Chapter Two—Andy
Six Months Later…
I watched Michael wheel his suitcase toward the airport lobby. I felt a mixture of relief, disgust, and sadness as I watched him walk away. How could I have missed it? How could I have been so wrong about him? I heard someone honk their horn at me and realized that the cars in front of me had long disappeared and I was holding up traffic.
I was lost in thought as I merged onto I-75 to head back to my little apartment in Buckhead. It had been four months since I’d moved to Atlanta and it was starting to feel like home. My old life in New York was officially over—Michael was the last thing to go. Traffic was barely moving. I grimaced when I saw the sea of cars inching along in front of me. How could it be this bad on a Sunday? My phone rang and I looked down at the screen to see my best friend's face smiling up at me. I answered the call and put it on speaker. “Hey, Sarah.”
Her voice shrieked through the car. “Please tell me you broke up with that bastard.”
I sighed. “Of course I broke up with him. I just dropped him at the airport.”
“Sweet Jesus, Andy, you drove him to the airport? Why didn’t you tell the fucktard to call a cab?”
I rubbed my face in frustration. “Oh God. Why didn’t I? What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re too fucking nice. That’s what’s wrong with you. Oh my God, Andy, is he really married?”
I felt sick to my stomach. “Yep. I don’t know how I missed it. We’ve been dating for six months. How could I not know?”
“Because you’re decent and you trust people. And he’s apparently a conniving, cheating snake. How did you even find out?”
“He left his phone on the bed when he got in the shower this morning. I saw a text pop up from someone named Kaleigh. She wanted to know what time his flight was getting in tonight. I’d never heard him talk about anyone by that name, so I started going through his phone. God, Sarah, I feel so guilty. She’s pregnant. She’s six months pregnant. There were wedding pictures of the two of them. And one from last weekend, with his hands wrapped around her baby bump.”
“Holy shit, he’s married to a woman?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I sure know how to pick ‘em, don’t I? What the hell? I really thought he was marriage material. It’s crazy. I was going to talk to him about moving to Atlanta this afternoon. He even told me last night that he traveled so much for his job, he could live anywhere. I thought it was a hint.” I sighed. “I'm giving up on men. I'm done, Sarah. Maybe I'll get a cat.”
“Damn, Andy. I’m sorry. You'll find someone. You're the perfect man. I mean it, you're frigging hot, you cook, you're great with kids, you're sweet and funny. Total package, Andy. I mean it. I wish I had a dick so I could marry you.”
I laughed. “You’re already married, Sarah.”
“I’d divorce his loser ass for you in a heartbeat.”
“You’re a liar, Sarah, you’re head over heels and I wouldn’t exactly call him a loser—he’s the CEO of a multi-million-dollar corporation.”
She sighed. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a sexy bastard in a suit.”
“Me too. I think that’s my problem,” I said as I turned into my apartment complex.
“You wanna go out and get drunk tonight?”
“Nah. I need to finish my lesson plans for next week and I have parent-teacher conferences starting after school tomorrow. You got any advice for me?” Sarah taught first grade at the same school as I and she'd been there for almost three years. She was my go-to person for advice.
She laughed. “Yeah. Assure each parent that their kid is one of the brightest in the class and tell them that based on the kid’s progress for the year, he or she is on track to make in the high thirties on the ACT.”
I groaned. “You can’t be serious, Sarah. They’re in kindergarten.”
“Oh, I'm completely serious. They want to know that the thirty-thousand-dollar check that they write for tuition every year is actually buying something. Just do what I tell you and all will go fine.”
After I hung up with Sarah, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd made the right decision moving to Atlanta. I never thought I'd see myself working at a school like Brentford Academy. I always thought I’d teach in the inner city, but when Sarah put my name in at Brentford for a position opening and they offered me three times the money I was making in New York and said they would pay off my student loans if I signed a five-year contract with them, I couldn’t pass it up. The truth was, I loved my kids. It didn’t matter if they were rich or poor. Kids in kindergarten all wanted the same thing, to be loved and to learn. It really hadn’t been as different as I thought it would be. But the parents were a whole other story. I couldn’t wait till the week was over. I wasn’t looking forward to conferences.
When I finished my lesson plans that night, I poured myself a big glass of wine. I needed to stop thinking about Michael. It was over. I needed to move on. I wasn’t even in love with the guy. Sure, I wanted marriage and kids—but that feeling where I knew I met the one person who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—it hadn’t happened for me yet and I wondered if it ever would. There was only one guy, from back in college, who I thought I could feel that way about. But I was wrong about him. We only spent one night together and I completely misread everything, but that didn't stop me from obsessing over him for the last six years. It was crazy that I even still thought about him.
I pulled Emily Marsh’s file out of my bag. It was the first parent-teacher conference I had scheduled for tomorrow after school. It occurred to me that I’d never met either one of Emily’s parents. I had met Jacques, Emily’s driver. But never her parents. I’ll never forget her little face when she introduced him to me. She was so proper and proud. “This is my driver, Jacques. Jacques, this is Andy, my teacher.” I shook my head and laughed as I opened her file. Only at Brentford Academy would a kindergartener have a driver named Jacques. The guy even wore a black suit and had a French accent.
I took out her personal information card. The first thing I saw was that there was a line drawn through her mother's name, Eleanor Marsh. Then underneath, printed in very precise letters, was the name, Declan Marsh. I had to stop myself from spitting wine everywhere. I sat up on the couch my heart was pounding. There was no way this could be him. No way. Last time I cyber-stalked him, he was living in San Francisco, running his father's business. There was never any mention that he had gotten married, much less had a kid. I closed the file and then my eyes. It couldn't be him.