Chapter Two
Entering her quiet house, Lucia leaned against the door, hating the loneliness that always crept over her when she came home. She’d been a surprise baby to her parents, and they hadn’t wanted a repeat of that nasty little surprise. Releasing a breath, she moved away from the door. She went straight to her bedroom, tossing her bag on the bed and collapsing.
“You’re better than this.” She gritted her teeth, running a hand across her face in an attempt to gain some sanity. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. She felt a little broken just thinking about the last week.
The same old crap, just a brand new day and week.
“Enough!” She wouldn’t allow their mean words to get to her. For a long time, she’d lived with it.
Getting up from her bed, she took a quick shower, changing into a skirt and blouse. Her parents didn’t like her boyish style for school. She didn’t have many skirts and dresses. They were kept neatly folded at the back of her closet. Opening up her textbook, she went through several of the test papers that had been handed out for them to study, and to be prepared for in upcoming tests in class. When that was done, she checked her cell to see if there was anything from Marie. Nothing.
Just as she was about to watch a movie she heard her parents arriving home. She ventured out of her room to see them in the doorway talking. They carried a takeout bag from some kind of vegan restaurant, which meant she had tofu in some weird ass sauce for dinner. Yay.
“I got you your favorite,” her mother said.
“Yum.”
She left her parents to sit at the table, taking a bottle of water for each of them from the fridge. They didn’t believe in drinking wine or soda like normal parents. They wouldn’t do anything that could damage their brain cells.
“How was work?” she asked.
It wasn’t long before they were talking about their jobs. Her father’s latest case, her mother’s latest research.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to pick you up,” her father said. “It was so last-minute that it completely slipped my mind.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“She got home safely enough,” her mother said. “Walking is good for her.”
Lucia gritted her teeth and didn’t tell them her teacher had brought her home because he was actually worried.
“How was school?” her mother asked.
“Fine. It was fine. I’ve got a couple of tests to get through.”
“Tests? What kind?” This came from her father.
“Pretty standard stuff. I think it’s just to help some of the new teachers see where we’re at in our grades,” she said.
“New teachers? Bill, do we know any new teachers that have moved here?”
“No.”
Lucia tuned out as they started talking about the educational system and how flawed it all was. The tofu had way too much garlic and ginger. She hated it and pushed it around her plate, not wanting to take another bite.
“So, I was thinking about you joining a gym,” her mother said.
“Pat, not now.”
“We need to do something, and we all know sticking around the house is not healthy for her.”
“You want me to join a gym now?” Lucia stared at her mother, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“I’m just saying, honey, it will do you good. It’ll get you out there. Maybe help you make friends.”
“You do know I’m nearly eighteen, and I’ve got Marie.”
“But all you girls do is watch movies. It’s time you got out there and did something.” Her mother leaned over and kissed her head. “I only want what’s best for you.”
Her weight was always a problem for her mother. For as long as she could remember, she’d been on some diet or other. From milkshakes, to controlled calorie meals, to everything. She’d even forced her to go to one of those weird psycho doctors that told you to hold the fruit. That didn’t last long. The small satsuma that had been in her hand, she crushed with how angry she was.
“You know, I’m not very hungry right now. I’m going to go and head up. Do my homework.”
“We’re going away for the weekend,” her dad said.
“I know.” She got to her feet, kissing them both before disappearing to her room. Diving onto the bed, she quickly called Marie.
“What’s up?”
“Parental problems, as always. What ya doing?”
“I am painting my nails blue. It seems like a garish color, and I know my mom hates it. I know, lame, but I don’t care right now. Do you know she wants me to go to camp to help out?”
Lucia chuckled. “Mom wants me to join a gym, which means she already has me signed up at one. Probably with a horrible instructor that is going to make me run. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of it.”
“Your mother’s a bitch. Sorry, she is.”
She sighed. “It’s not that bad.”
“You’re about to be forced to work out. Isn’t that, like, child abuse or something?”
“Or something? I don’t know.” She got up and looked at the mirror. “I guess I could work to lose a couple of pounds. I just don’t want to do it in front of everyone. You know, I can’t stand that. Ugh, this is so frustrating right now.”
“I think you’re totally fine. You have these huge boobs that I would kill for. I have to pad mine out, and if I get it wrong, I look stupid.”
Lucia giggled. She remembered the first time Marie had done it. She couldn’t stop laughing for days after. For a good few years now, Lucia didn’t have to pad anything. Her tits were one hundred percent real. Turning to the side, she saw she wasn’t slender.
Marie talked about some of her studies for a few more minutes and then screamed as her baby brother ran into the room. “I’ve got to go, Lucia, talk soon.”
Before she could say anything, Marie hung up.
