Mia
I smoothed my hair back from my face, hoping Kira didn’t notice the way my hands shook as I combed through my strands. I set the notebook down on the meeting room table and didn’t mind Kira’s curious glance as she eyeballed it.
“You were going to see the principal about Miss Fares?” she asked.
I tried to give her a smile, but really, I wasn’t okay. Not after seeing him. Not like that.
Ending things with Theo was the hardest thing I’d ever done, and it had taken a painful toll on me.
I couldn’t eat; I could barely sleep. Everything felt like it cost too much effort. Cooking, dressing, talking, teaching. What was the point? Nothing made me happy anymore.
But seeing him, seeing how tired he was, how broken. It made it all worse.
Why did doing the right thing have to hurt him so much?
Just thinking about it made me want to cry. But I’d done enough of that. I had to pull out whatever small bit of focus I had left and use it to help my friend get her job back. Crying helped no one.
I swallowed back the lump in my throat and finally said, “Yes. I wanted to see if she’d reconsider giving Miss Fares her position back.”
Kira peered at me curiously. “I don’t get you, Miss Walker.”
I barked out a laugh because her sudden change in topic was such a teenage thing to do. And honestly, it was kind of nice to be nudged out of my feelings like that.
“That makes two of us, love.”
“I mean, you’re so funny and nice, and you do things for people all the time.” She frowned. “But what you did with my dad was selfish. I just don’t get it.”
I let out a sigh. “I know, and I’m trying to fix it. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
Oh no. I could feel them. The tears were coming back. Stupid feelings. Why wasn’t there a pause button for emotions?
“But this is hurting my dad,” she reasoned, with that puzzle-solving expression on her face.
I blinked furiously. I couldn’t cry in front of Kira. There was no way that was okay.
“Yeah,” I managed. “But it was upsetting you, and if it makes you feel better–”
“It doesn’t.”
I lifted a shoulder. I couldn’t think of anything to add to that, so I said nothing.
A few beats later, Kira screwed up her nose, like she didn’t want to say whatever was about to come out of her mouth next but knew she had to.
“What do you… love about my dad?” she asked, and her question made me smile.
“There are so many things. And I’m not sure you really want to hear them.”
She twisted her lips like she’d just tasted something disgusting. “Just… one then? What do you love most?”
I didn’t have to hesitate. I’d been thinking about this for days–listing all the reasons why it couldn’t work with Theo and then why it could. I couldn’t think about anything else. That, despite the way we started, somehow he’d managed to become exactly what I needed.
“He doesn’t need me to take care of him.”
Kira gave me a look then. She didn’t get it.
“I spend a lot of time taking care of people, and he doesn't need me to do that for him.”
“Okaaaay.”
I laughed. “When I’m with him, I don’t have to worry about what he’s thinking or feeling. I can just be myself–He wants me to be myself. And that makes me feel safe.”
I’d always been too much for most people–most men especially. But I’d shown Theo every bit of what they hated most about me, and he loved me anyway.
He didn’t need me to take care of him. He didn’t need me to filter myself. I didn’t have to walk on eggshells around him. He could take me exactly as I was, and god, I couldn’t describe how good it felt to know that.
Kira’s expression cleared, like she might have understood what I meant.
“I mean,” I went on, “there’s more than that, but I don’t think you want to listen to me gush about your father.”
Kira nodded, her expression definitely more than a little grossed out. “Yeah. I’ve already had enough of him gushing about you.”
My gut reaction was to ask Kira what he’d said about me, but I didn’t need to.
Kira tugged on her ponytail as she said, “He told me that he’s never felt as…
I don’t know, free? As he does with you.
He has all these obligations, like work and my aunt and me.
But he has fun with you, in a way he can’t have with anyone else.
He said you’re what he didn’t know he needed until you were just… there.”
I bit my lip and tried to squash down every bit of feeling. This was about Kira, not me. She was trying to understand how her dad could go from the man she’d known her entire life to this version who’d fallen in love.
She lifted her gaze to mine and gave her ponytail a final tug. “And I think I get it. Really. I hate that he’s so upset now. But I don’t know if I can be okay with–” she waved her hands at me and the door “–you and him.”
I tightened my lips and nodded. That was fair. After what she’d been through, I couldn’t blame her for how she felt.
“But I don’t want to be mad at you anymore.”
Well, that was something. For the first time in what felt like the longest time, I was actually relieved. Still struggling not to burst into tears, but relieved.
“Oh, good.” I gave her a hopeful smile. “Then I’ll have to try not to screw up again.”
Kira gave me her own small smile as she rolled her shoulders forward, adjusted her backpack, and thanked me for stopping to talk.
On her way out, she paused by the door and shyly murmured, “And, um, thanks for the handkerchief. I love it.”
As the door swung shut behind her, I looked down at my hands. They’d stopped shaking.
Which was definitely preferable because after this conversation, what I had to do next probably wouldn’t turn out as well as this had.
“No. And that’s final.”
Well, she was as stubborn as ever. And Lilly called me a bulldozer.
“But I’m the problem, aren’t I? So give Lilly her job back and fire me.”
Rutton pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know it isn’t that simple.”
I pressed my palms to her desk, looming over her and staring her down. “What if I quit? Will you give it back to her then?”
“No.” She sighed into her hand. When she looked up at me, her expression shifted into something softer.
“I understand what you’re trying to do, Mia. But I’ve already spoken to both Mr Jackson and Miss Fares about this. This isn’t just about you. It’s about the parents and how they feel about her management style.”
I lifted my hands from the desk and crossed them over my chest. “What have they told you?”
“That she’s not suited for management. She’s an excellent teacher; there’s no denying that.
But she struggles to present at the PTA, and her anxiety keeps her from deciding on units.
We’re a result-based school. Her progress looked favorable, but the reality is that she hasn’t met any of her deliverables. ”
I squinted at Rutton. She was wrong. Lilly delivered in other ways. Ways that counted for more than our next line-up of units.
“What if we get our APP spots?”
Rutton let out another long-suffering sigh. She was definitely tired of talking about this. “Then she would’ve met one of her deliverables.”
“The most important one.”
“Yes.”
I raised a brow at her. “Then you'd give Lilly her job back?”
Rutton pursed her lips and folded her hands under her chin. “I’ve asked for five spots. Even I know that’s a difficult thing to achieve.”
“But if we get them?”
A small tweak of Rutton’s lips gave me all the answer I needed. She thought it was impossible. That there was no way we could ever meet that goal.
But she said, “Then yes. I’d give her the role back,” and while I knew it was just to get me to leave her office, I took it as the bit of hope I needed.