Reese
I skipped into the halls of Westchester bright and early Monday morning, two piping hot cups of coffee in hand. Thoughts of my Friday night with Charlie filled my head as I whistled, nodding a hello to the few other teachers who were already unlocking the doors to their classrooms. I knew she would be doing the same — she always came in earlier than I did.
I’d spent the weekend overthinking every second of that night we shared together. Sure, she and I had both been drinking, but something had been different about Charlie that night. From the very first moment she walked through the bar doors until the last wave over her shoulder when I dropped her off early the next morning, she wasn’t wearing the same mask she’d had on since I’d been back. All this time, I knew she was hiding something, I just didn’t know what.
I couldn’t have imagined what.
Charlie finally let me see inside again, she let the sixteen-year-old girl out that I used to know.
But she also let me see the broken woman she was now, and that was the woman I wanted more of.
I recognized, very distantly, that I was playing with fire. She was still very much married, and I would have been lying to myself if I said my intentions with her were completely innocent. But, it wasn’t that they were completely not innocent, either. I wanted to be there for her, to be someone she could talk to, someone she could lean on.
I wanted to make her realize that she deserved the world.
Past that, I knew I wanted more, but I wasn’t ready to admit those things to myself. Not just yet, maybe not ever.
A friend. That was all I wanted to be.
Or at least, that’s what I told myself.
When I turned the corner rounding into her classroom, I stopped mid-whistle, confusion sweeping over me at the sight of Mr. Henderson writing on the white board behind her desk.
“Ah! Good morning, Mr. Walker. How was your weekend?”
I surveyed the room, but there was no sign of Charlie, not even a purse or coat hung over the back of her chair.
“It was just fine, Mr. Henderson. And yours?”
“Oh, I’ve had better. Betty insisted on me cleaning out our fireplace. She’s so sure we’re going to get a bad snow storm here in the next few weeks.” He shook his head with a grin. “The old back doesn’t bend the way it used to.”
“Well, she’s probably right about the snow. I’m surprised we haven’t had anything more than an inch or two since I’ve been home.”
“It’s surely been cold enough to blizzard, hasn’t it?” He hung his hands on his hips with an even wider grin, which I returned as much as I could.
I was done talking about the weather.
“Is, uh… Is Mrs. Pierce running late or something?”
“Oh! Of course, you’re probably looking for her in her classroom, huh? That would make sense.” Mr. Henderson chuckled. “Poor thing, she’s ill. Called me right as my alarm went off this morning. I’m just filling in until the sub can get up here.”
“She’s sick?”
“Appears so,” he answered, and this time his face bent with concern. “Doesn’t surprise me, honestly. The woman hasn’t had a sick day off in the eight years she’s been teaching with us. Probably caught up with her.”
“She’s never called out sick?” I raised a brow, suspicion settling low and unwelcome in my stomach.
“Never.”
“Huh,” I mused. “Well, I picked up an extra coffee this morning. Would you like it?”
“Life saver!” He clapped his hands together before crossing the room to take the extra cup from my hand. “Much obliged, Mr. Walker. I’ll swing by your room later to discuss the spring concert?”
“Sure,” I answered distantly, but my wheels spun, wondering if Charlie was okay.
Maybe she really was sick, it wasn’t like people didn’t get colds or even the flu in late January. Still, the fact that she hadn’t called out sick in eight years and she just so happened to do so for the first time the Monday after we spent a late night together wasn’t lost on me.
My fingers itched to reach into my pocket for a cigarette as I walked the halls back to my classroom, but since I couldn’t find relief that way just yet, I pulled out my cell phone, instead. A friend would check on someone if they were sick, wouldn’t they?
Before I could talk myself out of it, I shot out a text to Charlie.
- Mr. Henderson told me someone’s under the weather this morning. Maybe you couldn’t handle that beer, after all. -
I sent it quickly, cringing a bit at my lame attempt at teasing her. If she really was sick, she might smile. But if she wasn’t, would bringing up that night only upset her? Was she regretting it, spending that long with me, opening up to me the way she did?
Was she feeling guilty?
The thought had crossed my mind. She’d asked me about a night that passed between us so long ago, and we’d been close enough to kiss, close enough to do so much more. But neither of us had crossed a line… had we?
There was no answer from Charlie before first period started, and when I checked my phone again at lunch, I was disappointed that her name hadn’t lit up my screen. By the end of the day, I’d given up.
I hoped, selfishly, that she really was sick. Maybe she was buried under the covers of her bed, doped up on cold medicine and not looking at her phone at all.
It was an awful thing to wish, but the alternative would have been worse. It would have meant she was avoiding me, the way the sickening lurch in my stomach wanted me to believe. Charlie had let me in, but was she closing me out again, before I even had the chance to get more than one foot through the door?
I could only wait to find out.
Charlie didn’t show on Tuesday.
I ate lunch alone that day, staring at the text I’d sent her and wondering how crazy it would be to show up on her doorstep with soup and a get well soon balloon. She never got sick, right? Maybe I could say the thoughtful gifts were from the entire faculty.
When her classroom was void of her again Wednesday, I nearly tore my hair out from frustration. I was driving myself crazy with the possibility of what might be going through her head, even though I technically didn’t know for sure anything even was. She was probably just sick. She was probably just resting and doing everything she could to get better, to get back to her kids. That was the kind of teacher she was.
