Chapter 36
ALEX
Just as I’m pulling my phone out of my pocket to text Emilia to ask when she’ll get here, I have an incoming call from her.
“Bad news,” I say as soon as I answer. “I didn’t have time to make paella because my meeting ran long. But I will order from wherever you want me to. As long as you want pizza, because I just promised Ryder we’d have that tonight.”
She doesn’t laugh, which is weird. “Are you…um. Are you with Ryder now? Can you go somewhere private? So we can talk for a bit?”
“Ohhhh. I didn’t realize it was that kind of call. Give me a minute.”
I hear sniffling from her end as I leave Ryder in the kitchen and go down the hall to my office. “You getting a cold?”
She makes a sound like a hiccup.
I shut the door to my office. “Okay. I’m in private. Are you naked and lying down?”
“Alex…”
“Topless and standing up?”
She sniffles again. And I’m now realizing it’s not because she has a cold. “I don’t know if there’s a good way to say this. Or a better way to say it. I can’t tell you this if I’m looking at you because…”
Shit. This can’t be good.
“I wouldn’t be able to.”
She’s crying. Really crying.
“Baby. What’s wrong?”
It takes her a moment to catch her breath. I’m used to her needing to catch her breath for very different reasons. I hate hearing her like this.
“I can’t come for dinner. I’m sorry. I can’t be with you—the way we’ve been with each other. Not until the end of the school year.”
“What happened?”
She tells me about being called to the principal’s office.
About Miss Farrell overhearing Ryder and Cheyenne talking about us.
Fucking Miss Farrell. Like she didn’t try everything to get me to ask her out when she was Ryder’s teacher.
I mean, she literally asked me out once, and when I said no, she was like, “Right. Next year, then.” No. Not next year.
“Fuck Miss Farrell,” I blurt out.
“It’s not just her. It’s Mrs. Woodard. The principal. She strongly encouraged me to nip this in the bud. Her words. Before more kids and teachers and parents find out. Because they will find out.”
“So what if they do? You can’t get fired for this. Can you?”
“Not literally, no.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Alex. I explained this to you before we started…you know. Imagine you were hired to direct something, when you were a young director, and something happened that affected the way people in your business thought about you. That maybe they already thought you were too young and na?ve or irresponsible to handle the job. Even if you didn’t lose your job, you wouldn’t be able to do it as well.
Or it would affect your credibility. It matters. ”
Fuck. She’s right. I was a young director who had to fight for credibility in New York. I get it. I don’t like it. But I get it.
“I do love you. And I want to be with you. And I’m so sorry, but if I don’t do this for myself, I’ll always wonder if I should have. And I don’t want to resent you if I choose you over me.”
“I don’t want you to choose me over you. I want you to choose us. Let me talk to the principal.”
She takes a deep, shaky breath. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Alex. I need her and my co-workers and my students and their parents to know that being the best, most responsible teacher I can be is my priority.”
“I still don’t see how dating me makes you an irresponsible teacher. It hasn’t.”
“No. It hasn’t. But I’m a young, single teacher. There’s the adults and their perceptions of me, and there’s my kids. Adults can be judge-y assholes. I should know. Kids get jealous. What if other kids in the class—besides Cheyenne—find out and they start to treat Ryder badly?”
“I’ll kick their asses. Problem solved.”
I can hear air blowing out her nostrils, so at least she laughed a little.
“I don’t want to stop seeing you, Emilia.”
“I don’t want to stop seeing you, Alex. But I have to. For now. I can’t ask you to wait until June. I know it’s not fair. But please. I don’t want to lose you.”
I hate that she thinks she could lose me.
I hate that it feels like I’m losing her.
I hate everything right now.
“Alex? Are you there?”
I exhale slowly. “I think you’ll find that I’m always here for you, Miss Stiles.”
And she’s crying again.
“So we aren’t going to see each other at all until then?” I ask.
“You know that if I see you I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”
“Yeah. I do. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“I don’t know what else to do. Besides not see you. Or hear your voice. Or text with you, because you’re such a sexy texter.”
“I can tame my sexy textiness.”
She barks out an adorable, snot-filled laugh. “I don’t think you can.”
