I am miserable. Can you tell?

Sitting in my Camaro parked in Bracken’s front lot, I check myself in the rearview mirror. Look at these bags under my eyes. Roxie did that to me. This is all her fault.

Jack Slater doesn’t do bags. Bags are Witcher’s department, not mine. Yet, here they are.

It’s because I didn’t sleep much last night. The bed was freezing without Roxie beside me. Don’t look at me that way. I know I said no teachers, never the same girl twice, no romance. I lied. Roxie made me do that too.

I didn’t call her last night. I didn’t text. I didn’t do anything but lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering where I went wrong. After my talk with Savage, I decided Kuntz the Greater was definitely behind the plot to destroy my life plans with Isabella, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Even if it wasn’t Kuntz, Roxie was telling the truth about not being the one who placed the dreaded phone call.

All this time, I blamed the wrong person. Maybe I should’ve blamed myself.

Am I really that big of an asshole?

Stop nodding. It was a rhetorical question. I know I am.

The better question is, can this asshole be redeemed?

Roxie may have some valid points about the way I treated her in middle school. Maybe I was too harsh on her. I might have targeted her unfairly a time or twelve because she was “a bad kid.” I may have neglected to give her the help she needed.

I may have failed her miserably, and I don’t mean just on paper.

But I can’t change any of those things now. They’re done. So, how can I convince her I’m turning over a new leaf?

How can I do right by her and do better for our students?

I have no answers because my broken heart makes it too hard for my head to think.

With a sigh, I check my watch. Seven twenty-five. I pop the door handle and climb out of my car. I’ve been waiting for the bus to pull up so I can grab a couple minutes to talk as I walk Roxie into school, but maybe she’s running late this morning. Or decided not to come at all. Could I blame her if she never wants to see me again?

I skulk into the office, sign in, and head to my room.

Everything hurts: my chest, my hands, my brain. But the worst part is the emptiness that feels like it’s eating me alive from the inside out. I’m like one of those hollowed-out Santa Claus milk chocolates, except skinnier and whiter and not at all jolly.

What if Roxie’s not coming back—to school or me? What will I do without her?

When I open the door to room four, I’m surprised to find the lights on and Roxie sitting behind my desk at the computer. My heart leaps into my throat, my mouth goes arid, and every nerve jolts awake. My stomach does that lurching-butterfly-ninja-attack thing where you suddenly kinda want to puke but at the same time scream because it feels like going down a roller coaster and you have no idea if the tracks will hold on the way, but you let go of the safety handle and enjoy the ride anyway because you only live once, so why the hell not?

This is what Roxie Rambling reduces me to. A giddy child screaming on a roller coaster.

She clicks save on whatever she was working on, stands, and smiles curtly. “Good morning, Mr. Slater.”

I love it when she calls me Slater in bed. I hate it when she inserts a “Mister” as an insult and lobs it like a loogie at my feet in the classroom.

I toss my briefcase on the desk and grunt.

She crosses her arms. “What’s the plan for today?”

I shrug. I’m so lost, I haven’t even thought about it.

I stare at her lips. I want to kiss them.

She mocks my shrug with an exaggerated flip of her shoulder. “What’s that mean? Are you teaching, or am I? What do you want me to do, sir?”

Hmm … let’s see … I want you to stop hating me for trying to do what’s best for you. I want you to stop second-guessing me with our students. I want you to stop being mad at me.

My vindictive streak running wild, I gesture smugly to the whiteboard. “Continue with your unit, Miss Rambling.”

Yes, I’m acting like a child, but it’s for her own good. Let her mess up again so she can learn from her mistakes. Eventually, she’ll see the error of her ways and ask me for help when her supervisor comes for an observation. Then she’ll thank me for setting her on the right track, and we’ll put this fight behind us. With her acknowledging that I won it, of course.

#PissyPants

I’m wounded, damn it. Leave me alone.

She dips her head with silent thanks and walks into the hall to monitor the kids entering the building. I huff and follow her out. We stand side by side, neither of us acknowledging the other as students file in.

When first period rolls around and everyone takes their seats, Roxie stands at the front of the class, politely asking for the students’ attention.

As usual, no one hears. Boys laugh in the back over some joke. Someone taps their desk repeatedly with what sounds like a hammer.

“Hello?” Roxie says. “Clap if you can hear me.”

More laughter. A screech of chair legs. Thwump. Thwump. Thwump.

“Come on, guys. I need your eyes up here,” Roxie tries again.

A shrill scream of “Stop messin’ with me!” breaks up the noise for a second, but the natural rhythm of discord fills in right behind it.

Roxie shouts, “Y’all gon’ make me sing this rhyme” to the tune of DMX’s “Party Up (Up in Here).”

“Up in here, up in here,” Quentin responds automatically, grooving in his seat with a happy smile.

The other kids stop and look at him, then at Roxie.

“We gonna make our grades climb,” Roxie sings.

A few more voices join Quentin’s. “Up in here, up in here.”

A smile cracks Roxie’s lips. She starts dancing to the melody playing in her head. “Now we put our butts in chairs.”

More students respond as the lightning rod catches. “Up in here, up in here.”

“’Cause we ain’t in day care.” Roxie claps the rhythm.

“Up in here, up in here.” Now the entire class is on board.

“We know how to keep our cool.” Roxie shakes her ass.

“Up in here, up in here.” I reluctantly join the call. It’s just for show, though. And maybe because I’m enjoying the rump-shaking.