It’s not always about you, I chastised myself as I left Westchester that afternoon. It was classic me to be so self-absorbed that I would make her illness about our night together. I spent that evening doing everything I could to push it out of my mind, blaring Arvo Part’s Da Pacem as loudly as I could as I finally unpacked the boxes littering my house. When my belongings were partly organized and I’d built up a sweat working around the house, I felt marginally better, settling in for a smoke by my sliding glass door as my thoughts calmed.
She was just sick. Everything was fine.
I called Blake to catch up, feeling guilty that it had taken me so long to get back in touch after ending our call so abruptly Friday night. But Blake was busy, too, and long conversations on the phone never were our thing. We talked for a long while, longer than we had since I left, before I finally felt tired enough to sleep, to actually sleep.
And finally, on Thursday morning, Charlie was back at Westchester.
A sigh of relief found me when I leaned against the door frame of her classroom and saw her standing there, back to me, dark hair smoothed into a high bun. She was writing the day’s agenda on the white board, and for a moment I just watched her, checking her profile for signs of weariness. Her eyes were bright, a small smile etched onto her face, and her cheeks held more color than I’d seen in all the other mornings since I’d been at Westchester.
“She’s alive,” I said in my best Dr. Frankenstein voice. I slipped my hands into my pockets as Charlie smiled, her eyes still on the board. “Welcome back, Tadpole.”
“Thank you.”
Her voice was soft, but not hoarse, and she didn’t turn to look at me as she continued writing.
“Feeling better?”
“Much,” she said. “Just needed a bit of rest, I suppose.”
“Did you have the flu?”
Charlie capped the marker she’d been writing with, turning to me then with a worried expression.
I saw it then, the lie, the one she’d been able to pull off until the moment her eyes met mine.
I’d always been able to tell when she was lying. Her eyes gave her away, the gentle crease of her forehead above her brows, the way her pupils dilated quickly as she moved them around the room.
“No, just a cold, I think.”
I nodded.
Westchester was particularly quiet that morning, and the silence surrounded us like a dark, wet blanket, suffocating in its heaviness. Charlie cleared her throat, clasping her hands together at her waist, and I glanced down the hallway before moving into her classroom.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Her eyes widened as I moved into her space, and she took a step back, her hip hitting the silver ledge under the white board. “I’m fine.”
“You’re fine,” I repeated, moving in closer.
She was doing everything not to look at me — picking at lint on her skirt, moving markers around under the white board, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“You’re sure you were sick, that this has nothing to do with Friday night?”
“I was sick,” she insisted, but her breath caught when my hand reached forward for her elbow. I held it softly, just enough to let her feel me as I stared down at her, willing her to return my gaze.
“Don’t lie to me.”
Her eyes fluttered, closing as a long exhale left her chest. Her tiny, cold hand wrapped around my wrist that held her, and she pulled me away. “Reese…”
“Charlie.”
And there it was, there she was, the girl I’d spent hours with on Friday night. Her eyes were wide and soft when she opened them again, the chocolate irises taking on a golden hue as they traveled their way up my chest, over my face, finally falling on my own eyes. She swallowed.
“I’m married.”
“I know.”
Charlie chewed her thumbnail, shaking her head like I hadn’t heard her. “No, truly, I’m married. And I know you don’t know him, but Cameron loves me. He does. And he needs me right now, we need each other. He opened up to me Friday night when I got home…”
Her words hit me like a sucker punch right to the chest. I felt my breath leave with them, a sickening tide rolling through at what they meant.
He opened up to her.
I wasn’t so blind as to not know that meant that he had her that night. She’d given me a piece of herself, shown me her scars, the ones hidden from everyone else — and yet he had taken her to bed. He had watched her melt for him, touched her fair skin, kissed her soft lips.
As her friend, I was happy for her.
As Reese Walker, the true version, I was enraged with jealousy.
“And I just… I really need to focus on him right now. On us.”
My throat was raw, dry, the act of swallowing damn near impossible, but I nodded despite the thickness I felt there. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she breathed, and all of the breath she’d been holding left her with that word.
“But hey, I’m here for you, okay? If you ever… I don’t know, if you ever need me, I guess. A friend to talk to, a distraction from work, or hell, even just a Wild Walker,” I said, and Charlie smirked, her lashes sweeping across her high cheeks. “Just say the word.”
“Thanks, Reese.”
I finally found the will to swallow as I stepped back, my hands finding my pockets once more. “Always. See you at lunch?”
Charlie smoothed her hands over her skirt. “I think I’m going to grab lunch on my own today, do some reading. But another time.”
She smiled, but that simple curve of her lips killed me.
Charlie was pushing me away.
I’d thought I was going at her pace, giving her the space to tell me what she wanted, when she wanted. But somehow, I’d crossed a line. Somehow, I’d lost her — before I’d even had the chance to have her at all.
She’s married, I reminded myself. What other way was there to have her, other than the friendship that already existed?
There wasn’t.
That was all there was to it.
“Sounds good,” I finally said, forcing a smile in return. “See you around, Charlie.”
I only hoped I actually would.