Blaze - Part Ten
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I peek into the science classroom through the window in the door. Overcome with nerves, trying to listen to what the vice principal is saying to me.
It’s a cool morning full of bright spring sunshine, and I felt good on the drive here, despite having to get up really early. I was a mixture of very excited and deeply nervous, like I have been ever since Gabby called me.
“There’s a school in Greenrock that’s looking for a substitute science teacher for all of next week,” she’d said, the click of her heels in the background suggesting it was one of her on-the-go phone calls. “They were hoping for someone with a bachelor’s degree, but they can’t find anyone, and the first class they need a sub for is the day after tomorrow. Since you’ve been so good with Ellen, I thought…”
“What - me? Really?” I had stopped and pulled off my gardening gloves to snatch my phone from my shoulder. “Are you serious?”
“Only if you’re interested. I can refer you, if you want to do it. They contacted Ketterbridge City Hall hoping we had a teacher to lend them. I’m happy to send along you.”
I told Gabby that I was flattered, but that I couldn’t. It didn’t sound like something that I’m qualified for, and the whole idea made me nervous.
But the more I thought about it, the more reasons I turned up that I wanted to do it.
Aiden sealed the deal when he came home and smiled warmly as I told him about it.
“You’ll be great,” he said softly, pushing my phone into my hands. “Call Gabby back and tell her you changed your mind. C’mon, I know you want to. I can tell.”
I got all excited, spent the next day preparing, but - now that I’m here, I’m super fucking nervous. I’m getting the awful sense that I’m way, way out of my depth.
The school is on beautiful grounds, windswept and green, set back from the outskirts of Greenrock. I knew that already from looking at the pictures on the website, but the imposing, austere school building made me shrink back a little when I saw it in person.
I just wear my regular clothes when I teach Ellen, so I didn’t even think about what I was supposed to wear. But that was definitely mistake number one. The vice-principal is a tall, middle-aged man named Mr. Wren, with an extremely intimidating presence and much more formal clothes. He looked at my jeans and flannel with obvious disapproval when I introduced myself.
But now I’m more intimidated by the kids. Twenty-six little ones are rushing around in the pre-class chaos of the classroom. I’m their first class of the day, and I can already see their little uniforms getting messed up as they shout and giggle and push at each other.
This is way different from my personal, one-on-one classes with Ellen.
I’m starting to tremble inside with waves of nervousness, which have thoroughly overtaken whatever excitement I’d been feeling before. I can tell that the color is slowly draining out of my face.
“-two options,” Wren is saying, when I force myself to tune back in. He presses something into my hands: a small, neat stack of science worksheets, and a DVD. “You can either play the educational movie, or have them do the worksheets. Whichever one you don’t do today, you can have them do tomorrow.”
“Oh.” I drop my eyes to the stuff he gave me, my heart sinking as I think of the lesson plan I worked so hard on, currently tucked away in my bag. “So, I - I-”
“You’re off to a bad start, you know,” Wren says suddenly, without a trace of humor in his voice.
My eyes snap up to him, startled and alarmed. “What?”
“They’re out of control already. You’ll want to keep it strict. Give them an opening, you’ll have a riot on your hands.” Wren’s frowning eyes flit from the kids to my flannel, then back to the kids again. “We ask that our subs keep up the standards of the school.”
Before I can answer, he opens the door and leads the way into the science classroom. I follow after him, jolted and thrown off, holding the worksheets and the DVD tightly.
The kids were tumbling around and laughing, but there’s an instant pause when Wren steps into the classroom, and then a rush of more organized activity as the kids dart to their desks and drop to sit down behind them.
“Settle down,” Wren says, as if instant silence hasn’t already fallen. “Listen up. This is your substitute for today, Mr. Keane.”
I draw back, startled as the kids all come together in a monotonous chorus of good morning, Mr. Keane.
One voice stood out from the rest, so much louder than the others that it sounded a little sarcastic.
“Who was that?” Wren instantly asks.
His words are so sharp that they go across the room like the snap of a whip. The entire class flinches, then stares up at him in anxious silence.
Wren’s eyes go directly to a scrawny black-haired boy in the back row.
“Oliver,” he says, staring down the boy.
I can’t help but stare at Wren. I thought I heard something like barely suppressed hatred in his voice, as if this kid is his personal enemy.
“I should’ve known,” Wren goes on, as everyone in the class turns to stare at Oliver. “You can never keep quiet, can you? Stand up.”
The little boy hesitates, then slides out of his seat and slowly stands up by his desk. His face is going pale as all of his classmates turn their eyes on him, aside from the deep, embarrassed blush in his cheeks.
“Come up to the front,” Wren says icily. “In front of the class. Right here.”
My heart floods with burning pity as Oliver takes a halting step towards us, sincerely looking like he might start to cry.
I can’t help myself. Wherever this is going, I can’t let it go there.
