Chapter 9
Claire
On Thursday morning, I’m met with my new normal at work—solitude. After greeting Grace and Betsy, I head back to my desk and start working on my prep and grading.
A scuffle across the cubicles draws my attention, and then I hear a loud, “Ow!”
“Shawna?” I hop out of my chair and round the corner, finding my very pregnant coworker rubbing her foot. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on leave!”
“I know,” she says. Her brown hair falls around her shoulders, and when she straightens, she looks…well, she looks pregnant. Glowing, but tired. “I wanted to pick up my laptop so I could check my emails while I’m home.”
“Don’t you have the app for that?” I ask.
Her blank eyes meet mine, and then she shakes her head. “Pregnancy brain. You’d think after three kids, I’d know not to trust myself.” She sighs. “Well, it was nice to get out of the house, though. I’m going a little stir-crazy.”
I huff a laugh, then examine her desk area. “Are you trying to unplug the laptop?”
She nods. “But I can’t quite bend anymore.”
“I got it.” I kneel and unplug the power cable from under her desk.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she says. “Who knows, maybe I’ll start prepping my fall classes while I’m on leave.”
“Or you’ll snuggle up with that sweet baby of yours,” I reply. “When is she due again?”
“Leap year day. Can you believe it?” She looks down at her protruding stomach and lovingly pats it. “She’s getting pretty big in there. I hope she comes out around her due date. Her brother was eight pounds, ten ounces, and I don’t think I could handle much more than that.”
My heart warms just being near her. Shawna has been like an aunt to me. I’ve missed her presence in the office this semester, but I don’t blame her for being home to prep for her baby. I’d take advantage of our amazing maternity leave policy if I could, too. Hopefully, one day I will.
I hand her the power cord to her laptop, and she gasps. “Wait…is this…” She snatches my left hand and examines the ring. “Did you get engaged?!”
I laugh a little. “Yep. Two weekends ago.”
“This is an incredible ring.”
“It’s fake,” I blurt. I haven’t told anyone else, but for some reason, I feel this compulsive urge to tell her the truth.
Her eyes flick up to mine in surprise, but she doesn’t say anything. She looks back down at the ring, moving my hand around so she can see it from different angles. “Well, I’d never know the difference.” She looks up at my face. “How did he do it?”
I drag my hand away. “At a baseball game.”
“On TV?”
I nod.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” I laugh lightly. “I couldn’t have said no even if I wanted to.”
Shawna tilts her head, brows raised.
What in the world? Why did I just say that?
“Oh, I didn’t mean that I wanted to say no!” I wave my hand around. “Just being silly. You know what I mean.”
“Mmm,” she muses. “I don’t know. When Joshua proposed, there wasn’t ever a thought of saying no. Not then, and not after.”
Panic sets in. “I swear. I want to marry Zach. We’re good.” I nod, a little overeagerly. I feel as if I look like a robot who’s pretending to be human and fooling no one.
Must. Save. Conversation.
“Anyway! It was sooo great to see you!” I turn to leave her cubicle, then spin back to face her. “Actually, did you need help with anything? I can carry things to your car?”
Please say no. Please say no.
“I’m good,” she says.
Phew.
She studies me for a moment. “It was good to see you, Claire,” she says. “And feel free to call me any time you need to talk. I’m not really doing much these days. Just waiting for the baby.”
“Sounds good.” I hit her with a double thumbs-up, then feel like an idiot as I walk back to my cubicle.
What was all of that? Why did I bring up the possibility of saying no to Zach? I would never. We’ve been together for ten years. If I were going to break up with him, I would have done it by now, right?
Besides, our lives have been mapped out for us since we were kids.
Zach and I were basically betrothed, and I was going to become a math professor, just like my parents—and look how well that part has turned out!
I truly love my job. Teaching fills a piece of my soul, and there’s nothing quite as beautiful as math.
Finding solutions to problems is so satisfying.
I’m happy. I’m excited. Everything is good. This is all the way it should be, and I’m so thankful for it.
Yeah.
That’s it.
“So, I’m thinking we could run the center every day from ten till two,” I say to Ryan later that afternoon at our first planning session for the tutoring center.
So far, we’ve made a list of potential rooms, and I’m going to work on nailing it down.
Then Ryan agreed to send out a few emails to locate spare computers. Now we’re on to logistics.
He’s been a little distant, which hurts my heart, but as we keep talking, he’s opening up a little more.
He raises a brow. “Do you really think anyone will show up on a Friday? We don’t have any math classes offered on Fridays.”
“I’m sure there will be some super diligent students who will want to attend.”
He scoffs at me. “Yeah, maybe one or two.”
“I would have been one of them,” I say.
“And I wouldn’t have,” he replies with a smirk.
It’s so true. I didn’t know Ryan before we worked here, but I can imagine what kind of student he was. The latecomer who never did his homework but aced every test.
“Did you even have to study at all?” I ask.
He tilts his head from side to side. “Kind of? But I feel like once you understand the concepts, you don’t really need to study. It all comes together.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Sure, sure.”
“Come on,” he laughs, sitting back in his chair. “There’s no way you had to study when you were back in, say, algebra.”
I feel the tightness in my stomach loosen at his relaxed pose. This is the conversation I’m used to having with my best friend. I want to say, “There’s my Ryan.” But instead, I just say, “Algebra? No. You’re right. I didn’t have to study then. Doing my homework was enough.”
“You did homework? What a nerd.”
“Hey!” I shove his shoulder lightly, but it doesn’t move. All that surfing does a body good. I don’t move my hand away as quickly as I should, though, and actually give his muscle a slight squeeze. Warmth spreads from my hand, through my arm, and all the way down to my toes.
He looks down at where my hand rests on his shoulder, and his expression suddenly changes. Then his eyes lock on mine, the moment loaded with electric charge. Just a minute ago, we were joking and laughing. Now he looks like I burned him.
I inch my hand away. “Are you okay?”
He relaxes his expression back into a grin. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Do you have a scratch or something on your shoulder?” I reach over to check, but he pulls away so quickly that he nearly falls over in his chair.
He gets up and stumbles a few steps. “I’m uh… Oh, would you look at the time.” He taps his wrist, which is bare, as usual. No watch. “I’m supposed to go meet…Chase. For something.”
“Oh.” I’m suddenly struck that I may have crossed a line with him. Have I touched his arm like that before? We give each other side hugs, like any good platonic friendship. But maybe the way I grabbed his arm just now was too far.
Why does that make me feel disappointed?
I paste on a grin. “Okay. But can we… I… I also wanted to talk to you about my book.”
“Oh.” That makes him pause, but then he looks back at the door.
“We’ll do that later. I guess. If you want to.
” He clears his throat. “But I don’t know how much time I have to hang out.
I’ve got so much going on with the…teaching and the surfing and the…
” He waves his hand around, the ambiguity leaving me confused.
“You know. So we don’t have to do this more often than necessary. ”
More often than necessary? That’s not exactly what a girl wants to hear from her best friend.
I’m a little hurt and speechless, but before he leaves the room, he points a finger at me.
“The hours. Monday through Thursday only, but keep it open later. Like four in the afternoon. And maybe just a couple hours on Fridays for the nerds like you.” He throws me one last grin and a wink before exiting the room.
I’m still in my seat, staring at the empty doorway, wondering what in the world is going on with my best friend.