Throwing her cell phone on the bed, she turned this way and that. Her stomach grumbled, and she opened her door, about to head downstairs when she heard both of her parents in the kitchen. Sitting down, she pressed her hands together, listening, waiting.
“You need to lighten up with Lucia. She’s perfectly fine the way she is.”
“Bill, stop kidding yourself, okay? I get it. She’s our little girl and we want to protect her forever, but that’s not going to happen.”
“Just … give her a break on her weight.”
She heard her mother huff. “She doesn’t date, Bill. Not once has a guy come around to ask to go out with her. She’s not going to know what it’s like to have that rush of a guy wanting to be with you. There’s no way that isn’t lonely.”
“I don’t want our little girl dating. Damn it, Pat, I’ve become our own fucking parents here.”
“Language. Look, we were never meant to have Lucia,” Pat said.
“But we did, okay? We did, and between the stupid fucking nannies and everything in between, I don’t even know if I know our own daughter.”
“We know our girl.”
“No, we know her grades and, because you like to print it on the fridge, her BMI as well.”
Resting her elbows on her knees, Lucia ran her fingers through her hair, resting, waiting, listening.
“I just want her to have everything a normal girl her age should be having. I don’t want her to get diabetes or be laughed at. I wasn’t like her in school, Bill. I was the popular girl. You know that, so even though we don’t talk about it, we all know exactly what’s happening to her. Boys are laughing at her, girls are pushing her. I don’t want her to have that kind of senior year.”
“She’s nothing like us, Pat. I want you to lay off her. We’ve already missed so much, and we’re missing more. We’re going away to London, and we’re leaving her here.”
“She wouldn’t like either of our conferences. It’s boring, and she probably has something set up with Marie anyway. Lots of movies and bad food galore.”
She’d listened to enough. Getting to her feet, she ignored her grumbling stomach and went back to her room, being careful to close the door. She’d never been close to her parents. In fact, for a long time, when she was a kid she’d thought her nanny was her mommy. She’d even called her nanny “Mommy” in front of them, and the next day a new nanny arrived.
Sitting on her bed, Lucia twiddled her thumbs before finally glancing up toward the mirror. Her mother hadn’t liked her weight for so long that it was like a never-ending debate between them.
Her mother wanted her to be slim. She didn’t really care about any of that. Her weight never felt like a problem to her, just to everyone else. Standing up once again, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her tits were too big, and so were her thighs, which jiggled and rubbed together. She couldn’t pull off tight pants as they showed her extra pounds in a not so flattering way. Her ass curved out, as did her stomach, and she just wasn’t the perfect size.
She was … fat.
Why did people treat her like it was a crime to be this way? She’d never hurt anyone or been mean. She always helped the elderly lady across the road, or the frazzled mother carry groceries to her car. Babies laughed when she pulled funny faces, and she worked damn hard at school.
So why was it such a fucking problem to be fat?
She gritted her teeth as she felt the never-ending tears begin to start in her eyes. This wasn’t what she wanted.
Her senior year was supposed to be perfect.
When someone knocked on her door, she quickly sat on the edge of her bed and grabbed her chemistry book. Science was such a hard subject for her that she had to study twice as hard to get a decent grade.
“Come in,” she said.
“Hey, honey. I just thought I’d check on you.”
“Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
“You didn’t eat anything, and I know you don’t like tofu.” She didn’t have to turn around as she saw him place a sandwich with a couple of snacks on a plate for her.
“Thank you.”
He moved to sit beside her, and she tried to hide the tears from her eyes.
“You heard all of that?” her dad asked.
“What?”
“I know you were listening on the stairs.”
She turned toward him and frowned. “What?”
“Your door. I heard you leave the room.” He took her hand, and she sighed. “I think you’re fine the way you are, Lucia.”
It was a lie. They both knew it, but he was trying to be the nice parent, the better one.
“Thanks, Dad.”
She could tell he wanted to say more, but he didn’t speak another word. Instead, he kissed her temple, and she watched him leave her room, closing the door behind him. Her mother wouldn’t take the trip. She never came to see her.
Grabbing the plate of food, she picked up the sandwich. Ham and cheese was her favorite. She took a bite just as her stomach grumbled. It tasted good. She chewed the food and stared at herself in the mirror. Her gaze landed on her mouth, her puffed-out cheeks, and she just knew something had to change.
Maybe if she started doing some brisk walking or maybe some running. She would do something just to show that she was dropping a few pounds, and then maybe her mother would leave her alone.
****
It was Friday, and the bell had just rung for end of class. Already students were filing out, and Jack needed to head to the library to return some of the books he’d used for his class. Listening to poetry helped to soothe him, and today he wasn’t in any mood to be going out with most of the faculty. Beth certainly knew how to round people up, and there were a lot of people coming.