“So we can get learnt in school.”

“Up in here, up in here,” the kids sing and clap the last refrain with pure abandon.

I look around. Everyone in the room is smiling. They’re all doing the same thing, and it’s not the usual off-task foolishness I’ve come to expect. Everyone is focused on Roxie and eager to see what she’ll do next. Their excitement is palpable.

What fuckery is this?

“Well done.” Roxie nods as if this was exactly what she meant to happen. Maybe she did. Either way, I’m as engaged as the kids are.

“From now on, when you hear ‘We know how to keep our cool,’ I want you to respond accordingly. Got it?” she says.

“Got it,” the class answers.

“We know how to keep our cool,” she tests and then cups her ear, waiting for the reply.

“Up in here, up in here,” the students chorus in perfect tune.

“Excellent.”

I look around at the faces of kids who can be nearly impossible to motivate on a good day. She’s hooked them.

Roxie sits on the edge of a desk, her basketball shoe dangling just above the floor. “We got off on the wrong foot yesterday. Let me backtrack a minute and give you a little information about me so we can understand each other. I have a lot more in common with you than you may think. When you look at me, do you see a troubled mixed girl from the projects with no parents who found enough motivation on the basketball court to get her crap together?”

“You play basketball, miss?” Quentin asks, voice almost breathy and eyes wide with admiration.

“I do,” Roxie says. “On the number five college team in the country.”

“Oohs!” make their rounds through the room.

Hold up. Roxie played on the university’s team?

No. Fucking. Way.

As she talks, I google.

Sure enough, Roxie Rambling, number 12, star point guard for the number five team in women’s college basketball.

Well, fuck me stupid with a pointy dunce cap.

“I may have come from a place you’d consider ordinary, but I’m anything but ordinary,” she continues. “I believe in myself. I believe I can make a difference. I believe in y’all.” She swings her finger in a dramatic arc, pointing at the students.

A few kids sit up straighter. So do I.

“I’m Roxie Rambling, and people are gonna remember me. Now I want to know, what are you gonna do today to make the world remember your name in the best light? What mark will you leave behind for future generations?”

Some of the students look to each other for answers, but no one speaks.

“You don’t know? Well, let me help you get started. We gonna put together a language arts project that’ll show the world that Bracken Middle is a first-class school with first-class students. We gonna show the doubters and the haters and people who write us off as losers that we are powerful. How we gonna do that?”

Shrugs. A few calls of “How?” echo off the walls.

“By showcasing your talents. There’s a bunch of kids in here who can craft some sick rhymes.” She targets her gaze on Attila, then slides it to several others. “We got aspiring poets, mathematicians, actors, scientists, athletes, musicians, and comedians. We gonna pull all that talent together and put it to work so we can meet those silly state language arts objectives for research, speaking and listening, writing, and so forth. Can I get an amen?”

“Amen!” the kids shout.

“We got one little barrier to clear before we can do that. Know what it is?”

Heads shake.

“Self-doubt. I’ve been watching y’all for a couple weeks now, and I keep hearing you mumble all kinds of mess about, ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘I ain’t smart enough.’ I say no. You can do it. You are smart enough. You will be successful.”

The room is quiet enough to hear a roach scuttle.

In that short stretch of booming silence, a busted-ass light flickers inside my brain.

Oh, shit.

If it were a pissed-off copperhead, it would’ve bitten me on the balls.

I sit up straighter.

Shit, shit, shit.

I’m the reason Roxie quit trusting her teachers when she was younger. I’m the reason she gave up in middle school and nearly flunked out of high school. I’m the reason she couldn’t get a basketball scholarship.

Those fancy basketball shoes she got in eighth grade were symbols of the only thing she thought she was good at, her one and only source of validation as a person with the right to a place in this world. No wonder she kept them in such immaculate condition.

And she still wears them now. The soles have gotta be worn through. Why hasn’t she given them up?

Because the shoes are a reminder of where she came from.

I feel as if I’ve been skewered by a paladin’s lance.

Looking at the eager faces of our kids, who seem to hang on Roxie’s next word, I realize I’m part of the problem. No, scratch that. I am the problem. I’m everything that’s wrong with education.

My lips part as I meet Roxie’s determined eyes, and in that moment, I realize something else.

I love this woman.

I love Roxie-with-an-ie Rambling. I love her strength, her ability to overcome anything life throws at her, and the resolve that got her through college and dropped her into my arms. I love all of her. Even the crunchy parts. Especially the crunchy parts.

Roxie turns her gaze to Attila. His face brightens, only by a couple lumens, but enough for me to notice. I recognize what sparked the change. It’s hope. That maybe he’s better than he’s been taught to think he is. That Miss Rambling might be the one who can make a difference in his life. That maybe she’ll be his salvation.

Roxie says, “Starting now, I don’t want to hear the words ‘I can’t’ ever again. There is only ‘I will.’ Yes?”

“Yes!” the kids shout.

“Can you do it?” Roxie’s voice gets louder.

“Yes, we can!” the students yell.

“Will you do it?”

“Yes, we will!”

Roxie makes eye contact with every kid in the room. “No more excuses. Own your stuff. You gonna own it?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Okay, that’s what I like to hear.” Roxie settles back and grins, flipping to the next slide of her presentation with the remote. It reads, “Bracken Middle, School of Excellence” and under the words is a picture of the class.

“Now,” she breathes with a gleam in her eye, “let’s get started.”

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