Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Zachary
The relief is a tidal wave, washing away the strain.
I hang there for a moment, suspended between the rafters and the ground, just breathing.
Below me, the gym is a colorful chaos of ropes, harnesses, and people moving with a focused grace.
It’s a world of solvable problems. You see the route, you figure out the moves, you execute. Simple. Satisfying.
I let go and the auto-belay catches me, lowering me in a slow, controlled descent.
My feet touch the padded floor with a soft thud.
I unclip the heavy carabiner from my harness, the adrenaline ebbing away, leaving behind the pleasant hum of exhaustion.
I wander over to the bench where I dumped my stuff, pulling my water bottle from my bag and draining half of it in a few long swallows.
I grab my phone, just to check the time. That’s when it buzzes.
It’s a notification from LinkedIn. A part of my brain, the part that’s still wired for the corporate world I left behind, clicks into alert mode. I swipe it open without thinking.
And there it is. A press release from my old company. A cheerful, professionally shot photo of a man named Marcus smiling in my old office, the one with the view of Venice Beach. The headline reads: “A New Era of Product Innovation: Marcus Thorne Promoted to Chief Product Officer.”
I sink onto the bench. Marcus. He was my Director of User Experience.
Capable, I guess. Ambitious. He’s standing there, in front of my whiteboard, wearing a smug grin that feels like a personal insult.
The post is littered with the jargon I used to breathe.
Synergy. Scalability. Disrupting the paradigm.
It feels like a language from another life. A life I willingly torched.
For the last two days, a knot of dread has been tightening in my gut, and this notification just cinched it into a stranglehold.
It isn’t that I miss the job. I don’t. I remember the 80-hour weeks leading up to that disastrous systems upgrade.
I remember the burnout that felt like a physical illness, the hollow feeling of climbing a ladder just because it was there.
But as much as I didn’t enjoy it, I understood it.
I knew the rules. I knew how to win. It was a stable, predictable world, and I was good at it.
Teaching is… not that. Teaching is a complete unknown.
The classroom hours I clocked for my certification suddenly feel like a joke.
A handful of days observing a seasoned professional and teaching a few pre-approved lessons feels like trying to learn to swim by reading a book about it.
Now, the first day of school is looming, a concrete date on the calendar, and the closer it gets, the more I feel like an imposter.
I can picture it so clearly: a room full of kids, thirty sets of eyes, all staring at me.
Expectant. Waiting for me to be the adult, the authority, the one who knows things.
What if I open my mouth and nothing comes out?
What if my lessons are boring? What if that one kid—there’s always one—sees right through me and decides I’m a fraud?
What if this whole cross-country move, this entire career change, was a catastrophic mistake?
I think of Maya and the other teachers I’ll be working with.
Even at the faculty meeting, surrounded by the groans about sharing trailers, there was an underlying current of excitement in the room, a shared energy I couldn’t quite connect with.
I want to love teaching. I fell in love with the idea of it when I was on an afternoon walk in my neighborhood in Los Angeles.
I passed by an elementary school and saw a class of kids tending to seedlings, so quiet and full of awe.
I want to be that teacher who looked so genuinely proud.
But I don’t feel that yet. All I feel is a rising tide of panic.
And the most terrifying question of all whispers in the back of my mind: What if I never do?
“Zachary! Killing the overhang, man!”
I jolt, pulled from the downward spiral. Dave Anders, the head of the science department, walks over, dropping his bag next to mine. He grins as he bends over and pulls out a pair of worn-out sneakers. He’s tall and friendly, with an easy smile and energy that seems boundless.
“Hey, Dave. Yeah, that last route was a beast.” I try to force a smile, hoping it looks more convincing than it feels.
“You made it look easy,” he says, sitting down at the other end of the bench. “I tapped out halfway up. My grip strength is shot for the day.”
We change out of our climbing shoes, and I focus on the simple, physical task, grateful for the distraction from the toxic churn of my own thoughts. I shove my harness and chalk bag into my pack, zipping it up with more force than necessary.