This is what you wanted.
He didn’t want to date or to have anything on a personal level with any of the teachers. This was the perfect solution, and yet now he wished he’d just declined the invitation. Packing up the papers, he gathered the books and precariously balancing them, he headed toward the library.
When he got there, he didn’t see anyone behind the desk, and figuring he knew where they were kept he made his way down toward the poetry section. As he rounded a bend, he didn’t notice Lucia crouched down, and he ended up toppling her over, dropping several of the books around her and on the floor.
“Ouch,” Lucia said, rubbing at her head.
“Shit, crap, sorry, bad language.”
She gave a little chuckle. “I know you’re a teacher, but I get that there’s curse words in the world, believe me.” She got up and rubbed at her head.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you, and I hope I didn’t cut your head or anything.” He put his bag on the floor and moved close to her. The strawberry scent was strong once again as he neared.
“It’s fine, honestly.”
“Let me check, please. I don’t want to hurt you, and those books can hit pretty hard. I know.”
“You had books fall on your head?”
“Yep. Back at my home. I believed in the strength of one of my shelves, and I just kept adding book after book to this one precariously-built shelf on the wall. One day, I was reading one book while replacing another, and it was the final book, if you will. The shelf caved, dropped all the books on me and around me, and the pain was immense.”
“Now that sounds painful.”
“It was pretty painful. Not a lot to do about it though.”
“Did you rebuild the shelf?” she asked, bending down to grab his books.
“Yes. It’s now a floor-to-ceiling one. All perfectly protected and no risk of it falling down.”
She held the books and smiled. “And that’s exactly how books should be.”
“What are you doing here? Don’t you have any plans? It’s a Friday night, and I happen to know you’ve got one piece of homework to finish.”
“Yes, I do. I kind of signed up to help in the library every Friday after school. You know, putting the books away, cleaning up. It sounded kind of fun for a girl like me.”
He wondered what she meant, but then, recalling her quiet house, he kind of figured her home life was pretty lonely. He got that.
“Well, I better return these books.”
“There’s a lot there. Do you want a hand?” she asked.
“If you don’t mind.”
“Kind of my thing right now. Cleaning books, returning them.”
They walked toward the poetry section, and he watched her. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and he’d only ever seen it down.
“Here we go,” she said.
He watched and waited as she placed the books in the correct numerical order, and then got started on the ones he was holding.
“There’s quite a few here. You can just put them down on the floor, and I’ll finish them up.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind. I’ve not got much of anything to do later anyway.”
“I heard Miss Bertram talking. You’ve got a hot date.” She smiled, and he noticed the two dimples in her cheeks.
“Erm, it’s more like a faculty thing.”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard a couple of girls talking, and they’ve been all over the whole Parker and Bertram thing.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Ignore me. You speak so normally and without judgment I forget you’re a teacher.”
“It’s fine, Lucia, and I do appreciate it. Honestly, I do.”
She finished putting the books back on the shelves and sighed. “There, all done.” She tilted her head to the side and turned to him. “Any exciting books to look forward to?”
“Still not a lover of poetry?”
“It has only been a week of school, sir. I can’t exactly fall in love with something that fast.”
“I don’t know. You’ve got to learn to open your mind up to new things. They could surprise you.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see. Have a good weekend.” She stepped away, and he didn’t like the fact she was here late.
“How are you getting home?” he asked.
“What?”
“Home. You don’t own a car.” He recalled her telling him that.
She patted her thighs. “These trusty things are taking me home. Thank you, Mr. Parker.”
He didn’t like that.
“How long will you be?”
“Another hour, maybe, why?”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“You really don’t need to do that.”
“I don’t like the thought of you walking alone. I saw those streets, and they’re pretty scary, especially for a teenage girl.”
“I’m very grown-up for my age.”
“Where’s your car?” he asked. She should have a car. If she did, he’d leave it alone. After years of growing up in the city, it was something he couldn’t shake. Bad shit happened to women and girls walking alone.
“I don’t have one. I’ll be fine.”
“That’s what they all say. I’ll stay and wait.”
He moved toward one of the tables, sat down, and began marking some work. The librarian came over to him, and they talked about the night ahead. It didn’t take Lucia long to finish her work, and when she was done, she pushed the empty stand toward the front of the desk. She smiled with the librarian, and he packed up, saying his goodbyes as well.
Leaving the library together, he noticed Lucia kept glancing toward him.
“You know this isn’t supposed to happen,” she said. “I don’t want you to get a bad reputation or anything.”
“I’m doing the gentlemanly thing right now. If you like, we could go and see the principal and I can tell him how your parents are leaving you alone to walk in the dark where it’s dangerous.”
