Jackson
ANOTHER MONDAY, ANOTHER WORKDAY, ANOTHER day where I was just passing through life. Not really living it, instead floating from minute to minute, waiting for the day to end.
I’d been in such a funk that I was starting to get on my own nerves, and as I walked through my classroom, making sure my students were focused on their own quizzes and not peeking at anyone else’s, I vowed to sort my shit out that evening.
Maybe I’ll ask the guys to go out for a drink.
As if I’d conjured him, I saw Ty’s face pop up in the window to my door. I held up a finger to indicate I couldn’t talk now, but would get back to him later. Rather than nod in response as usual, he got this big goofy grin, gave me two thumbs up, and pushed my door open.
What the . . . ?
I stopped in the middle of my room when Millie stepped through the door he’d just opened, a piece of loose-leaf paper clutched in her hands.
I drank in the site of her like a man drowning. The soft billowy curls of her chestnut hair, the way the pretty floral dress accented her delicate curves and flowed down to her sandaled feet. She looked gorgeous, but the way I’d been missing her, she could have walked in wearing a burlap sack and she would have been the best thing I’d ever seen in my life.
Even as my heart roared back to life, I stopped myself from rushing forward and taking her in my arms.
I need to be smart, and guard myself. After all, I couldn’t be certain of why she was here.
“Millie, uh, hi, what are you doing here?” I asked, trying to come off as unconcerned, but ruining it when my voice cracked.
“I needed to see you,” she began softly.
“I’m in the middle of class, maybe we can get together after school,” I suggested, even though the last thing I wanted was for her to leave. Still, I couldn’t come off as totally eager. I didn’t want her to think I’d been pining like some lovesick teen, even though that was an accurate description.
I need to be a man.
“I’ll only take a moment,” Millie argued, her tone wavering.
I watched her take a deep breath and noticed the paper shaking slightly in her grasp, and was about to say fuck manhood and go to her when she stopped me in my tracks.
“What greater punishment is there in life when you’ve lost everything that made it worth living?”
Her voice was strong as she read off the page, and I heard my class begin to murmur.
“Shakespeare,” one of my kids whispered to the class, and I was proud that they remembered.
“I’m so sorry,” Millie was saying, her eyes back on me. “I was scared. Terrified actually. And losing Kayla that way, seeing how she was dealing with everything that’s going on in her life right now, brought back all of these feelings that I hadn’t had in years, and I freaked out.”
I waited, needing to hear more.
She looked back down.
“It is better to lose your pride to the one you love, than to lose the one you love, for your pride.”
At the word love, my world stopped and through the buzzing in my ears, I heard another student say, a little louder this time, “Pride and Prejudice.”
I looked around the room and saw we had my students’ undivided attention. There were smiles and faces resting on palms, one kid was even taking notes. If someone pulled out a bowl of popcorn, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“I was afraid, a total chicken, and I know that’s not what you or Kayla need in your lives, but I promise it won’t happen again. I realize that I can help Kayla get through this, not only because I’ve been through it, but because I care about her. About her happiness. And, when she and your mom came to see me, I knew that we’d be able to get through this time together.”
“My mom and Kayla came to see you?” I asked, remembering Kayla’s insistence on going to my parents.
Sneaky girl.
Millie cleared her throat nervously, bringing my attention back to her.
“When I look into your eyes I don’t see just you. I see my today, my tomorrow and my future. For the rest of my life.”
“I don’t think I know that one,” one of the guys said.
After a few seconds, someone, I think Jeannie said, “Oh, oh, I think it’s Outlander.”
I saw Millie smile a little and decided that Jeannie deserved an A for reading more than the required reading for class.
“I’ve never felt the things I feel for you, for anyone else, and I never will. I know I got scared and messed up, and I’m sorry for the pain I put you through, but I hope you can forgive me. Give me another chance.”
I didn’t move, not to nod or give her any sort of affirmation. It wasn’t just that I was stunned, although I was, and it wasn’t that I was wary, although I was that, too. It was that I was positively swooning.
Swept off my feet.
Knocked to my knees by this woman who was turning my life into one of the very books she was quoting, the books that were my passion, my work . . .
“My heart is, and always will be, yours.”
Her hands dropped to her sides, the paper hanging from her fingers. The paper that I would take from her and frame, to show all of our children, grandchildren, and their children after.
“Sense and Sensibility!” Jonathon shouted out, obviously pleased to have figured one out first.
I tuned him out and finally crossed to her.
Millie’s head tilted back as she looked at me with hopeful eyes. “I’m gonna need that paper,” I said, before sealing our fate with a kiss.
I tried to ignore the cheering and catcalls of my students, but when I broke the kiss and pulled back, we were both grinning.
“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to calm them down, then thought, fuck it, and said, “You’re all getting A’s.”
Millie was laughing when the class erupted once more.