“Well,” Dave says, slinging his own bag over his shoulder. “I've earned a beer after that pitiful performance. Heading over to Get Stuffed for happy hour. You in?”
His invitation is a lifeline. A beer. A normal, social activity. A way to stop thinking. A way to feel like the person I was before I saw that picture of Marcus in my old office, living the life I so desperately wanted to escape but now can’t stop questioning.
“Yeah,” I say, the word coming out quicker than I expected. “Yeah, absolutely. I'm in.”
The smell of yeast and garlic hits me the moment Dave pushes open the door to Get Stuffed.
It’s a small place, apparently it used to be just takeout and a few rickety tables, but Dave mentioned they recently knocked down a wall and expanded into the space next door.
There’s even a long, polished bar that gleams under beautiful pendant lights.
It looks good. A definite upgrade from the town’s only other bar, which always smells faintly of stale beer and regret.
“Success,” Dave says, clapping me on the shoulder. “Grab us a table before the post-work crowd descends. I’ll get the beers. What do you want?”
“You grab the table, I’ll get the drinks,” I offer. “My treat. It’s the least I can do for you dragging me out of my own head.”
He grins. “In that case, I’ll take whatever local IPA they’ve got on tap. I’ll find us a booth in the back.”
I nod and watch him navigate through the sparse crowd toward the newly upholstered booths.
The anxiety from the gym, the ghost of Marcus Thorne in my old office, still clings to me, but the simple mission—get beer—is a welcome anchor.
I make my way to the bar, scanning the chalkboard of draft options.
There are a dozen choices, a surprising variety for Pine Island.
I’m trying to decide between a porter and an ale when a voice next to me says, “Just a glass of the house white, please.”
I know that voice. I turn, and my brain short-circuits.
It’s Maya. She’s standing right there, rummaging through her purse, her back mostly to me.
She’s wearing the same sundress from the night we met, the one I told her she probably bought in an Italian market.
Her silky brown hair is tucked behind one ear, revealing the silver seashell earring I’d also invented a story about.
My heart gives a solid, inconvenient thump against my ribs. Of all the people, in the only other bar in this tiny town. The universe has a sick sense of humor.
She turns from the bar, a glass of wine now in hand, and her eyes land on me.
They widen for a fraction of a second. It’s not a look of horror, or even annoyance.
It’s just pure, unadulterated surprise. And maybe, if I’m not just projecting my own hopes, she doesn’t look entirely unhappy to see me. That’s all the encouragement I need.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I say, aiming for casual and probably landing somewhere near ‘guy who just saw a ghost.’
“Zachary,” she says, a small smile playing on her lips. “The astronaut.”
“Maya,” I chuckle. “The world traveler.”
“Something like that,” she says, her gaze dropping to her wine glass.
There’s a beat of awkward silence, the space between us charged with the memory of that night on the beach.
I have to say something, do something, before she just walks away and I’m left standing here with my rapidly dissolving courage.
“Dave and I just grabbed a booth,” I say, gesturing vaguely behind me. “We were just grabbing a beer to celebrate… surviving another day of pre-planning. You should join us.”
I watch her hesitate, weighing the offer. I’m fully expecting a polite refusal, a plausible excuse. But then she surprises me. “Okay,” she says with a small nod. “Sure.”
Relief washes over me. As I order two IPAs, she speaks again, her voice softer. “Listen, about yesterday,” she starts, and I turn back to her. “In the trailer. I’m sorry if I came on a little strong.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“No, I do,” she insists. “I’m just… I’m really passionate about teaching, and I don’t always handle sudden changes well.
Especially when it comes to my classroom.
It’s my space, you know?” She takes a sip of her wine.
“I had this whole plan for a full wall mural based on local folklore, and another for a hanging sculpture garden made from recycled materials. The wall space was key.”
As she talks, I see the passionate teacher she is, one who thinks in colors and concepts. Whose passion makes my own feel so new and fragile.