“Oh - no, really, there’s no need,” I tell Wren desperately, trying not to sound as jarred as I am. “Please don’t - I’d rather just get the class started on time.”
Wren shoots me a look that tells me I’m doing everything wrong so far, then turns and wordlessly leaves the classroom, closing the door after himself.
I turn back to the class, wishing so very badly that I could go back outside for a second and catch my breath.
“Um - please sit back down, Oliver,” I stammer, since he’s standing there uncertainly, shifting from foot to foot.
He sinks back down into his seat and starts sucking on his hand, his big hazel eyes perilously wet.
I look out at the silent kids, wondering if I might genuinely burst into tears before Oliver does. I’m getting a sense of open, obvious hostility from the little faces looking back at me. Wren’s words are echoing in my head, trying to make me panic. Give them an opening, you’ll have a riot on your hands.
I drop the worksheets and the DVD onto the teacher’s desk, then slip my bag down from my shoulder. I start to go behind the desk, but it’s huge, and austere. I feel like I would disappear behind it, so I go around to stand in front of it, turning the heist ring around on my finger.
The ring draws Aiden into my mind. I think of the sweet, warm smile he gave me when I talked about this, the affectionate glow blazing in his eyes.
You’ll be great.
I take a deep breath, then smile at the kids, raise my hand in a wave.
“Hey, everyone,” I begin, trying my hardest to sound bright and cheerful. “I’m Jamie.”
“Thought you were Mr. Keane,” Oliver says sullenly, like he can’t help himself.
“Oh, no thank you,” I answer, twisting the ring around my finger nervously. “Jamie is fine. So, um - Mr. Wren said that I can either play you guys a video, or have you do some worksheets. I’d say there should be a vote, but I’ve been your age before, so I know better than to think that the worksheets are gonna get a single vote.”
Most of the kids stare at me in blank confusion, like all of this is very unusual already. But there’s a quickly-hushed giggle of laughter from one of the little girls in the front row, which reinforces my anxious heart a tiny bit.
“Um…” I take a closer look at the kids, scanning their faces. “Most of you look pretty bored already, if I’m being honest. And we haven’t even picked one of the two options.”
No answer. All of the kids are staring at me with suspicious eyes, like this is an obvious trap.
“Okay…” I hesitate, my hand drifting to my bag with my lesson plan. “Well - I did have something else for us to do. Something different.”
I’ve accidentally made it into a mystery, but I realize right away that it might be a good thing. All eyes in the room go right to my bag and stay there. The kids already look more awake, although that might just be because everyone is curious to see how badly I’m about to fail at teaching.
Awake, though. And attentive.
“You kids think Mr. Wren would be chill with it if we go off-plan?” I ask the class.
The kids all look up at me in startled silence, and then the little girl who laughed before laughs again.
“No,” she giggles, pressing a few of her box braids over her mouth. “He wouldn’t like it.”
I narrow my eyes and bite my lip, hold still for a few thoughtful seconds, then pick up my bag. “Let’s do it anyways.”
There’s a burst of scandalized, startled giggles from the class, and a rush of warmth goes through my heart. Feeling a little steadier on my feet, I slip the construction paper and glue from my bag, making a stack on my desk. There’s a bit of chatter going on at my back, but it feels so much better than the sharp silence.
“If you can be Jamie instead of Mr. Keane,” the little girl with the box braids says, leaning forward in her seat, “Can I be Tempie, instead of Temperance?”
I smile at her over my shoulder, feeling like I’ve identified a little extrovert.
“You want to come up here and help me demonstrate what we’re doing, Tempie?” I call back, and she grins at me with obvious delight, then slips out of her seat and comes tumbling up towards the desk. “Okay, everybody’s got this science textbook, right? Here, Tempie, this is my copy.”
Tempie eagerly picks up the textbook I’d been given, holds it out to the class.
“Everyone have it?” she asks, in a very official voice.
“Yes,” comes back the chorusing answer.
“Sweet!” I draw the stack of printed sheets of paper out of my bag, then give them to Tempie, who holds them up to show the class. “So, on each one of these pages, there’s a picture of a tree, and the name of that tree. Everyone’s going to get a different tree. Tempie, you can go ahead and hand them out. You - what’s your name?”
The little girl I pointed to shrinks down in her seat shyly. “Daniela.”
“Can you help Tempie hand those out, please?”
The two girls set off down the rows of desks, and the other kids hold out their hands, waiting to see which tree is on their page.
“Mine looks like the tree by the back door of school,” Oliver says, a little louder than the general chatter of talk. “Where you go out onto the grounds.”
“That’s right!” I answer brightly, inordinately pleased that one of the kids noticed on their own. “These are all trees that grow here on your school campus. Okay - everybody go ahead and open up your science textbooks to the last few pages.”
There’s a general rustling of paper, and then everybody looks up at me again.
“So, that big list of stuff, that’s the index,” I tell them, as Tempie comes back to the front. “We’re gonna practice using it to help find information, something you need to do a lot in science. You see it’s in alphabetical order?”
