Chapter Sixteen #2
It’s a bit of a game they play—subtle touches stolen in the teachers’ lounge and between their classes. Little things that wouldn’t go so far as to get them in trouble should they be caught, but not so innocent that their students are blind to their affections.
To her (and she suspects, Merryweather’s) disappointment, their relationship had quickly become one the school’s favorite topics.
Her students would often teasingly offer to pass notes to her husband, and every Friday there always seemed to be an inquiry on whether she and Khiran had any romantic plans for the weekend.
Anna can’t quite say she minds it too terribly.
Even if they’ve become a bit of a joke on campus, it feels more friendly than anything.
Just a few weeks ago, she had a student confess that she thought it was sweet that they still loved each other despite working together.
Still, Anna tries to focus on teaching her students French and not encourage it.
Khiran, of course, has no such reservations.
Some days he sends his students over with little mundane gifts like erasers with little hearts penciled in at the corners or tiny stems of bluebell flowers he plucked from the track and field on his off period.
The week he sent along little bits of poetry scribbled on scrap pieces of binder paper had her entire class of teenage girls swooning and giggling the entire period.
She had to forbid him from sending more, just so she could get them to focus on her lessons instead of her marriage.
She knows for a fact that he wasn’t at all sorry, but she also might have saved those little scraps of paper, too, so perhaps she wasn’t really either. Even if it meant suffering Principal Merryweather’s reprimands the next day.
Though, she supposes taunting their employer has become a game in and of itself to Khiran.
Her husband’s subtle jab at retribution for all the hours Merryweather has complained to him about his failing marriage.
He doesn’t say it, but considering his distaste for the man, Anna suspects he had a lot more to say about her gender in general. None of it, she expects, is good.
“I thought the plan was to save before picking up and going to another town,” she says, keeping her voice low. “At the rate you’re going, Merryweather will be happy to chase us off the continent himself.”
“Merry and I have come to an understanding,” he says, too cryptic to trust.
“Which is?”
His voice drops, the curl of his mouth turning wicked. “He keeps me on till the end of the year, or I tell his wife and the entire school he’s been having an affair with his neighbor.”
Anna’s head swivels to face him. “What?! How long have you known about this?”
“Since I caught her bringing him a plate of cookies.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re having an affair!” she hisses.
“Merry is one of the most miserable human beings on this side of the continent. Why else would she bring him cookies? Homemade at that. I might have snatched one while he wasn’t looking—don’t worry.
Yours are better.” He looks entirely too proud of himself.
“Besides, you should have seen his face when I threatened to expose him. I didn’t know people could go so purple. ”
Anna brings a hand to her mouth, not entirely sure if she’s hiding her horror or her amusement. She has to fight the urge to glance at the man in question. “You blackmailed him?!”
The grin he flashes is crooked and sharp.
It reminds Anna of the god he once was—someone who plucked and pulled at strings as effortlessly as a pianist plays keys.
She supposes he still is, even if it is on the small scale that is their mortal lives.
Somehow, she can’t fault him for it—for taking this small amount of control back.
But perhaps that’s just her dislike for Mr. Merry speaking.
Mr. O’Connelly backs into the auditorium, wheeling the school’s sole television on a cart across the wooden floors.
The students whoop, clapping, and the red-headed man pauses long enough to take an exaggerated bow.
The janitor polishes his nails on his coveralls, just under his name tag as he basks in the applause before continuing to roll the cart to the middle of the center of the floor.
“Where do you want her, Mr. Principal, sir?”
Merryweather’s thick jaw clenches around words he doesn’t dare speak in front of the students.
Jack O’Connelly is the only one who refuses to call him by name (Anna suspects it’s because he’s the one who dubbed Mr. Merry to begin with).
“There’s fine,” he answers, lips forced into a smile and words slipping between his teeth.
Mr. O’Connelly gets to work plugging it in and setting up the antenna.
Around him, the volume rises as he works—excited chatter filling the empty spaces of the large room.
A low static sounds from the television as he moves the long metal rabbit ears until, slowly, the hum of static is replaced by voices, and the fuzz on the screen sharpens into grainy black and white images of lunar craters and voices break through the static.
Within seconds, the voices that once filled the auditorium go silent. Anna leans in close, her eyes never leaving the screen as she whispers in his ear. “Do you think they’ll really do it? Walk on the moon?”
Khiran stares at the picture, his fingers lacing with hers.
“I think it will either be a success or another tragedy and nothing in between,” he murmurs, lacing their fingers.
Anna would chastise him, but she’s fairly certain there’s not a single pair of eyes that aren’t glued to the screen. “Either way, we’re watching history.”
For the first ten minutes, they watch as the broadcasters show snippets of the reel she and Khiran watched that morning before cutting to the NASA control room.
When the first live footage comes in, the picture is upside down before it’s corrected moments later.
Then Neil Armstrong comes down the ladder, his fuzzy form in the shadow of the lunar module.
She listens as he says the words that will be remembered by the world and recognized for generations.
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Khiran stares at the screen, eyes wide and lips parted in breathless laughter. “The moon, Anna. There are humans walking on the moon, right now, and we’re watching it.”
In that moment, Anna is taken back to those alley streets in Delhi. Only, this time, it’s him who wears wonder as visibly as if it were colored powder. She’s never seen him wear such an expression, has never watched awe and amazement mingle into something that almost looks like hope.
She has known him for nearly a millennia but has only spent decades at his side.
Anna mourns all the moments she’s missed— regrets that their history has been built more on the world’s tragedies and so few of its triumphs.
Did his lips part around an open smile the first time he heard a faceless voice on a radio?
Did his eyes shine with questions when he first watched a plane take flight?
Silently, she makes a promise to herself to memorize this moment—both the achievement of man and the wonder in her lover’s expression.
To hold it close to her heart, so she will never forget what she’s fighting to keep.
They’re safe for now, enough for even Khiran to relax into a mortal life, but they both know Marcia won’t give up the hunt.
Even if she wanted to, The First would demand their capture from his throne—too insulted to think of letting them go unpunished.
On the seat of the scarred wooden bleachers, Anna kisses him and doesn’t care who’s watching.
She doesn’t look at the night sky the same way after that. Doesn’t see the moon and the stars as something out of reach and unattainable.