Chapter 2
Holly – Age Twenty Four
"Okay, class, that is it for today. Please clear your things and line up," I call as the warning bell rings. "Tomorrow, we’ll work on adding and subtracting big numbers, so bring your math books back in if you haven’t yet and don’t forget to give your permission slips to your parents or guardians and return them, or you won’t be able to go to the science museum next week with Mr. Saint and Ms. Sparrows," I tell my students with a content smile on my face.
“Yes, miss!” they all reply, getting up and doing as I ask and I smile, turn, and wipe down the board quickly while silently, I hope my cousin Matty has brought my car back from the garage—preferably with just the oil change I requested but knowing Matty, though, he probably told them to scrap it.
That is the first car I ever bought and even though I can afford a better second hand one, I love that car, it holds memories I don’t want to part with.
Shaking my head as the final bell rings, I turn and clap my hands once. “Alright, kiddos, line up,” I call and they all move and line up nicely by the door without protest and I can’t help but smile.
This is why I love teaching second grade, though I have only been doing it for nearly two years now after graduating college.
A classroom full of seven-year-olds, always on their best behavior—right in that sweet spot between wanting to run riot and having an attitude, it's the best in-between, especially when they're so goddamn innocent at this age.
During placements with college, I worked with several younger ones and I swear I felt like I wanted to pull my hair out with all the screaming and throwing things while going any higher than fourth grade made me want to run a mile, especially with the curriculum I’d have to teach.
I’m good at math, but not that good.
I quickly put on my coat as I walk to the door and smile at Caleb who is first in line not surprising me.
His blue eyes sparkle as he grins at me and I open the door and walk out.
The kids file out behind me just as across the hall, Mrs. Jones, who also teaches second grade, exits through the opposite door and gives me a sly smile like she’s better than me.
I ignore her like I always do and continue walking toward the double doors.
The woman is in her late thirties and hates that Caleb chose my class and not hers.
Caleb Lee’s family is a part of the local MC and normally a brother as he calls them, usually picks him up, but mostly it’s his grandfather.
Before I arrived a few months ago, after my previous school closed, Mrs. Jones was apparently eyeing his dad, which is bad since she’s married but anyway, she’s hated me ever since, not that I care.
I mean I haven’t even met the man, yet I’m her biggest enemy.
Oh well.
Confirming the kids are all still behind me and in line, I stop at the school gates seeing several people waiting for the kids and I smile at the parents before I raise my voice so the children can hear.
“Okay, single file behind me, please. When I call your name, come forward, okay?” I instruct the class, ensuring they understand what to do next.
"Yes, Ms. Robins," they answer in unison and I try to hide my chuckle as I notice Mrs. Jones try to wrangle her kids, who have run out the gate toward their family, some running around the school yard.
Am I feeling a little smug? Yes, yes I am.
Smiling, I turn to the parents and begin calling out names, one by one beginning with, “Addie,” and she dashes past me toward her aunt, who opens her arms to catch her before her aunt waves at me, and I wave back and I continue calling each child as I notice their person who will be collecting them.
After I’ve called all fourteen of my students just as I get to my last one, Caleb's grandfather steps forward with a grin.
I turn to the two children standing beside me and say, “Hmm, I don’t see your grandfather anywhere, Caleb,” and Ice chuckles as I scan the area dramatically, pretending to search.
Caleb giggles and points, “Ms. Robins, he’s right there,” and I gasp, widening my eyes and pretending to just notice him.
“Oh yes, now I see,” I say with exasperation and he laughs. I nod my head and say, “Off you go, sweetheart.”
“Bye, Ms. Robins,” he says with a wave before he turns to the most precious person in my life, beside me, and says, “See you tomorrow, Lyra.”
“Bye, Caleb,” Lyra returns as she grabs my hand and I squeeze hers tightly, then watch as Caleb runs into his grandfather’s arms who catches him with a chuckle and I smile sadly.
Lyra will never have that.
“See you tomorrow, Holly,” Ice says and I wave, then look down to meet icy blue eyes like my own.
"Ready to go inside so Mama can grab her things?" I ask softly and Lyra nods.
Is it ethical to have my own daughter in my classroom?
Not really, but I don’t care. She tried Mrs. Jones’s, but apparently, she was treated differently because she’s my kid so like a normal parent, I threatened to quit if Lyra wasn’t placed with me and considering I’m very well liked with the students and parents – not to toot my own horn and all that – but the principal quickly moved Lyra much to Mrs. Jones’s disagreement.
The woman has issues.
"Come on then," I say, gently pulling Lyra’s hand toward the big yellow building while Mrs. Jones continues to shout at her kids to line up which makes me smirk.
Lyra skips at my side and my heart clenches at the innocence and the love I feel for her despite everything that happened after her conception and the hardship I’ve had, the losses, the loneliness.
After waking from a coma I didn’t know I was in, I had found out Adam was dead just as I remembered seeing his cold eyes, eyes that I sometimes dream about, like he’s haunting me for surviving, and I was in shock.
Then his mama not only blamed me for his death, but also his drug use, his cheating, his assault on other girls that kept coming out of the woodwork after his funeral, all claiming he sexually assaulted them meaning I was extremely lucky and she blamed me as to why he hurt me, why he cracked four of my ribs.
She held me responsible for a good four months after the crash for things that were completely out of my control, things I had no idea about all while I was struggling to come to terms with everything.
I was barely eating. I skipped school, unable to face my peers, who had filmed my assault from a guy I thought I could love, a guy I willingly gave my virginity to before they finally realized what was happening and eventually, I enrolled in homeschooling.
