Chapter 16 Alessia
“Okay, kiddos! Remember, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so don’t forget to take all the crafts and Valentine’s you made home with you and shower your parents with love!”
The response is immediate and total chaos.
Twenty-two kindergarteners erupt into giggles and stomping feet, a small herd of them surging toward the door in a wave of backpacks and paper hearts, splitting off toward the pickup line and the bus stop while I stand at the front of the room and feel something I forgot I was allowed to feel.
Happy.
Not performing happy. Not the careful, functional version of it I'd been running on for the last few years. Actually happy, in the quiet way that sneaks up on you when you're not watching for it.
I flip the last folding table onto its side, snap the clasps shut, and roll it toward the closet, stepping over a trail of pink construction paper scraps and what appears to be an entire container of red glitter that someone distributed across the floor like they were seasoning a roast.
The Valentine's Day party was worth every bit of it.
It took three volunteer moms, a bulk order of googly eyes, and more glitter glue than should be legally available to elementary school children but watching their faces this afternoon made all of it completely irrelevant.
Everly Park had spent forty-five minutes constructing a card so elaborate it barely fit inside her backpack.
Marcus had eaten most of his conversation hearts before we even started the craft portion.
Lily cried briefly and beautifully over a paper doily and then recovered and ate two cupcakes.
Teaching is easier now for me. That's the honest truth of it.
Not because the job got easier, kindergarteners are feral, and the paperwork is endless and there's always someone's parent sending a passive aggressive email about something. But because I got easier. I guess it isn’t difficult to show up and connect with children when you aren’t actively trying to get pregnant or battling a husband who is unfaithful to you.
I know it’s partially that, but also, something loosened in me over the past two weeks and the mornings where I drag myself out of bed don't cost what they used to.
I know exactly why.
Gabriel.
I smile as I wipe down desktops and throw away trash, thinking about this weekend and all the good things that have been happening since I moved to Brookhaven.
It’s been two weeks since that night with Gabriel—since he touched me in ways that still linger in my body like muscle memory and brought me to orgasm for the first time in well over a year.
I haven’t seen him since. And that’s exactly how it was meant to be.
A one-time thing to get me back in the game.
There’s been a new pep in my step ever since, a lightness I didn’t realize I was missing.
Teaching feels easier. Seeing my students’ faces doesn’t twist something sharp in my chest the way it used to.
My mood has improved drastically and the male teachers with their inappropriate comments, and waves no longer immediately send me into a spiral of anger towards the entire male population where I brand them all as completely unredeemable.
It feels like finally being able to exhale after holding your breath for too long.
Yes, I haven’t seen him since. And that’s totally fine. That’s expected.
I brush more glitter into the dustpan and try not to think about his big hands and the scandalous things that we did in my shower together. And every morning, when I get ready for school, I try not to look at the shower wall and remember the way he pinned me there.
And I fail at that every day.
Am I dating again? No. Not yet. But last night, I finally downloaded some dating apps.
Natasha and I sat on the new couch she splurged on, red velvet and completely over the top for the rundown home we’re living in, but it suits her eclectic style.
We sipped wine and swiped through profiles, laughing until we couldn’t breathe, finally landing on a few good-looking guys without any noticeable red flags.
At least any that you can find in a small summary and a profile picture.
And now I have my first real date. Tonight. A nice guy. A construction worker. Local. Grew up in town. Chris.
It’s not a big deal. Just drinks at the bar where I work.
Something different—if you don’t count that non-date that I had with Gabriel where I realized I’d already kissed him by “accident.” But it’s enough to get me back out there.
Back into having conversations with men that revolve around a future, one that I’m trying to rebuild here in Connecticut.
I'm not nervous exactly. More like curious. Like I'm trying on a version of myself I haven't worn in a long time, and I want to see if it still fits.
The broom catches on something under the reading corner, and I crouch down to find a construction paper heart that must have slid under the bookshelf during the chaos of the party. It's covered in stickers and says MY TEACHER in large, deliberate crayon letters with a backwards E.
I sit back on my heels and look at it for a second longer than necessary.
Two years ago, I couldn't be in a classroom without feeling like the air had been punched out of me.
Every child's laugh was a reminder of what I couldn't have. I used to sit in my car for ten minutes before school convincing myself to go inside. I’d text my mom telling her how much I regretted getting my degree in education.
The worst days were when they'd talk about their families, the casual, total unselfconsciousness of it, the ‘my daddy makes pancakes, and my mom smells like roses’ moments that would hit me somewhere behind the sternum and stay there all day. Or show and tell. Those were rough too.
And now I have a student who made me a valentine with a backwards letter E, and it makes me feel lucky instead of hollow.
I tuck it into my bag.
I’ve just started on my desk when a soft knock sounds at the door. I glance up as a woman peeks her head inside, her hand resting on the shoulder of one of my students who left earlier.
“Hi, Ms. Martinez?”
I set the broom aside and smile, already excited to gush about her daughter Everly because she’s one of my favorite kids in my new class. Bright, always asking thoughtful questions and so eager to learn. What more could you ask for in a kindergartener?
“Come in!” I call setting down the bottle of spray. “Hi! You must be Everly’s mom.”
I step forward, extending my hand. She takes it with a firm shake, her green eyes warm and kind. She’s beautiful—dark blonde hair, the same sweet face as her daughter and a casual pair of jeans and a fitted top that shows off her chest.
“Yes, I am.” She smiles. “How are you settling in with your new class?”
“Really well.” I nod. “I’m enjoying the students this year. And acclimating to Brookhaven.”