“Not a lot of people really see it as a gentlemanly thing though.” She paused near his car. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Taking you home will not get me in trouble. Nothing is happening here, Lucia. If I ever had a daughter and I couldn’t be there for whatever reason, I like to think that a teacher would do the considerate thing, regardless. People need to stop seeing the negative sh-stuff in everything other people do.”
“I know that.” Her cheeks heated, and she looked a little upset.
Climbing into the car, he caught the scent of strawberries again, and he didn’t ask.
Unlike the first car journey where they talked the whole way, they didn’t even speak during this one. He parked up outside her house, waited for her to go inside before pulling away.
This time he didn’t go home and instead headed straight toward the bar that Beth had told him to be at.
When he arrived, he saw several cars were already parked outside the bar. Climbing out, he made his way toward the doors. He’d already loosened his tie and removed his jacket. It was still warm as he made his way in. He spotted the table full of teachers but went to the bar to order himself a beer.
Making his way to the table, he listened as all of the teachers made the introductions. From the look of Beth, she was already two beers over her limit.
“I’m Derick Coleman,” a large, muscular man said.
“Jack Parker. I teach English literature.”
“I’m physical education and also sex ed now as well.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, ever since we had two seniors the previous year leave pregnant, Principal Dowed petitioned the parents, and it became part of the curriculum. Seeing as I’m the physical guy and sex is all about bumping and grinding, I got the job.”
“I’m sure they’re delighted by that.” He hoped his sarcasm wasn’t detected. He really didn’t want to be here right now, and Derick seemed to want to sit with him.
“It’s a pretty good job. You know. Getting kids to roll condoms on bananas and seeing them struggle. It is pretty funny. The punk-ass kids think they know so much. I had that Connor kid, can’t remember his last name. He shouted out that a bitch wouldn’t get pregnant if you did it standing up.”
Again, Jack had no idea what to say to that. “Wow,” he said.
“Yeah. Then of course he turned on Lucia and said she’d never have any problems getting knocked up unless she wore a bag over her head as no man would want to fuck her. Tried not to laugh but we all know the kid is right.”
“You told him to shut his filthy mouth, didn’t you?” Jack asked. He felt anger, rage, and something twisted in his gut that he didn’t get right now.
“What? Of course. I told him to be more respectful in my classroom.”
He remembered Lucia’s complete lack of trust when he spoke to her after Connor said the shit that he said.
“You know what, I need some air.”
Grabbing his beer, he left the heat of the bar and quickly breathed in the fresh air.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He closed his eyes and tried to cool down his raging temper. “No wonder she looks sad half the time.” Especially if no teacher was taking the time to understand what was wrong with her. He was fucking pissed off and angry.
“Hey, handsome thing,” Beth said. “You didn’t have to leave so fast.”
“It’s fine.”
“I heard what Derick said. I like Lucia. She always does her homework on time. She’s a good kid.”
He didn’t say anything, as right now, he didn’t trust himself.
“Her parents though, they really don’t give a shit about her. They’ve forgotten parent-teacher night and they’d even booked every single teacher. Lucia sat there and finally after two hours of waiting for them, she just asked to put everything on a report card so she could take it home.” Beth stood close to him, and her perfume seemed to be on thicker than normal. He felt like he was choking on the fumes. “I even heard a couple of kids say that the only reason she doesn’t have a car is because she’s too fat and her parents make her walk everywhere. I’ve seen her ride in with Marie.”
This wasn’t helping.
He’d seen Lucia around school plenty of times. This was the first year that he’d gotten the opportunity to teach her, but right now, he didn’t trust himself to speak or to say anything.
Beth hiccupped and leaned in close. “I’m not wearing any panties, Jack. I’m a monster in bed. A man-eating monster. I could do things to your dick that you’ve only ever dreamed of. Ask Derick, I’ve taken him for a spin a time or two. I don’t have a problem fucking, and you seem to need help lightening up.” She ran her hand down his front, and he caught her wrist, holding her in place as she finally threw up the contents of her stomach.
It had missed his shoes, but the stench was awful.
“You bring your car?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Picking her up, he carried her toward his car, opening up the backseat. The scent of strawberry was still heavy in the air, and he ignored it. He ignored everything. Putting her in the back, he headed inside and told them that Beth had thrown up, which just made everyone erupt in a fit of laughter about how Beth couldn’t handle her beer.
Once he dropped her off at her house and avoided any more feeling up, he got back in his car and drove home.
Resting his head on the steering wheel, he took several calming breaths. His car stank, and not of the strawberry smell that he particularly liked.
One, never ever fuck a student. Two, never ever fall for a student. Three, don’t ever break any of the first two rules.
“Get a grip, Parker. Get a fucking grip.”