Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Maya
My notebook lies forgotten at the far end of the table, a closed and distant thought.
I pushed it there to make room for the ridiculous amount of food we ordered: a basket of buffalo wings, a plate of loaded potato skins, a tangled pile of onion rings, and crispy fried pickles.
We‘ve been grazing for the last hour, the easy rhythm of talking and eating settling over us like a comfortable blanket.
The cool night air feels good on my skin, a welcome antidote to the stuffy, overheated classrooms we inhabit all day.
We landed on a lesson plan for the immediate future, something simpler than my clay idea.
We’re going to do a project on sound waves.
The kids will pick their favorite song, and Zachary will help them map out the peaks and valleys of the sound waves on a long sheet of paper.
Then, with me, they’ll paint a landscape or a scene that they feel has the same tempo, the same energy, as the music and the waves.
It’s a good plan, a solid marriage of art and science.
We’re still going to do the clay lesson, though.
He was too excited by the idea to let it go.
But he made me promise I’d help him make a vase, too.
“It’s only fair,” he’d said with a grin.
“You can’t be the only one who gets to play with mud.
” I agreed, and a secret, ridiculous thrill went through me.
My brain, completely against my will, immediately conjured an absurd vision of us in the empty art room after hours, the lights dim, his hands covering mine on a spinning pottery wheel.
I try to banish the iconic scene from Ghost, but the fantasy clings to the edges of my mind, both mortifying and embarrassingly appealing.
The longer we sit here, the more I feel that strong, familiar pull toward him, the one I’ve been so diligently trying to suppress in the fluorescent-lit hallways of school and in our colorful shared classroom.
Maybe it’s being outside the context of work.
Maybe it’s being back here, at the place where our story, such as it is, began.
Whatever the reason, I can’t stop watching him.
My eyes keep tracing the shape of his mouth as he talks, catching on his bottom lip.
I watch his hands as he gestures, punctuating a story.
They’re good hands, strong and capable, with long fingers.
I remember how those hands gently held me when we kissed on the sand dune not far from this place, waking up parts of me that had been dormant for a long, long time.
A shiver, part memory and part longing, traces a path down my spine.
“—and then Liam just looks at me, dead serious,” Zachary is saying, pulling me from my reverie, “and says he’s naming his sedum plant ‘Sir Reginald Leafington the Third.’ The third! What happened to the first two?”
I laugh, a real, unforced sound. It feels good. “That’s first grade for you. They have entire worlds built in their heads we know nothing about.”
He smiles, and the patio light catches in his eyes.
He looks happy, relaxed. He looks like the man I met in this very place over the summer, not the serious science teacher who co-plans lessons with me.
I’m about to tell him about the bizarre names my students have given the classroom paintbrushes when my phone, lying face down on the table, buzzes violently against the metal.
When I flip it over, intending to ignore the call, the name on the screen makes my stomach clench. Mom.
Instantly, the good mood evaporates, replaced by a familiar, heavy dread.
I’ve been dodging her calls for a week, sending them to voicemail, hoping she’d get the hint.
Hoping my brother could handle it. The annual charity art auction for the gallery she sits on the board of is coming up, and she is absolutely insistent that I donate a piece.
But last night, my brother called me, his voice weary.
Mom wasn't budging. He told me he’d explained my position—that I’m a teacher, not a gallery artist, and I don't have the time or energy to produce a piece worthy of a high-end auction.
He said his husband, Peter, a doctor, had even gotten on the phone to explain again how critical it is for me to manage my stress levels, how a lupus flare-up could be triggered by exactly this kind of pressure.
None of it mattered. My mother is a force of nature, and she is determined.
The phone continues to buzz, a furious, insistent vibration. Zachary has paused his story, his brow furrowed in concern. “Everything okay?”
I’ve been having such a good night. A genuinely, surprisingly good night. And the sudden, unwelcome infiltration of my mother into this small bubble of peace leads me to a snap decision, born of pure frustration.