“That’s great. It’s such a close-knit community and I know the children in Everly’s class have all been good to her.”
I smile. “How can I help you?”
Amber shifts her weight slightly. "I actually came in because I wanted to ask if we could set up some time next week. I have some concerns about her reading, and I'd love your input on what I can be doing at home to help her."
"Of course," I say. "I'll send you my office hours tonight. She's doing well, genuinely, but there are a few things we can work on together and I'm happy to talk through it."
"That's a relief to hear." She exhales. "We just moved back a few months ago and I've been worried about disrupting her. She's adaptable but I still feel guilty."
“She’s doing wonderful, really,” I reassure her as Everly twirls around the empty classroom, lost in her own little world as she dances to a song that she’s singing. “Where did you move from?”
“New York City,” she says. “My husband still works long hours there, so he commutes, but I wanted to come back. I love it here. I never thought I’d miss it this much.” She tilts her head. “What about you? Where are you from originally?”
“I grew up in Atlanta but moved to New York City as fast as I could,” I joke. “That’s where I was before Brookhaven.”
She laughs. “So, what brought you to settle in Brookhaven?”
I hesitate for half a second before going with the truth.
“Long story… got divorced. Couldn’t afford rent in the city anymore.
My roommate was getting married, so I had to find something new.
My grandma lives here, so I always had fond memories of visiting, but living with her didn’t end up working out.
I ended up moving in with a friend who just took over as owner of the bar I work at. Pretty house right around the lake.”
“Oh?” She tilts her head. “What bar?”
“Brookhaven Brews.”
She nods, recognition flickering across her face. “Natasha Carpenter.”
I look up. "You know her?"
"Yeah." A small, careful pause. "Her cousin is my ex-husband.
We were married for a while." She says it with the practiced neutrality of someone who has made peace with a thing and has learned to state it plainly.
"I actually reached out to him recently about some contracting work on the house my husband and I just bought here. He still does renovations, right?"
The room gets very quiet in a way that has nothing to do with sound.
Gabriel is her ex-husband.
I set down the spray bottle. Keep my face arranged.
Amber is Gabriel's ex-wife. Amber who left him. Amber who Rhiannon said he navigated painfully, the divorce Natasha mentioned once in passing with a careful look on her face that I didn't push on because it wasn't my business yet.
I look at Everly on the floor, still absorbed in her book, and do the math automatically, the way you do when something doesn't add up and your brain needs to confirm it. Six years old. Amber and Gabriel divorced ten years ago. A different husband. A family she built after. Everly is definitely not Gabriel’s secret child he didn’t know he had.
I let out a breath of relief.
I need to examine why I did that.
"Things ended between us after his parents passed," Amber says, her voice still light, more informational than emotional. Like she's sharing old weather. "It was a difficult time for everyone. But I've heard he's doing well now. He was always… you know, such a good man."
I think about Gabriel in the kitchen at Rhiannon's, the arm around his sister's shoulder, the way he moved through that house like someone who knows where he belongs. I think about the things he said the night we were together, the way he held space for my silence and pain. The way he didn’t rush me to calm down when the tears wouldn’t stop falling.
How he just let me feel it and sit in my pain.
He lost his parents and then his marriage immediately after. He’d mentioned those things in passing, the raising of his younger sister and becoming her guardian, but he never said it with anger or bitterness.
Amber’s right. He’s always been a good man.
"I wouldn't know," I say quietly, and the words have too much in them, but Amber isn't looking for subtext, so they land flat and thankfully, she doesn't notice.
She calls Everly back from the reading corner and Everly comes reluctantly, tucking the book back into the shelf with exaggerated care. At the door, Amber turns back with a smile.
"Any Valentine's Day plans?"
"Actually, yes." I pick up the broom again. "First date in a while. Someone I matched with online."
She smiles and laughs as she tucks Everly into her side. "That's exciting. I don't miss the apps, but first dates are still kind of fun. Good luck."
"Thank you."
I watch them go. Everly waves at me from under her mother's arm, big and enthusiastic, and I wave back and hold the smile until they've rounded the corner and I'm alone in the quiet of the classroom again. Then I lean the broom against the wall and just stand there for a second.
Gabriel lost his parents. And whatever broke between him and Amber broke during that, in the devastating way that grief can pull a marriage apart at the seams if both people aren't pulling in the same direction.
I know something about that kind of fracture, about the way pain can make you incompatible with the person standing right next to you, about surviving something that should have brought you closer but didn't.
I wonder if he knows she's back in town. She said she reached out, so he must.
I wonder how that felt for him to hear from her. This time because she needs help with a house she purchased with her new husband. If he accepted the job, he’ll have to see the child she had that isn’t his. The family she built without him.
I wonder if that’ll hurt for him.
I wonder if he's spending Valentine's Day alone.
I grab my phone and fire off a quick email to Amber with my office hours, then tuck it back into my bag next to the construction paper heart with the backwards E.
I do not text Gabriel. That was not the arrangement. Two weeks ago, was always just about the sex. About letting my walls down and putting myself back out there.
I collect my things, turn off the lights, and lock the classroom door shut behind me.
Tonight, I have a date with a nice, normal man who has no idea who I am or what I've been through or how much work it's taken me to get to the point of even agreeing to this. Chris from the construction company with the good smile and a hard career won’t know about the way I cried in the shower with Gabriel when he helped me orgasm. When he showed me that my mind and heart might still be a little broken, but my body isn’t.
It should be fine.
It's going to be fine.
I walk to my car telling myself this with the conviction of someone who almost believes it.
I think about Gabriel’s hands the entire time I get ready instead.