Chapter 2
brIE
My heart hammers in my chest as Sawyer leads me down the hall to my classroom for the next five months. At any second he could pick up right where he left off in his office and grill me about Everett Academy.
I wipe all the worry from my face. Sawyer is nothing if not astute, and he knew exactly what buttons to push when we were kids. If I was self-conscious about a haircut, Sawyer was loudly and insincerely complimenting me for it that day in the cafeteria.
If he picks up on any hint I don’t want to discuss my past employment, he’ll use that knowledge to ruin me.
So far though, Sawyer hasn’t pulled the rug out from under me. He’s playing the part of the consummate professional.
Probably he’s biding his time. There’s nothing stopping him from calling Everett Academy and asking for the story, then treating me like a hostile witness in a murder trial. Or worse, telling the entire town what a failure I turned out to be, to no one’s surprise.
Maybe I’d be smart to get ahead of it, control the narrative. Still, however he hears about it, I come off looking bad, and Christopher comes off looking sympathetic.
“Brie?!”
I jump a little as the familiar voice interrupts my thoughts. I whirl around, and my mouth drops open. This isn’t how I want either of my sisters to see me—greasy, without a good explanation, and under Sawyer’s thumb.
Mara, my little sister, is already striding toward me, an abandoned cart piled high with computers behind her.
My heart squeezes as I look up at her heart-shaped face, swallowing the guilt that threatens to rise in my throat, along with the painful, urgent need to keep her safe. I haven’t seen her in person in months.
“Brie! What are you doing here?” She tugs me into her and I breathe in her warm softness, a shock after dealing with Sawyer’s attitude.
My eyes dart toward him, and I pull away from my sister. I don’t want to lie to her, but I can’t tell her the whole truth. I can’t tell anyone. “Substituting.”
“Here? For how long?” Mara raises her eyebrows, but not at me. At Sawyer. Her gaze is pointed, and Sawyer quickly looks away.
Before I can wonder about it, I focus my attention on her. “Just for the semester. What’re you doing here?” Last time we spoke, she was still working her private cybersecurity job.
“I asked her to help secure the student laptops with age-appropriate apps,” Sawyer says tersely, looking back at Mara with narrowed eyes.
Mara’s lips curve into a smile, oddly playful in nature. “Yup. Ran into him last week. It was very . . . therapeutic.”
Now I know something’s up. Again, I glance at Sawyer, wondering what he’s hiding. Does he have a secret too? A muscle ticks in his jaw.
“We’ll let you get back to it, Mara,” he huffs, something like warning in his voice. He grabs a computer off her cart. “I need to issue Brie a login before I show her to her classroom.”
I stand there, looking between my sister and my enemy, wondering why a bully like Sawyer seems to be at Mara’s mercy.
“Shall we?” Sawyer’s clipped words are more order than suggestion.
He doesn’t touch me, but his hand hovers over the small of my back, guiding me toward the computer lab. I jerk toward the room just to create more space between us, even if part of me wants to dig my heels in and elbow him in the ribs.
“I’ll call you,” I say over my shoulder to Mara.
“Kids’ll be arriving soon,” Sawyer snarls, close enough that his warm breath tickles my neck.
I stand awkwardly as he opens the computer and leans over it on a desk.
As his long fingers move deftly over the keyboard, he brings me up to speed on day-to-day expectations for the third grade class.
The muscles of his forearms, on display with his rolled-up sleeves, pop as he types.
His eyes are focused on the screen, but his jaw is tight as he speaks, like he’s barely tolerating my existence.
While he explains the different applications I have access to, a light pitter patter of feet down the hall begins, gradually turning into a stampede.
Then I hear a sweet little gasp outside the door. “Aunt Brie?”
Sawyer pauses his monologue as tiny arms wrap around my torso.
“Hey, Dizzy Lizzie!” I hug my niece back tightly as warmth oozes through my chest.
How did this girl even recognize me? I haven’t seen her in person since last summer, when I joined her and my sisters for a Lake Michigan beach weekend. The love in her big green eyes, so similar to her mom’s, fills me with a painful kind of affection.
“Aunt Mara told me to come here for a surprise! What’re you doing here?” Her sweet little voice is filled with hope and wonder.
I don’t look at Sawyer despite his heavy, impatient attention on me.
“I moved here,” I say, keeping my tone light. “At least, for a little while.”
“Why?” she asks in that overly-familiar way kids have.
Thinking fast, I scrunch my nose and say, “Too cold in Indianapolis, so I’m substituting for the third grade class!”
She frowns. “I wish I was in third grade already.”
I boop her nose. “Next year, you will be.”
Her face lights up. “Will you have dinner with us?”
My face freezes in a tight smile. “Probably!”
Heavy guilt sinks into my stomach. I didn’t think any of this through, just drove all night like a maniac and showed up here.
She audibly gasps. “Will you live with us?! We can have dinner every night!”
“I’m not sure!” It comes out a tad shrill.
I wish Sawyer were anywhere else right now, but looking into Lizzie’s big hopeful eyes is like a breath of fresh air.
Smoothing her hair, I say, “I have to talk to your mom, but I’m getting tacos with a friend tomorrow, so I don’t know about dinner every night.”
She nods like she’s negotiating a business deal. “We can have dinner most nights.”
With a deep inhalation, I say, “Let me talk to your mom first. Now go to class, I’ll see you later. Love you.” I give her one last squeeze.
“Love you!” She turns to Sawyer. I gape as he lifts his hand up just out of her reach, and she jumps up to slap it. “Bye, Principal Strong!”
“Later, Lizzie.”
She runs out the door, giant mermaid backpack bouncing on her back. She smacks into a kid and screeches “Sorry!” before running at full speed again.
“She’s klutzy like her aunt,” I sing under my breath before I can filter myself.
When I glance over, Sawyer’s face is tense and red climbs up his neck. Probably the effort to not insult me within earshot of a bunch of kids is causing his insides to melt.
As he bends to hover over the computer again, I notice the pattern on his tie for the first time as it dangles in front of him. Little rubber ducks.
What?
Shutting the laptop, he gestures for me to follow him out of the computer lab, and points in the direction we came from. “In case you forgot, the gym and cafeteria are back that way.”
He leads me toward the junction where all the colorful hallways meet. Red for Pre-K through first, blue for second and third, and yellow for fourth and fifth. As we approach, I tense up, remembering what else is here.
Pointing, he says, “Of course, you recall the library.”
“Yup. I remember.”