Chapter Thirty-Three
Noah
Hunter’s shop was cluttered as usual with various engine parts when I stepped into the back portion of the shop the following morning.
He looked up when he heard my footsteps. A confused frown settled on his face when I collapsed with an exhausted sigh in a small spinning chair across from him.
“Why are you here?” he asked, glancing up at the clock on the wall. “Don’t you have classes to teach today, or you ditching like some of your students are?”
I had no idea how to tell Hunter what happened, but I had to tell him. I lost my job. I lost Iris. I lost everything within a matter of moments.
The weight of it hooked itself into my heart and tugged viciously when I thought of Iris’ anger yesterday. You ruined my life. That was the second time I had heard that phrase, and it still brought a killer punch to my gut.
“I resigned from my job yesterday morning,” I said.
Hunter stopped wrenching to look up at me in surprise. He sat back on his own spinning chair and wiped his hands free of oil on a pant leg.
“What happened?” he asked. “Did it have something to do with that student named Iris you had over at your house during spring break?”
“Her roommate found out about us and sent the dean an email over it. He expelled Iris.”
“And, he confronted you about it, too?”
I rubbed at my face tiredly. Two hours of sleep was not enough for me to function properly, but no matter how hard I’d tried to turn my brain off, I tossed and turned all night hoping Iris would show up.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “The son of a bitch offered me triple pay and job security if I coached that damn rugby team.”
Hunter’s eyes widened. “No shit? And, you turned that down?”
“I turned it down because he wouldn’t reinstate Iris,” I said. “That was my only condition in accepting that position, but he told me that he had to make an example out of her to the other students. So, I told him that I was resigning, and that was the end of it.”
“It sounds like you did the right thing by stepping away,” he said. “I hate to say it, man, but I warned you that this wasn’t going to end well for you or her.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“There’s nothing you can do it about it now,” he said, picking up a wrench again. “All you can do is let things fall into place where they need to go.”
I nodded my head as I took in the scattered nuts and bolts in the oil pan beneath the lawn mower engine. I didn’t even know what the right thing was when it came to fixing what happened. Iris refused to return any of my calls and texts, and she had every right to want distance from me.
“You’re going to need a job until you get back on your feet,” Hunter commented, looking up at me with a small smile. “I know you’re mechanically inept to a degree, but many of the jobs that come through here are pretty basic and simple.”
“Are you offering me a job getting my hands dirty?” I asked and smiled when Hunter rolled his eyes at those words.
“Just get your hands dirty from working on engines,” he said, “but, yes. I am offering you a job to help me out until you figure out what you want to do.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, appreciatively. “How did I end up with such a good friend out of all the fucked up shit I did in my life?”
He let out a sarcastic laugh.
“Pretty sure we did a lot of those fucked up things together,” he said, winking at me. “Now, go home and get some sleep. I’m not going to pay you to fall asleep in that chair.”
I rose from the chair when he shooed me away by waving a wrench at me. I left the shop in better spirits as I always did whenever I spoke to Hunter. He was very much like Iris in several ways: neither one of them judged me for the screwed-up decisions I made.
Thinking of bad decisions, I drove to PHU for what I hoped was the last time. I had packed up my things the previous night, but I still had unattended business there to take care of. Mindful that school was still in session, I used the back pathways to slip into the English Department without anyone noticing. It still felt both surreal and normal to be back in the brightly lit hallways as I found Kale’s classroom on the first floor.
I peered through the glass of the window to see him reading from a literature textbook with students scribbling down on their notepads. A student in the front caught sight of me and called out to Kale before pointing to the door window. He turned around with his textbook still in hand before turning to face the curious gazes of his students.
Excited cheers filled the room before Kale closed his book and motioned for me to come into the classroom while everyone gathered their things. He waited until everyone had exited the classroom before locking the door behind the last group of students.
“You’ve got some serious balls for showing up here,” he said, shaking his head with a tiny grin. “Especially after basically telling Miles to stick his offer where the sun don’t shine.”
I shrugged my shoulders indifferently. “I tried to tell him that I would never coach, and even triple pay won’t ever persuade me over.”
“Obviously,” Kale said.
He motioned for me to sit down in one of the desks, but I remained standing. I couldn’t afford to stick around for much longer in case Miles came by to make sure I had moved out all of my personal possessions.
“I just wanted to come by and say that I was sorry for being a dick to you the other day,” I said. “You’ve been nothing, but a good friend to me, and you were trying to warn me about what was about to happen.”
