As soon as Hunter stepped out of the room, it was as though something had snapped inside Holden. I could see it go, my eyes widening as he turned his attention back to me, rounding on me with an anger I wasn’t sure I had warranted.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, trying to keep my cool and failing. My voice was high and squeaky, as though someone had pierced me and now I was leaking gas like an old balloon.

“You cannot speak to my son about those things,” he told me angrily. I furrowed my brow and shook my head.

“What things?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” he told me. “You can’t describe him as some kind of… as some kind of social outcast straight to his face. How do you think that makes him feel?”

“Holden, we like to include children every step of the way when it comes to their own education and school experience—” I started reciting the words that I had gone over with the head teacher when I had first started work here, but they didn’t seem like enough. Even coming out of my mouth then and there, they sounded insincere, fake.

“Don’t start with that.” Holden shook his head again. He pushed his hand through his hair, agitated, and I wondered if he was right. Should I have kept this between us? Well, whatever, it was far too late for that now, and we had to run with what we had.

“I didn’t mean to make you or your son feel uncomfortable,” I told him. “I understand that this kind of thing can be difficult to hear, especially if you’re not aware of the problem, but we hoped that Hunter would be able to help us resolve the issue and move forward.”

“What issue?” he snapped back. “He’s just quiet, that’s all, and you’re acting like he’s a pariah.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to confirm to this man that his son had been existing on the outside edges of this place for a long time now, longer than even I would have cared to think about. He seemed to be able to read it written on my face, and something between anger and upset twisted his face. Well, I had been wrong about one thing. This man certainly did give a shit about his son, even if I was the one getting chewed out for trying to help.

“It’s not like that,” I offered in return. I had never been the most socially smooth person I knew, and this high-pressure situation was exactly the time that I would have liked to make a silly joke or thrown in a little gag to break the tension. I knew that was the last thing this situation needed. I had to hold myself together, act professional, and get rid of this guy.

“So what is it like, then?” he demanded. “My son doesn’t have a lot of friends, so you drag him in here to make him feel like a freak for it?”

I hated the way he was talking to me. This was my classroom, and I was meant to be the one in charge, and yet here he was coming at me like I was another errant child he had to take in hand. I wanted to remind him of that fact, but it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Best to sit back, try to detach, and hope for the best.

“Hunter is a sweet boy,” I told him. “You’ve done a good job raising him. But he needs people around him who are his own age, people he can relate to at a contemporary level. Not just you and your friends.”

I shouldn’t have added in the last bit. I knew that as soon as it came out of my mouth. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Maybe he’s too mature for all the kids in this place,” he remarked. “Maybe he’s too adult, and that’s why they don’t want to spend time with him.”

I fell silent. I wanted to point out that this guy was hardly acting mature right now, throwing a tantrum because things weren’t going his way, but I figured it was only going to make things worse. If there was one thing I understood well from my time working as a teacher, it was that to treat adults and kids the same was to invite a deep and abiding hatred from adults who hated being talked down to. And right now, I needed to quell this situation before it got any further out of hand.

“Maybe that’s the case,” I agreed diplomatically, hoping that would be enough to calm him down. “I was simply concerned and wished to make sure there was nothing more going on that I could help the two of you address.”

“Why are you talking like that? You sound like a robot.” He shook his head. And he was right, I did. It was the only way for me to keep my cool right then and there, the only hope in hell I had of not losing my shit in his general direction. If I could convince myself I was cool and calm and far removed from this, I wouldn’t freak out and kick him out of my classroom before we had a chance to resolve this issue with Hunter. Because that was what this was all about at the end of the day, making sure that little boy got the best of this situation, no matter what that looked like for him.

“And another thing,” Holden was pacing back and forth across the carpeted section of the floor. “You don’t bring up Hunter’s mother with him ever again, all right?”

I stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to elaborate. That wasn’t the kind of statement people had a habit of dumping into the middle of conversations. It needed a little context.

“All right?” he pressed me again. I glanced down at his hand and saw no wedding ring, so if he and Hunter’s mother had ever been married, they certainly weren’t any longer. That was interesting. I wondered what her deal was. Where she had gone to, and why had even referencing her been enough to send Holden shooting through the roof? Whatever it was, if it was going to cool the situation, then I was happy to give him what he wanted.

