17. Fiona
Fiona
Fiona stood behind her desk, watching her class quietly scribble through their grammar packets. Pencils scraped paper. Erasers squeaked. Every now and then, a student would raise a hand, and she’d nod or walk over, voice low and steady. Calm. In control.
On the outside, she looked like any other teacher managing a calm post-reading lesson.
But inside?
Inside she was on fire.
Her fingernails bit into her palm as she clutched the edge of her desk, knuckles white. Rage pulsed through her like electricity. Static crackled in the space between her teeth.
He made her a joke .
She’d thought marriage meant permanence. Something solid. Something chosen every day, even when it was hard. She had believed—truly—that they were building something that would outlast mistakes.
She’d been so wrong.
So now here she was. Pretending everything was fine. Smiling at Ava when she asked how to spell “beginning.” Nodding when Elijah wanted to share a fun fact about octopuses.
As if she wasn’t actively imagining setting Dean’s laptop on fire.
She looked down at her hand—her bare left ring finger. It felt obscene, that absence.
She’d given him everything. Her love. Her loyalty. Her stupid, soft-hearted belief that he was the kind of man who would protect what she gave him.
But he hadn’t protected it. He’d packaged it. Branded it. Sold it off in tiny increments for likes and laughs and high-fives from his asshole coworkers who’d never liked her anyway.
“Ms. Fiona?”
Fiona startled. Lucas was standing by her desk, holding up his worksheet.
“There’s no more room in the margins. Can I use the back?”
She nodded. “Of course, honey.”
He smiled and turned away, and Fiona could barely hear over the rush in her ears.
Her jaw ached from clenching it.
She was so angry she could barely breathe.
Angry at Dean. Angry at herself for loving him. Angry that this —this quiet betrayal stretched out over months—had broken her when she was supposed to be strong.
She wanted to scream. To throw something. To drive to his office and read every single one of his smug little posts aloud until he crumbled under the weight of what he’d done.
But she couldn’t.
Because she was standing in front of twenty-three children who needed her calm and steady and whole.
So instead, she smiled. She graded papers. She answered questions. And she let the anger smolder just beneath her skin like a fever that wouldn’t break.
Fiona perched on her small chair at the front, a well-worn copy of the middle grade novel in her hands. Across the reading circle twenty-three fifth-graders sat cross-legged on the carpet.
Today the story was about someone leaving, someone being left behind. She'd been teaching this book for three years, but today every word felt like it was written specifically for her broken life.
"So," she said, closing the book and taking a deep breath, "Nora's gone. And Emmett is angry. Really, really angry." She looked around the circle. "Who can tell me why anger sometimes shows up when we're actually sad?"
A few hands shot up immediately—the usual suspects, the ones who always had something to say. But Fiona's eyes drifted to Marcus, slouched in the back corner, hood pulled low. He'd been quiet all week. Quieter than usual.
"Marcus?" she said softly. "What do you think?"
He looked up, startled. "I don't know."
"That's okay. But I have a feeling you might know more than you think." She leaned forward slightly. "Have you ever been really sad about something, but it came out as mad instead?"
Marcus shrugged, but his eyes stayed on hers.
"Because sometimes," Fiona continued, "anger feels safer than sad. Anger makes us feel strong. Sad makes us feel..." She paused, letting them fill in the blank.
"Weak," whispered Ava.
"Small," added Isaiah.
"Scared," came a voice from the back. Marcus.
Fiona felt that familiar flutter in her chest—the moment when a classroom shifted, when walls came down and real learning began.
"Exactly," she said. "So when Emmett gets mad at Nora for leaving, what’s he really feeling?"
"Scared," Marcus said, louder this time. "Because now he's alone."
The words hung in the air, heavy with more than just literary analysis.
Fiona nodded. "And what do you think Emmett needs? To feel less alone?"
"Someone to listen," said Lily.
“A hug,” added Carlos.
"Someone who gets it," Marcus said quietly.
Fiona's throat tightened. "Yes. All of those things." She looked directly at Marcus. "Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is let someone see us when we're sad instead of just when we're angry. Because that's when we find out who really cares about us."
Marcus's eyes were bright, but he didn't look away.
"Mr. Marcus," Fiona said gently, "would you like to be my helper today? I could use someone to organize the book bins during lunch."
Marcus nodded.
The bell rang, and twenty-two fifth-graders scrambled for their backpacks and lunch boxes, chattering about recess plans and cafeteria pizza. Marcus stayed put, fiddling with his pencil.
Once the room was empty, Fiona moved to sit beside him on the carpet.
"Rough week?" she asked.
"My parents are getting divorced," he said simply. "My dad moved out Sunday."
Fiona's heart squeezed. "That's really hard."
"I keep getting mad at my mom. Like, yelling mad. But I'm not really mad at her." His voice cracked slightly. "I just... I don't want everything to change."
"Of course you don't. Change is scary, even when it's for the best."
Marcus looked up at her, eyes searching.
"But what if they still love each other?"
Fiona didn’t answer right away. She reached out and set her hand gently on the carpet between them. Not touching him—just there.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
She hadn’t said a word about her own unraveling. About the man she still loved and couldn’t stay married to. She wouldn’t. That wasn’t for Marcus.
She was going to have to get a divorce.
Even thinking the word felt jagged. Final.
She took a breath and offered Marcus a crooked smile. “Want to be in charge of the label maker?”
He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Okay.”
Fiona sat at her desk after Marcus left.
She exhaled and rubbed her eyes. This was real. This was over.
She knew she had to do the adult thing. But the thought of starting —of sitting in an office and saying the word divorce to a stranger—made her feel like she might throw up.
How did people do this?
How did they turn heartbreak into paperwork?
Tears pricked behind her eyes, but she blinked them back. Not here. Not now. She’d already cried enough, hadn’t she?
She didn’t want to be brave. She didn’t want to be wise or mature or strong. She wanted someone else to fix it. To unhurt it. To make it make sense.
But there was no one else. Just her.
The hallway was quiet, the last echo of students' footsteps fading as the lunch bell settled. Fiona sat at her desk, a half-graded stack of spelling tests beside her. She should’ve been working. Instead, her phone sat in front of her, open to the social media app.
Her account now had 38 followers.
Not viral. Not anything close.
But that wasn’t the point.
She clicked the little heart icon. A few new likes, a couple comments.
She thought about Marcus.
Her finger hovered for a moment, then tapped over to the “New Post” screen.
She pulled a Post-it from the drawer and wrote the words out by hand. Simple. Slanted.
“Anger is what sadness wears when it wants to feel strong.”
She took a photo of the note against her desktop—grainy wood background, soft lighting from the classroom windows. No filters. Just the truth of the moment.
Then she typed her caption:
Sometimes the kids say the things we grownups are afraid to admit.
Anger is easier. Anger protects.
But sadness is honest.
And asking for help while sad?
That’s courage, not weakness.
She stared at it for a breath, then hit post.
There. Out in the world.
Not everyone would get it. Not everyone would care.
But someone might.
And that was enough.