“Yeah, just one second,” I say, forcing a smile that feels brittle.
Zachary gets up. “I'm just going to use the restroom. Be right back.”
The moment he disappears inside, I pick up the phone and answer, my voice tight. “Hi, Mom.”
“Maya, finally! I was beginning to think something had happened to you. You don’t answer my calls, you don’t answer my texts. What am I supposed to think?” The accusation is immediate, the guilt trip already rolling downhill.
“I've been busy, Mom. The first month of school is insane, you know that.”
“I know your brother has been calling me,” she says, her tone sharp, completely ignoring my excuse. “And frankly, I think it's very immature of you, having him fight your battles for you. This is between us.”
My grip on the phone tightens. My knuckles are white. “It's not a battle. I've given you my answer. I can't do the auction this year. I'm sorry.”
“It's not about being sorry, it's about responsibility,” she lectures. “I told my friends on the board you'd be contributing. You're making me look foolish.”
“Looking foolish is better than me having a flare-up that lands me in the hospital,” I bite back, my voice low and shaking with anger. “Did Peter not explain that to you?”
“Oh, please. Don't be so dramatic.”
The rage that surges through me is hot and blinding.
Dramatic. She thinks I’m being dramatic about the disease that governs every single aspect of my life.
I’m about to say something I know I’ll regret when I see Zachary walking back toward the table.
His easy smile falters as he takes in my expression.
He’s beside me in an instant, his voice low.
“Hey.” He sees the fury and hurt in my eyes, the white-knuckled grip on my phone.
He doesn't ask who I'm talking to or what's wrong.
He just acts. He discreetly catches the eye of our server and makes a quick writing gesture with his hand in the air—the universal sign for the check, please.
To my mother, I just say, “I have to go.” I hang up before she can reply, dropping the phone onto the table with a clatter. My hands are shaking.
Zachary places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Why don't you go for a walk?” he suggests, his voice calm and steady. “Just around the parking lot, get some air. I'll take care of this.”
I look up at him, my throat tight. I’m too upset to argue, too exhausted to pretend I’m fine.
All I can do is nod, a jerky, grateful movement.
I push my chair back, grab my bag, and walk off the patio toward the quiet darkness of the parking lot, leaving him to pay for the food I suddenly can't stomach.
The splintery wood of the dock digs into my palms as I grip the railing, staring down at the dark water.
Each gentle lap of the water against the pilings feels like a small, mocking pat on the back.
A cold knot of dread is tightening in my stomach.
I keep replaying my mother’s voice in my head, the casual dismissal in her tone, and I wonder if this is it.
If this is the beginning of the end of my teaching career.
If my mother had her way, I would have already quit my little teaching job, as she likes to call it.
In her world, I would be spending my days in a sun-drenched studio, creating large, abstract canvases for her to show off to her friends.
I would donate pieces to her charity auctions, smiling graciously as wealthy patrons bid on my work, my name a tidy little asset in her social portfolio.
But I don't want that. I love teaching. I love the chaos and the crayon smells and the moment a child’s face lights up when they finally master a new technique, or when they love the way something they’ve worked so hard on turns out.
But this year has been hard. It feels like I’m fighting a battle on a dozen different fronts.
I feel like I’ve faced more backlash and complaints in the last three weeks than I did in the entire previous school year.
When Anne was principal, she was my champion.
She loved my innovative ideas, the way I brought in guest artists from the community, the way I made sure every student, regardless of their background, felt seen and reflected in the art we studied and created.
She would have shut down any parent complaint before it ever reached my inbox.
I knew things would be harder after she retired, but it’s not even October and I feel like I’m drowning.
I’ve already had to scrap four different lesson plans because they were deemed “too complex” or “not aligned with traditional fundamentals” by Trevor.
Anne trusted teachers, she never even made us turn our lesson plans in.
Not only does Trevor make us turn our plans in to him before we teach them, he goes over them with a microscope, as if he’s just looking for something wrong.