“All right.” I held my hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was overstepping any mark. I’ll bear it in mind for the future.”

“Thank you,” he sighed, and he rubbed his hands over his face. I could tell this meeting wasn’t going to get anywhere further. He was stubborn, stuck in the ground, and anything that even hinted at the notion his son might not be perfectly happy and well-developed seemed like it was enough to set him off. Maybe because he was a single father who had received enough of that criticism to last a lifetime? I knew how cruel people could be to those around them raising their children differently, even in a place as allegedly progressive as Portland.

“Perhaps we could reschedule this meeting,” I suggested to him, pulling out my calendar, “The two of us could talk without Hunter if it makes you more comfortable. Or—”

“No, I’m not coming in here again if this is the only issue.” He shook his head firmly. “I thought my son was beating up other kids or something like that. He’s fine, everyone around him is fine, and I don’t see the issue here.”

“The issue is that his social development isn’t keeping up with that of the kids around him,” I argued back. “As a parent, you should be looking for ways to address that.”

I saw something inside him give as soon as those words came out of my mouth, and I had a feeling that I’d said the wrong thing. Then he stalked away from my table, as though he couldn’t even bear to look at me.

“And you’re his teacher,” he reminded me. “That means you teach him. And that’s it.”

I fell silent. I realized my hands were clenched to fists at my sides, which was utterly ridiculous. What was I going to do, throw myself across the room and start beating on his chest like I was the heroine of a Regency novel? I crossed my arms over my chest and took a few long, deep breaths to calm myself, to remind myself that this was my place and that I was the one in control here, no question about it, no doubt.

“Fine,” I told him, not giving a shit about the petulance in my voice. “I’ll just teach him.”

He turned to look at me, and I was suddenly taken aback by the look on his face. It wasn’t anger, not this time, but something else entirely, something I was quite sure he had been trying to smother and hide from me this whole time. Exhaustion, maybe, or something that went a little deeper than that. A sadness at something we had been talking about. Maybe Hunter’s mother, maybe the way he was developing, but he looked as though he wanted to crawl into bed and stay there for a good long while.

“Thank you.” He said, and just like that, the expression dropped, and he was back to being that carefully curated, aloof dude who had walked in here in the first place. The one who didn’t seem to give much of a shit about his son’s wellbeing. He headed out of the room and left me standing there, and I took a good long while to get my breathing back to normal, feeling like I had wasted my time and his.

“Hey.” I heard a familiar voice and turned to find Zoe poking her head around the door.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted, and she shrugged.

“Needed to pick up some papers that I left on Friday, and I remembered you had that meeting today,” she told me. “Was that him walking out of here? He looked pissed.”

“Yeah, that was him,” I sighed, and I leaned back against the table. “It didn’t exactly go the way I wanted it to.”

“No, I could see that from his expression.” Zoe raised her eyebrows. “What the hell happened in here? What was so bad?”

“He was defensive.” I shook my head. “Didn’t want to hear about anything wrong with his son and when I brought up Hunter’s mother, he lost it.”

Zoe fell silent for a moment, and she scanned my face. I could tell she was reading me, the way she had always been able to.

“I think you should just leave it, Autumn,” she told me firmly. I glanced up at her.

“Just one more email,” I suggested. “Just to make sure we didn’t get off on the wrong foot—”

“You got off on the whole wrong damn leg judging by the look on his face when he walked out of here,” she pointed out. “Don’t make it any worse than it already is, Autumn. You don’t want Hunter to feel like he can’t come to you with shit, and if his dad hates you, that’s going to be the case.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I slumped back against the desk once more. “I just… maybe I could do more.”

“I’m giving you permission to leave it all the way alone,” Zoe told me. “No, I’m ordering you to. Give it a rest. The last thing you need is to be juggling bullshit from someone who won’t even listen to you with everything else.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed. “I’ll leave it alone. I will.”

But in the back of my mind, something was ticking, and I wasn’t sure it was going to be quite that easy.