“Shit. Ryder isn’t going to like this.”
“I’m not going to change the way I am with him in class. I will be very conscious of how I treat him.”
“It’s not that. He really wanted us to be together. You know that.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” There’s a long pause, and then she says, “I should hang up now. Or else I never will… Okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. But yeah.”
“Please don’t be mad at me. I mean, I understand if you are.”
“I’ll see you at the end of the semester, Miss Stiles. I’ll still love you in June.”
I hear her crying again, and I do her a favor and hang up.
Fuck.
“Fuck.” I kick the metal trash bin that’s by my desk. It’s almost satisfying, for a second, when it hits the bookshelf with a loud clang. It’s almost satisfying, for a second, when I pick up the three-hole-punch and throw it down on the carpet.
But when I hear “Dad?” outside the door, I feel like shit.
“Hey. It’s okay. I just kicked something. Be right out.”
Fuck.
When I go back to the kitchen, Ryder’s sitting at the table, waiting for me.
He looks like he’s expecting a monster to walk in.
I probably shouldn’t have let him watch my That’s So Wizard!
episodes. They weren’t scary, but maybe you’re never old enough to see your dad as a werewolf. Even a Disney Channel werewolf.
“Hi,” I say. “What kind of pizza should we order?”
“Don’t we have to wait for Miss Stiles?”
“She can’t come over, actually.” I take a seat next to him, scrubbing my face.
“Does she not want pizza again? We can have something else.”
“It’s not that, buddy…”
He looks at me, blinking, waiting for an explanation.
I blame myself for this. I pushed too hard.
We should have tried to hide this from Ryder.
But I don’t like keeping a secret from my son.
Especially when it’s something that I know would make him so happy.
And I didn’t want to tell him to keep this a secret because that’s too much pressure to put on a little kid.
“You know how Miss Stiles has been coming over and hanging out with us since winter break?”
“Yeah. It’s fun. She needs to have more fun.”
“I agree. But the thing is, teachers aren’t really supposed to have fun with the parents of their students after school.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“I mean, I don’t think it’s a problem. But sometimes when other people—like other kids in your class or their parents—find out that the teacher is hanging out with the parent of one of the students…
They might think that Miss Stiles is going to give you special treatment in class.
Or they might think that she’s not taking her teaching job seriously enough.
Which isn’t true. But sometimes people get the wrong idea. ”
“But she definitely does not give me special treatment. She should. But she doesn’t. And she’s too serious.”
“I know. But here’s the thing—Miss Stiles is worried that there’s going to be a problem like that if she keeps hanging out with us after school. So she isn’t going to for a while.”
“Why?”
“Because she got called to the principal’s office. Did you tell Cheyenne about us? About Miss Stiles coming to our house?”
I watch as he processes twenty different thoughts and emotions, and he ends up with guilt, and that’s what kills me.
“I told her to keep it a secret. Did she tell someone? I won’t be friends with her anymore if she did!”
“She didn’t tell anyone. I don’t think. Someone overheard you guys talking. Anyway. That’s not the point. The point is—you and I are having pizza tonight. Just the two of us.”
He scrubs his little face, same as he’s seen me do. “Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Not exactly.”
“Is Miss Stiles?”
“Not really. We just can’t hang out together for a while. Until the end of the school year.”
“How long is that?”
“It’s the end of January now. This semester is over in June. Count it out.”
He counts out on his fingers. “February, March, April, May, June. That’s forever!”
“I know. It feels like it. But it’s not.”
“It’s not fair.”
“I know.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No.”
“Is Miss Stiles?”
“No. Nobody’s mad at you.”
“Are you sad?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“I’m mad.”
“Don’t be mad at Cheyenne.”
His lower lip is quivering, and I already know the next thing he says is going to break my heart. “I’m mad at me.” He runs off.
He’ll go to his room and lie facedown on his bed and cry. I’ll order pizza and go sit with him for half an hour until he realizes how hungry he is. We’ll eat in front of the TV, and he won’t want to talk about this anymore. But he’ll still be mad and sad.
Everyone wants to do what’s best for the students, but what about the one student who cares about this the most?