office door.
Emma’s brow furrowed as she tilted her head, instinctively listening in.
The corridors were usually quiet around this time, her colleagues already mid-lesson.
Which meant it had to be students. She paused, her eyes narrowed slightly as she listened closely.
“Just tell her.” The voice was barely audible, but it sent a shiver of curiosity down her spine. Slowly, Emma turned in her chair, glancing towards the door. “Miss Bradley is really cool.”
A sigh escaped her lips. She’d kept the name Bradley at school for simplicity’s sake. For the students and herself. Two Mrs Hughes in the same staffroom would only ever lead to confusion. Emma cleared her throat and called out gently, “Can I help you?”
A soft gasp followed, as though the students hadn’t known she would be in the office…even though they’d specifically come here looking for her. Then the office door creaked open, hesitantly, until two familiar faces emerged. Freya and Alice.
“Hi, miss,” Alice said with a small, nervous smile. “Freya wondered if she could talk to you?”
Something tensed inside Emma. The way they hovered, how they whispered to one another…the reluctance. It naturally sparked concern. Emma’s instincts—honed by years of teaching—picked up on the atmosphere. Something was off. “Of course.”
But Freya immediately back-peddled and shook her head quickly. “N-no. It’s okay. It was nothing. I didn’t need to talk to you. Alice is just being silly.”
Emma studied her for a moment. Freya’s voice was too quick, too…
dismissive. Her shoulders were tensed, as though she was potentially bracing herself for something.
Still, Emma didn’t want to push too hard.
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.” Emma offered a reassuring smile. “Okay?”
“Y-yeah. It’s fine. Honestly.”
But Emma wasn’t convinced. Freya’s gaze darted around the corridor, her hands clasped tight together.
Emma stood up and cleared her throat as inconspicuously as she could. “Alice, could you give me a moment alone with Freya, please?”
Alice nodded without hesitation. “Yep. Meet you in the dining hall when the bell rings for lunch.”
She didn’t wait for a response from Freya. A second later, she had breezed down the corridor, leaving a silence in her wake that suddenly felt heavy.
Emma gestured towards the office. “Have a seat. I won’t keep you too long.”
Freya quietly shuffled inside. She didn’t remove her rucksack, just sank into the chair with it still weighing down her back.
Emma lowered her voice, her concern deepening as she stared down at her student. “Is everything okay, Freya?”
Freya’s leg started bouncing nervously. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
Emma didn’t believe that for a second. She could see the conflict in the girl’s eyes even without eye contact. “If there is something on your mind and you don’t want to speak to me, may I suggest you reach out to your mentor?”
Freya shook her head almost immediately, her gaze now fixed on the carpet. “They won’t understand.”
There was a tremble in her voice that tugged at something deep in Emma’s stomach. What the hell was going on here? Was Freya in some kind of trouble? Surely not.
“Understand what?” Emma asked as she knelt in front of Freya. She didn’t want this conversation to feel intimidating. “I hope you know that you can talk to me. About anything at all.”
Freya lifted her head. Her expression seemed close to confusion, maybe even disbelief. “Do you have parents called Jane and Will?”
Emma blinked, stunned by the sudden question. Of all the things she thought Freya might be struggling with, that hadn’t even registered as a possibility. The word parents felt like one hell of a stretch for her.
Jane and Will… Emma hadn’t spoken to her father in fifteen years.
Not since the day she’d walked out and never looked back.
Her mother, well, she’d only seen her once since returning from Ghana.
Before that? Maybe seven years of silence.
And even that encounter had been a fluke.
A chance meeting in town. It was easier to keep her distance.
There was no love left to salvage. No home to return to.
Her family didn’t fit into the life she’d built for herself, not with Vanessa, or Lauren, or Rob. Not with Daisy.
She steadied her voice as best as she could. “Y-yes, I do.”
Freya offered a weak smile. “Me too.”
Emma’s knees wobbled where she rested in front of Freya. She wasn’t sure anything had ever caught off guard quite like those two words had. “I’m sorry?” Her voice, though calm, threatened to betray her. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Freya.”
“My mum and dad are called Jane and Will, too.” Freya shrugged, her demeanour slightly more at ease now that she’d hit Emma full force with that revelation.
But Emma? She was struggling to fill the silence with something that made sense.
She looked at Freya, unsure whether to be worried or confused.
“I don’t live with them anymore. Carmen and Ben are my new parents. Did you get new parents, too?”
Those words hit Emma like a punch to the gut.
She swallowed hard, emotion suddenly lodged in her throat.
New parents? Freya’s words hung in the air, but the truth was that Emma hoped they would disappear, and she would be left waking from a dream.
Was Freya trying to tell her something? Was there some unspoken connection here that Emma wasn’t understanding?
You felt a connection with her the moment you met!
“I’m sorry to hear that you don’t live with them anymore.
” Emma’s voice faltered, but her mind was a blur, trying to piece together this unexpected twist in her life.
If this was going where Emma thought it was, she couldn’t show any reaction to it.
Not yet. “But no. I don’t have any other parents. Just my birth parents.”
Freya’s eyes were unreadable as she nodded slowly.
“It…makes us sisters, Miss Bradley.” Her words were heavy with an intensity that made Emma’s breath catch in her throat.
Freya stared at her with a determination in her eyes, as though that was the only answer to any of this.
“Why didn’t you live with Carmen and Ben when you were growing up? ”
Who the fuck are Carmen and Ben? The question flashed through Emma’s mind. What is going on here?
Freya’s calm expression was entirely opposite to the raging confusion churning inside Emma.
She had no siblings. She’d always been an only child.
Her family had been a mess with no foundation strong enough to build anything that could possibly last. Jane and Will hadn’t managed to care for her, let alone have another child to take care of. This didn’t add up.
“Jane and Will are quite common names,” Emma said, keeping her voice steadier than she felt inside. This was all a misunderstanding. It had to be. “I don’t think that makes us related at all. It just means our parents have the same names.”
Freya didn’t seem convinced. Her gaze didn’t waver, just the slightest hint of a frown present as though Emma was the one in the wrong here. “But Mum used to talk about you all the time. Emma. Is that your name, Miss Bradley?”
The suddenness of Freya’s question hit Emma square in the chest. She felt the weight of Freya’s eyes, the desperate hope in the air between them, and it pounded at her heart in a way she hadn’t prepared for.
She had to swallow before she could answer.
“I…yes.” The word barely made it past her lips.
She wasn’t ready to confront this. She couldn’t confront it.
“You see!” Freya’s face lit up with a bright, wide smile.
Emma couldn’t return one of her own. Her mind was in a haze, her thoughts pushing and pulling in every direction at once.
Sisters? Her heart raced as that one word settled in her mind.
This was too much, too fast, and Emma wasn’t prepared for any of it. “We’re sisters.”