Freya texted a few times during those months, but I couldn’t answer, especially when I didn’t know if she hated me, if she blamed me like her mother who ensured she had shouted from the rooftops that everything was my fault, making the whole town believe her story even though the only evidence, now locked up with the police, says otherwise.
Mr. Collins and my dad both threatened to sue anyone who had a copy. They didn’t need the reminder of what happened, didn’t need me to go more into myself.
A few months after the fateful day, after my horror, I ended up collapsing.
Dad rushed me to the hospital, and I had found out I was sixteen weeks pregnant with a baby girl, that the condom Adam wore failed, or was old.
Either way, it didn’t work and I wasn’t on anything because my mother didn’t know I had planned to sleep with my boyfriend, she wouldn’t have allowed it.
While I sat in shock, looking at the monitor that showed my little girl, my dad cursed the hospital out and demanded the doctors terminate the pregnancy, claiming it was conceived by force, that I didn’t know what I was doing despite being seventeen.
He lied, trying to use Adam’s history as an excuse, not thinking about all the girls Adam had hurt, only thinking about himself because he didn’t want me having Adam’s baby. He didn’t want any part of me associated with his family but I couldn’t do what he wanted, she had a heartbeat and I—I….
I squeeze Lyra’s hand as we walk up the steps, my thoughts still caught between the laughter at the school gates and memories that never quite leave my side, the pain, the hurt.
Would I have become a victim of Adam’s if he had survived?
Would Lyra?
His hazel eyes flash before me and I quickly blink.
The therapist my mother forced me to see before we had found that I was pregnant explained I have survivor’s guilt but in my mind, I have unfinished business.
He cheated on me, he hit me, broke my ribs, he tried to kill me and instead of paying with years behind bars for what he did to me, to the girls who have come forward, he died.
He didn’t surfer in my eyes which probably makes me evil but I don’t care, he got the easy way out while I have to live with what he did every day.
“Is Caleb coming for dinner tomorrow, Mama?” Lyra asks as we walk inside and I smile at my little girl.
“No, princess, he’s coming next week. Matty’s going to pick him up,” I reply and she nods, releases my hand, then darts through the doorway into my classroom to grab her things.
My parents disowned me, which I never expected.
As soon as I butted in and denied my dad's wishes for a termination, he couldn’t look at me.
My mama tearfully told me I had to leave if I kept a rapist’s baby—her words, not mine.
That I wouldn’t be welcome in their family, my own family and when the town found out and all the whispers begun, one claiming I tried to trap Adam which made him go down the deep end, those people being Mrs. Collins friends, I knew I couldn’t stay in town.
Mama accidentally told a talkative friend and most thought I should terminate when it got out.
Even Mr. Collins visited as I packed and demanded that I end his son's evil spawn – again his words not mine – but I didn’t see the baby as his child.
I saw her as innocent and a part of me but he just made the decision to leave town instead of trying to get my parents to see sense even easier and what slammed the nail into the coffin so to speak, as soon as Mrs. Collins and Freya found out, they demanded I moved in with them.
Mrs. Collins said it was her grandbaby and that she was going to take sole custody once she was born and that I wouldn’t be allowed near her son reincarnated.
– Without a word, I dragged my bags out of my parents’ home where they stayed in Dad’s office and I walked away while she screamed I couldn’t take her grandchild and tried to stop me from getting into the car.
She grabbed me roughly while her daughter stood in shock at her mother’s behavior, though it was obvious where Adam got his temper from.
Thankfully, the neighbors called the cops because they knew she wasn’t allowed near me and forced her to step away from me while I got in my car and drove away. Without looking back while cop cars raced towards my parents’ home, a home I grew up in but was no longer welcome.
After I left, I had the protective order include Lyra which just made things worse apparently. According to Freya, who texted begging to meet her niece, the order caused her mother to have a mental breakdown.
Her son assaulted me, he tried to kill me, yet in her eyes, I’m still the bad guy so when my uncle, Mathew, in Louisiana, whom my dad contacted when I decided to keep my baby, said he’d take me in, I said yes.
Even if it was only until I graduated from college then after that I was to be on my own, which again I was fine with, even when he kept to his word because I worked hard to get to where I am now, giving Lyra has everything she needs.
I worked nights while my cousin, Matty, watched Lyra and I saved as much as I could while attending school and before I even graduated from college, I had already rented a small two-bedroom apartment.
Last year, I upgraded to a three-bedroom townhouse with Matty, though I know I need a better car at some point.
I can admit, it would be nice to buy somewhere instead of renting but all that will come in time.
I haven’t heard a peep from my uncle and nothing from my parents, which hurts because we were close before everything happened. I’ve thankfully heard nothing from Freya in five years so that’s a plus.
Old friends have messaged, but I ignore them. Those friends stood back and filmed what I had to go through, wanting to believe something like what Adam did was normal, watching me get hurt. I can’t get over any of that and I don’t think I ever will.
Sighing, I grab my bag, switch off my laptop, look at Lyra as she puts on her fluffy pink hat, and I smile at how adorable she is.
“What do you say we see if Matty has brought Mama’s car back? If so, we can get take-out for dinner tonight!” I say to my daughter and her eyes light up as she squeals, “Yes!”
I chuckle and hold my hand out to her as she runs over and as soon as she grabs it, I guide her out of the classroom, switch off the lights, and lock the door before we walk towards the exit feeling so grateful to have this little girl in my life, becoming my rock and reason.
Over the years, my focus has been Lyra and my career. I’ve learned you can’t rely on anyone. Even those you love can hurt and disappoint you; that’s why I’ll never settle down, that I’ll never be with another man and why I’ll never let anyone in.
Everyone hurts you in the end…