“I just didn’t want to see you blindsided…or Iris,” Kale said, shrugging his shoulders. “Miles is furious over you leaving. He came to the building this morning to make sure that your office was cleaned out, and he asked me why I thought you resigned.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked curiously.
“I said that it probably had something to do with him being a jerk toward an innocent student.” He grinned at me. “And by jerk, I mean something else. I’m just using a nicer word to describe it.”
“Either way, thanks for having my back,” I said. “I better go before I attract too much attention and get your ass fired, too.”
He laughed shortly. “Yeah, he won’t fire me. He’d have to explain why there is two resigned positions in the English Department to the board.”
We shook hands before he unlocked the classroom door. He clasped my shoulder before I could step out.
“Look, you’ve got a gift in teaching,” he said, seriously. “Don’t give up on that. I have a friend at the University of Utah that I can call in a favor with. They’d probably take you in a heartbeat because the dean there hates Miles.”
I smiled in appreciation. “Thanks, Kale. I’d appreciate that. I’m working with a buddy at his local engine repair shop, but I have a feeling he’ll fire me because I can’t fix anything mechanical.”
“I’ll make the call then,” he said, nodding. “Take care, Noah. Keep in touch with whatever you decide to do.”
“Likewise.”
I stepped out of the classroom to head out the back way again. A new job would ever replace or fix the damage of what had happened, but it was a start. I just had to think of a way to give Iris a new shot, as well. I just needed to get her to talk to me again.
My phone rang when I arrived home thirty minutes later. My stomach dropped in disappointment when I saw it was my mother calling. I let my thumb hover over the green button for a moment, unsure if I was in the mood to play mediator between my parents over some stupid fight.
I answered it anyway.
“You sound depressed, honey. What’s going on?”
“I only said one word to you,” I replied, sitting down on the couch with a sigh. “Why do you think I’m depressed?”
“I’m your mother, Noah. I can tell when something is wrong with you.”
“Right.”
“Noah,” she started in a warning voice. It was the same type of voice that instantly reminded me of my childhood when I refused to tell her the truth about something.
“I’m done teaching at PHU,” I said, wearily. “I’m going to work with Hunter until I figure out something else to get me by.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, son. Why are you done teaching?” A frown filled my mother’s calm and warm voice. “I thought you were excited over that job the last time I talked to you. Your father hates the idea of you teaching there, by the way. I don’t know if he voiced that to you yet.”
“A couple of weeks ago he made it clear that it wasn’t acceptable in his eyes. Not that I really care what he thinks about it.”
“Okay, well that confirms to me that you weren’t taking the job to spite him. You took it because you loved it, and now I want to know what happened. Tell me.”
“It’s a long story, Mom,” I said, wincing. I wasn’t sure how she’d exactly react if I told her the truth. I wasn’t in the mood, either, to be lectured about it.
“Try me,” she said. “I promise not to go crazy if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re thirty. I really can’t lecture you anymore.”
That brought a smile to my lips. “You’ll lecture me no matter how old I am.”
“Spare me the anticipation, Noah. What happened?”
I told her everything while she listened patiently on the other end of the line for me to finish.
“Oh, my sweet baby boy,” she sighed into the phone. “You just can never figure out how to love a woman the right way, can you?”
“I thank Dad for his shitty examples,” I said, bitterly.
“You can’t blame us for all the faults in your life, Noah. We’re human, too. We make mistakes as adults just like you do. I’ve always told you to settle it down and think about things before you do something that could cost you something precious.”
“In hindsight, I wish I would’ve listened to you more years ago.”
“We all wish that sometimes. You need to be honest with this woman. Iris, right?”
“Right.”
“It sounds like you care greatly about her to sacrifice your job. Give her some time to cool down before you explain what happened to her. Us women are fickle creatures.”
I chuckled lightly at that. My heart lifted ever so slightly to not hear rampant disapproval in my mother’s voice. She had always made it a point to be the supportive parent, no matter what I did.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I don’t think she’ll ever calm down, though. She cared a lot about her grades. I don’t blame her for being upset with me.”
“I’m sure it will all work out in time, son. God has a plan for you.”
I grimaced. “Don’t say that. It makes it harder for me to disagree with you.”
“Then don’t. Mother knows best.”
“Not all the time.”
“Stop being so stubborn and afraid of love, Noah. You’ve been this way since a teenager. Just go out and get the damn woman if she means that much to you.”
“We’ll see,” I said, solemnly. “I’ll see how all works out.”