Chapter 37
SAWYER
I stop my pacing to glance at the clock. Another ten minutes go by before I decide she isn’t coming.
I trudge over to my desk and sit down, head bowed into my hands.
What did she mean by wanting to be professional?
What are the parameters? These are the things I should’ve asked her this morning, ignoring the call to the front office that turned out to be a petty argument over parking spots between the music and gym teachers.
Consequently, I spent a large portion of my day driving myself up the wall.
There’s a swift rap on my door, and Brie’s voice floats in. “Sawyer?”
I stand so fast I knock my knee on my desk drawer. “Yeah,” I say in a strained voice, rubbing at the pain.
Brie comes in, pink cheeked and looking frazzled, and I don’t know how I was able to stand not seeing her the whole day. Every instinct shouts at me to go to her, press her body against the door, and show her how much I missed her, but I force my feet to stay put.
“Henry Kim’s grandma wasn’t on the approved pickup list. It was a whole thing,” she says, waving her hand.
Her eyes meet mine, and they change. I feel the moment she puts up an invisible forcefield around herself.
The important thing, I tell myself, is that she’s here.
“We need to talk,” I say at the same time she says, “I have something to say.”
My stomach roils, but I force myself to wait for her to speak.
She swallows as she looks at the ground. “I want to tell you why I came here mid-year.”
My jaw drops. That’s . . . not what I expected.
A lightness takes over me. She wants to tell me something I suspect she hasn’t told anyone.
I’ve been waiting for her to open up to me.
I laid myself bare, told her every shameful detail of my past. And it was all worth it because now she’s going to open up too, let me in.
I lean forward, gesturing to the chairs across from my desk. “I want to hear it.”
She glances at me before dropping her gaze to her hands.
“I was at Everett Academy for a few years. Even though it was stuffy, full of traditions and stuck in their ways, I liked it there. I think they liked me. It was a private school, so the pay was great, I always had materials for the classroom, there were more school holidays than usual. I even taught at the summer camps.”
I nod. Most of this isn’t news to me, Everett Academy is one of the best private schools in the country, right alongside Groton and Exeter.
Her lips press together. “There was this teacher. He was about ten years older than me, and he’d been there from the start of his career, almost twenty years. He was respected and had Everett’s version of tenure. Christopher.”
Christopher. Already, I hate him. My heart clenches at the turn this is taking, but I stay utterly silent, not daring to move a muscle.
Brie tells me how it started innocuously. They went out barely more than a month when she decided she didn’t really like him.
“What I didn’t know,” she continues, “is he wasn’t actually getting divorced.”
My gut corkscrews.
Her voice wavers. “He was in the process of moving back in with his wife the whole time we dated.” She laughs humorlessly. “They were trying to reconcile. It finally made sense why he kept hearing of these great new restaurants that just happened to be across the city.”
How could anyone want to hide Brie? This cheating piece of shit Christopher, that’s who.
“Well,” she goes on. “I didn’t know this, I always stayed out of the politics of the school, but his wife turned out to be this really powerful board member. And she was not nice.”
Her eyes grow shiny as she tells me about the ugly aftermath of him twisting the truth to his wife. The rumors that spread about not just Brie and the scumbag, but falsities about her and other teachers, dads of students. Her persecution, thinly veiled as a meeting.
She avoids eye contact as if she’s ashamed.
“I was told I could stay for the rest of the school year, but my contract wouldn’t be renewed.
I applied for jobs over winter break, but I figured the break would mellow everyone out, that I’d finish out the year at Everett.
But things got way worse on the first day back.
” Her voice lowers to a whisper. “I was a pariah.”
I’m grinding my molars now.
She finally meets my eyes. “After school that first day, I had a missed call offering me to sub the third grade class here in Blue Ridge. I didn’t think twice, just put in my notice and started packing. It wasn’t professional, but I had to get out of there.”
I want to break something. Of course she had to leave for her own sanity.
Nasty rumors? Whispers literally behind her back?
An entire community utterly against her?
It must have been deja vu, the exact same shit that happened to her when she last lived here.
Except this time, Brie was completely alone.
She hugs her arms tight around herself, her words hanging in the air between us.
White hot fury thrums through my veins. I stand and pace in front of her.
I hate it.
I hate what she went through, I hate the weasel who caused her pain, and I absolutely hate she’s making herself smaller because of it. My anger boils over again at Christopher. I even hate his name.
Brie wrings her hands again, eyes shifty, and I realize I haven’t said a word since she started talking. I resist the urge to touch her and stuff my hands in my pockets.
“Brie.” My voice is unintentionally dark and gruff. I stop pacing and brace myself on the arms of her chair. “I’ll ruin him.”
Her eyes cut to me and she laughs, a wet sound between relief and amusement. “While I’d pay any amount of money to see him ‘ruined,’ he’s not worth your energy.”
My fingers twitch, but I keep my mouth glued shut as I count to three in my head.
This isn’t about how I feel.
“Okay,” I say, tabling my rage for the moment. “What do you need?”
She nods, like she’s gearing herself up to say something she rehearsed. “I need us to be professional at school. I don’t want to give anyone a reason to accuse me of . . . anything.”
I eye her for a moment before standing upright. If that’s all, I’m happy to give it to her. But does this mean she thinks I might betray her like Christopher did? My chest tightens and I want to throw up. I’d never.
Then I remember how I acted when she first arrived. Unpredictable. She didn’t know I was fighting my own feelings for her. It probably messed with her mind, made her wary. Not to mention our twisted history.
And that son of a bitch did such a number on Brie, I can’t believe she ever gave me a chance. She might not have if it wasn’t for the blizzard.
A cold fear chills me to my bones. I could’ve lost her before this even started.
I can’t ruin this. I’ll do anything to make her feel safe with me. But how? How do I have Brie feeling safe after everything she’s been through?
“Okay,” I say. “I know it might be hard to believe, given” —I let out a frustrated sigh at my younger self— “given who I used to be. But I’ll never hurt you.”
“I do believe that,” she says quickly. And even though she says it without hesitation, I can’t help feeling like she’s holding herself back just a little. Even though she’s fully justified in it, it still sends a pang of helplessness through me.
I fight the urge to pull her to me and hold her, kiss her until she knows how much she means to me, that I would never, could never, hurt her.
But that would prove the exact opposite after everything she just revealed. She asked for one thing, so I keep myself planted firmly against my desk, maintaining the distance between us. All I want right now is to prove she can trust me.
“Good,” I say hoarsely. “Because it’s true. I will never hurt you.”
The air shifts between us, and she sighs. “I believe you.”
I quirk a smile, peering at her. “You could tell me right now how disgusting you find me, and I swear it’ll never affect your job.”
She exhales on a laugh, and something like mirth dances in her eyes. “Oh, I could never insult my boss.”
“Please,” I tease back, “I’ll even reward you for it.” For the first time all day, my muscles start to relax.
She lets out a loud mock-sigh of relief. “Good, because just the sight of you makes me want to throw up.”
“Full marks on your performance review.”
“Also,” she continues, “the sound of your voice makes me gag.”
“Let me find my checkbook,” I say, “I need to write you a bonus.”
“Don’t get me started on how you smell,” she says, holding her nose with exaggerated revulsion.
“Here,” I hand her the nameplate on my desk, “take my job. I insist.”
“And that cabin of yours,” she says. “So gauche.”
“That’s too far. You’re fired.”
She rewards me with the best sound in the world, her laughter.