Chapter 2 #2
“Just tired.” I accept the coffee, wrapping my hands around the warm cup, and breathing in the rich scent.
She leans against my desk, and keeps her voice low so she doesn’t disturb the sleeping kids. “Jenny told me about …” She waves one hand. “You know, if you need to talk …”
“I’m fine.” The words come automatically, a reflex developed over years of practice. “Really.”
She doesn’t believe me. It's clear in the way she frowns, how her gaze lingers on my face. “Lily, I’ve known you since we were three. I know what ‘fine’ looks like on you, and this isn't it."
I take a sip of coffee, buying time. The liquid burns my tongue. “What did Jenny tell you?”
“That he's back. That Mitchell's receptionist saw him.” Claire pauses. “I remember senior year. How you used to look at him. How devastated you were when—"
“I was eighteen. We all did stupid things at eighteen.”
“Loving someone isn't stupid.”
I set down my coffee before my shaking hands betray me. “I need to start waking the kids up.”
Claire watches me for another moment, then squeezes my shoulder. “I'm here if you need me. I mean it.”
After she leaves, I stare at the wall until the painted pictures pinned to it blur together.
The last hour of the day is spent cleaning the art stations, while the children chatter, voicing whatever enters their head.
“But why can’t they walk on land?” Aiden wants to know, his four-year-old logic insisting that if whales can jump, then sharks should be able to walk.
I help clean paint off faces and hands, and by the time the last parent picks up their child, my smile feels brittle and thin.
The muscles in my cheeks ache from the effort of appearing normal, of being the teacher the children need me to be.
I wave goodbye to Jackson and his mom, and watch them walk across the parking lot until they disappear around the corner.
The building empties slowly. Voices fade down hallways. Car engines start. The silence left behind is too loud.
I start my end-of-day routine—straightening tables, organizing Monday’s supplies, and updating parent communication logs. The familiar tasks should be grounding, soothing.
But they’re not.
The classroom looks different in the fading light. Shadows reach across the floor, longer and deeper than they were this morning. The paper fish hanging from the ceiling sway slightly in the air-conditioning breeze. Their movements remind me of something, of someone—
I grab my bag, check twice that I’ve locked everything up, then head to my car.
The parking lot is mostly empty now. A few teachers’ cars remain, their owners probably finishing up prep work or grading.
The air has that peculiar stillness that comes before sunset, when everything feels suspended between one moment and the next.
My keys miss the lock twice, before I manage to unlock the door and get inside.
My apartment isn’t far from school. Nothing in this town is, but the drive takes me longer than usual because I take the long way home.
I tell myself it’s to avoid rush hour, even though there’s not really any such thing here.
The truth is I’m avoiding the street where Mitchell’s is, even though I’m sure he’ll be long gone from there.
When I finally get home, I stand in the shower until the water runs cold. I put on pajamas—an old college t-shirt worn soft with time and washing—and try to focus on tomorrow's tasks. Lesson planning. Grocery shopping. The art supplies need restocking.
My phone buzzes with texts from friends about weekend plans.
Cassidy wants to know if I’m up for a visit to the farmers’ market on Sunday.
Another friend is organizing a girls’ night out, complete with emoji-filled enthusiasm.
I should respond. I should care about normal things like weekend brunches and movie nights, and which stall in the market has the best honey.
Instead, I find myself at my window, staring out at the street below. The town looks softer at night, shadows blurring its edges, streetlights creating pools of amber in the darkness. It looks pretty from up here, but I know better.
I press my head against the cool glass and close my eyes. My breath fogs the window, and when I open them again, the view has blurred.
Somewhere out there, he’s back. Breathing the same air as me. Walking the same streets. Is he sleeping, or is he awake, and wondering how he ended up back here … the same way I am?
Sleep, when it finally comes, is restless.
I drift between memories and dreams, never quite sure which is which.
One moment, I’m grading papers while rain patters against my window.
The next, I’m eighteen again, writing notes I shouldn’t write, and making promises I couldn’t keep.
My younger self had no idea what was coming, or what those promises would cost.
The clock on my nightstand reads 3:23 A.M. when I finally give up trying to sleep. The green numbers glow in the darkness, marking time that seems to have stopped moving forward.
It’s too late to be awake, too early to get up, and too quiet to drown out the thoughts I’ve spent seven years trying to silence.
The darkness presses against my window, thick and heavy. In a couple of hours, I'll have to get up and pretend. Smile at the right moments and say all the right things. Then I’ll spend Sunday with Cassidy and my mom, and do it all again.
On Monday, I’ll be Ms. Gladwin again, a kindergarten teacher who has her life together, and doesn’t let the past get in the way of her future.
But right now, in the quiet hours of darkness, I can admit the truth. The truth I’ve been running from since Jenny spoke his name in my classroom this morning.
Some ghosts don’t stay buried, no matter how deep you try to put them. And some people leave marks on your heart that seven years of silence can’t erase.