“That sounds amazing,” I say, and I mean it. I grab the beers, and we walk over to the booth where Dave is scrolling through his phone. He looks up and smiles as we approach.
“Look who I found,” I say, sliding into the booth across from him. Maya sits next to me, leaving a respectable but not unfriendly distance between us. They smile and exchange pleasantries.
“Maya was just telling me about some of the plans she had for her classroom,” I say to Dave, before turning back to her. “Maybe we can still make some of them happen. The trailer has that high ceiling, right? The hanging garden could definitely still work.”
Maya’s eyes light up just a little. “You think? I was worried about the weight.”
“We could use lighter materials. And I’m pretty sure I saw some support beams we could anchor to,” I offer, the problem-solving part of my brain—the part that used to build wireframes and user flows—kicking into gear.
Dave listens for a while, chiming in with a few good-natured comments, but I can tell he sees what’s happening. He seems like a good guy, and he’s not blind. He drains the last few drops of his IPA and slides out of the booth.
“Well, folks, this has been great, but I promised my wife I’d be home to help with dinner,” he says, giving me a look that’s equal parts knowing and amused. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
I barely register his departure, my attention fully captured by the conversation with Maya. Seeming to forget her earlier hesitation, Maya has pulled a bullet journal and a little case of colored pens from her bag.
“Okay,” she says, clicking a green pen. “So, ‘Hanging Sculpture Garden.’ What kind of anchors are we talking about?”
We spend the next hour lost in our plans.
We talk about mobiles that demonstrate principles of physics, murals that incorporate biological diagrams, projects that bleed the line between art and science.
She’s brilliant, her mind racing with creative energy.
And I realize, to my surprise, that I’m buzzing with it too.
She writes everything down in her neat, looping script, creating color-coded lists and sketching little diagrams in the margins.
I find myself utterly captivated by the way she organizes chaos into beauty.
It’s adorable. It’s also, unexpectedly, sexy.
My gaze drifts from the vibrant page to her hand, then up her arm to her face.
She’s leaning forward, chewing on her lower lip in concentration, and a lock of her brown hair falls across her cheek.
She pushes it back, and the movement exposes the long, pale line of her neck.
And suddenly, I’m far less interested in the logistics of hanging paper-maché planets from the ceiling.
All I can think about is her, and that kiss on the beach, and the fervent, undeniable desire for a repeat performance.
She finishes writing a note, looks up, and her eyes lock with mine.
And for a single, breathtaking second, I see it.
I swear I see it. A flash of heat in her hazel eyes, a flicker of the same raw attraction that’s currently making a mess of my insides.
My mouth goes dry. I’m about to say something—I don’t know what, something stupid, probably—but the moment shatters.
Her expression closes off. The light in her eyes is gone, replaced by a guarded look. She glances at her watch as if it just bit her.
“Oh, wow, look at the time,” she says, her voice suddenly brittle. She swallows the last of her wine in one gulp and starts shoving her journal and pens back into her bag with frantic energy. “I have to go. I’m late for a… a charity knit-a-thon.”
A charity knit-a-thon. It’s the flimsiest, most ridiculous excuse I’ve ever heard, and she knows it. She slides out of the booth, avoiding my eyes.
“But I’ll see you tomorrow,” she adds quickly. “To decorate. This was… this was really helpful. Thanks.”
And then she’s gone, a blur of sundress and hurried apologies, leaving me alone in the booth.
The scent of her perfume, something light and citrusy, hangs in the air.
I stare after her, a mix of disappointment and bewildered amusement churning in my gut.
One minute, we were connecting, planning, almost…
something. The next, she was running for the hills.
I lean back against the vinyl seat, letting out a slow breath.
School starts in a few days. I’m going to be sharing a small, enclosed space with her for eight hours a day.
And all I can think about is how to get her to stop running.
This crush isn’t just a crush anymore. It’s a full-blown complication, and I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to rein it in.