Between the Lines (River Valley Teacher's Lounge Book 3)

1. Nathan

one

I haven’t hadnightmares in a long time.

In the beginning, they were always the same.

I’m standing on the edge of the driveway to my childhood home. And even though the details don’t at all match the police report, that semi-truck barrels straight into my dad’s sedan right in front of our home, where I’m glued to the front lawn to watch. In that dream, the details don’t matter, because for a split second in time, I have them back.

Now though, after years of keeping everything inside, they’ve morphed. Sometimes, the nightmares come in the flashing headlights of that god-forsaken semi, but sometimes, we’re back in the hospital. My brother Callahan is strapped to the bed beside me. The needle they stick into my back for the bone marrow is the size of a cannon.

Sometimes, he begs me to save him from the plague of his cancer. Sometimes, he begs me to let him be with Mom and Dad, since I’m the reason they’re gone anyway.

I’ve ignored those demons for so long, that sometimes I forget they exist. If I believed in any of Freud’s theories, I might look to my beginning of the school year stress to blame for this nightmare. Right now, I can’t even focus on what to chalk it up to. My phone yanks me from a dead sleep by my throat.

The last time a call had woken me like this, it had been to the news of my parents’ death. At 5:07 in the morning, I fear the only other family I have has been taken from me too. Especially when the number on my caller ID is Newton PD.

Fear seizes me as Nathan Harding scratches up my throat before I can even get my phone to my ear.

“Yeah, Mr. Harding, sorry to wake you but uh, we have one of your employees here? She set off the alarm? We need an administrator to come verify that she works here.”

I collapse onto my bed, my free hand cradling my forehead in relief as my phone rests against my chest, my heart ticking against it in rapid, heavy thuds. A chill washes over me as the sweat I’m drenched in cools. It isn’t until I feel the call vibrating against my chest that I remember why I’m awake in the first place.

“Sorry, what do you need from me?”

“We need you to come down to River Valley to verify that this woman who set off the alarm is an employee of yours.”

“And I can’t do that over the phone?” I ask, glancing at the clock that is still twenty minutes shy of my first-day-of-school alarm.

“Sorry, sir. We can’t.”

I sit up, wipe the amalgam of relief and exhaustion from my face, and ask, “What did you say her name was again?”

“Claire Benson.”

Claire Bensondoesn’t look like she woke up before the crack of dawn. Claire Benson looks downright chummy with the officer on the scene.

It’s before sunrise, and I am already annoyed with Claire Benson.

She and the officer are standing outside the front doors to the middle school entrance of River Valley Middle/High, and she’s laughing.

She doesn’t appear much older than a high school student herself; her blond hair hangs long and straight over her shoulders, hitting mid back when she tilts her head to stare up at the equally young officer. Her petite stature barely makes it up to his shoulder. Her manicured nails—painted in River Valley blue—press into his bicep, and I grind my teeth.

I didn’t need to be woken up before my alarm on my first official day as assistant principal to watch one of my many long-term subs flirt with an officer after she set off the alarm.

I clear my throat, approaching them with quick steps. The slap of my Oxfords against the crisp, early morning pavement seems to startle the officer, but Claire’s mouth is still moving in that quick, upturned smile that girls wear when they want a man’s attention.

“What seems to be the problem?” I ask, straightening my tie as I create the point to the triangle.

“Hi. My name is Officer Sullivan. I responded to the call from the alarm company. It’s standard procedure that we verify employment, in case of a break in, but Ms. Benson isn’t able to do so.”

“I tried to explain that I’m a long-term substitute, and that we don’t have IDs or key fobs.”

She shrugs, pink coloring the apples of her cheeks. I’m too annoyed to care.

“Still can’t believe you’re back in the old RV,” Sullivan chuckles.

“It’s just for the time being!” she retorts, laughter coloring the sparkle of jest in her blue eyes that only adds kindling to my fire of aggravation.

“You missed your old stomping grounds so badly you’re filling in for them, huh?”

“Can we get to the point here?” I ask, tapping the toe of my Oxford to interrupt their banter.

“Right. Sorry. I just need you to verify that Ms. Benson works here.”

“Stop calling me that, Danny. It sounds too professional.”

“It is your name, isn’t it? That’s what the kids will?—”

“She works here.”

Their faces snap from flirtatious to stunned when I interject.

“Do I need to sign something?”

He shakes his head, says, “Yeah,” and hands me a clipboard and a pen. My neat, all-caps name dots the line on the paperwork, right below Claire’s loopy, girly swirls. The juxtaposition is so far in opposition that World Wars could start on either side of those trenches.

“Well,” I nod, and start heading toward the front door, where the alarm is still blaring. By the time I flip up the keypad to turn it off, Claire and Danny are still giggling together in the parking lot. It grates onto every one of my nerves.

“Ms. Benson,” I bark. She snaps to attention, ducks her head, says goodbye to the officer, and carts her several different bags and cups to the front door.

“Sorry. Just wanted to tell him?—”

“What door code were you given?” I ask. No offense to her, but I don’t want to hear it. I want to get into my office and maybe put my head down for ten more minutes to make up for the sleep I lost when I’d gotten my early morning wake-up call.

She swallows.

“Five-one-nine-two-eight.”

I sigh and shake my head.

“See? I even wrote it down.”

She holds up her hand. Yes. Her hand. Where smudged ink reveals a line of numbers that are eighty-percent correct. A quick glance to her other hand, which somehow holds both a large, sweaty Dunkin’ iced coffee as well as an obnoxiously large Stanley tumbler, and I have my culprit.

“That one was supposed to be a seven,” I say, indicating the smudged ink.

“Oh! Crap! Sorry. I think I used this hand to carry in my coffee, and it must’ve washed?—”

“Please do your best to not make this mistake again.”

I’m tired. My head is pounding. The phantom blaring horn of the semi-truck from my dream still rings at the edges of my subconscious.

She swallows again, flushes a deeper shade of crimson.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Won’t happen again.”

Her wide blue eyes stare up at me from beneath long lashes. I have to stare down my nose to see her. I tower over her. It’s the first I’ve noticed.

At six-foot-two, I tower over most. But for some reason, Claire Benson seems to be stories beneath me. Somehow, she still meets my gaze, still locks onto my stare until I nod in affirmation and open the front door.

“I’m so sorry again,” she says, accompanying the hum of the overhead lights as they buzz to life with the motion of us in the hall, and the squeak of our shoes on the newly waxed floors. “I just wanted to get here early to go over my checklist for the first day. I want to do Juliet justice.”

I sigh.

It’s a nice sentiment. Truly. I just don’t have the headspace for it right now.

I nod, use my fob to unlock the main office, and take a sub key from the lock box behind our secretary’s desk.

“Please don’t let this happen again.” As that rolls off my tongue, I picture it happening again, and extend my hand. “Give me your cell phone. I’ll add my number in case you’re locked out on a weekend.”

Since the rest of the staff already has my cell number for such reason, I don’t see a problem punching myself in under Mr. Harding. After I hand back her phone, she looks like she wants to say something, but swallows her words, nods, and heads out the back exit of the office into the teacher’s lounge.

“Have a great first day, Mr. Harding!”

I turn, and she’s waiting on the threshold, hope shimmering like the precipice of the sunrise on the horizon. For a moment, that shimmer blinks like the dawn of a new day. But then, I remember why we’re here before that very same sunrise on the horizon. With a nod and a grunt, I dismiss her, and head to my office to start my first day on the job I never wanted in the first place.