A general chorus of yes again. I nod at the kids, relieved that they’re all following. This is a challenging exercise for their age group, but so far they all seem like they’re with me.
“So, you can use the index to find the name of your tree,” I tell them, hoping to god I’m explaining myself clearly. “The numbers next to the name of your tree, those are the numbers of every page in your textbook that mentions your tree. Still with me?”
Another chorus of yes. I scan for any hesitant faces, then keep going.
“Your job is to use the index to find three different pages in your textbook about your tree. You gotta find three different cool facts for me about the tree, then write them down on the sheet with the picture. It’s - like a scavenger hunt. Tempie’s gonna demonstrate.”
“Oh!” Tempie says, blushing a little. “I don’t know-”
“It’s okay, I’ll show you.” I tap the printout in her hand. “What’s the name of your tree?”
“Red Alder,” she reads out loud, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar word.
“Okay, so where in the index do you want to go, for Red Alder?”
Tempie thinks about it for a second. “R?”
“Yes!” I take the printed sheet of paper from her, then set the textbook out on the nearest desk. “Go ahead.”
Tempie scans her bright eyes down the index, flips through the pages until she stops on the R section.
“Red Alder!” she says triumphantly, pointing to it.
“Nice! What are the page numbers?” I wait as she reads them out loud, then nod at her. “So, now you go to the first page number, find a fact about your tree, and write it down on the printout with the-”
Tempie starts speedily flipping away through the pages before I can finish. I break off, smiling at her, then lift my eyes to the class.
“I’ve also got some construction paper and stuff, so you can each make a leaf from your tree. The textbook has pictures of the trees you can look at, so you know what your leaf should look like. You’ll have to find the pictures using the index.”
“Which thing do we do first?” someone calls, and I shrug my shoulders.
“Whichever you feel like, I guess?” I let my eyes rove over the room for any confused faces. “You can help each other out, and I’m here to help, too. Any questions before we start?”
I give it a few seconds, but no one answers.
“Okay, you’ve got thirty minutes, so - go, go!” I say urgently. “We’ll do something fun at the end of class if everyone finishes in time!”
The kids all blink at me, then scramble out of their seats.
Some of the kids go right for the indexes of their textbooks, and others go rushing for the glue sticks and construction paper, and I find myself shouting a reminder that no one’s allowed to run with scissors.
After a few minutes in the noise and hustle of the classroom, the kids start clustering together around the textbooks, chattering as they work, letting out eager shouts when they find what they’re looking for.
I start wandering around the classroom, happy to hear the laughter, the little voices, the little hands pulling at me.
The kids are rushing up to me to ask questions, then rushing away again. I’m keeping an eye out for any trouble - any scissors moving too fast, or arguments threatening to break out - but aside from a minor dispute about whose glue stick is whose, it’s all going okay.
And then a hand smacks into my back. Hard, with some intended force.
I had been crouching down to hear what one of the kids was excitedly saying to me, and I twist around, startled.
Oliver is standing behind me, a look of blazing frustration on his little face.
“Did you just hit me?” I ask, caught completely by surprise.
“You weren’t listening to me!” he snaps.
I stare at Oliver for a moment. I’m getting the feeling that he’s still humiliated about how the class started. He looks hurt, beneath the anger burning in his hazel eyes.
“Okay, well, ow.” The hit didn’t hurt, but I make a face at Oliver like it did. “That wasn’t a nice way to get my attention. I didn’t like that. Would you like it if someone tried to get your attention that way?”
He hesitates, then slowly shakes his head, suddenly a little shamefaced.
“I’ll be right here when you can think of a nicer way to get my attention,” I tell him, turning away again.
There’s a little pause, then a soft tug on my sleeve. “Jamie.”
“There we go.” I turn around to smile at Oliver, then give him a gentle knock on the shoulder. “Much better, buddy. I’m sorry I wasn’t listening before, I just didn’t hear you. What’s up?”
Oliver hesitates, then haltingly holds something out to show me. His tree sheet, and his leaf. “I’m done.”
I stare down at his work in surprise, seeing that he scrawled out way more than three facts onto his sheet. And made a pretty elaborate leaf, too, with lighter green construction paper glued on like veining.
“Wow,” I say brightly, warm surprise flooding through me. “This looks great, bud!”
Oliver stares at me in blank silence, so I take his work from him and get to my feet, hold his leaf up to the class.
“Oliver is the first one across the finish line!” I announce, cupping a hand around my mouth. “Who’s next?”
Another wave of energy goes through the room, along with a burst of renewed noise. Oliver is still standing there staring up at me silently, twisting his little fingers together. He’s blushing from my announcement to the class, but it looks very different from the pained blush in his cheeks when Wren was here.
I hand him back his work, since we’re not done with it yet.
“Go help someone else!” I tell him urgently. “You’re all a team, working against the clock! Go help the team!”
Oliver swivels around and scrambles off towards one of the other boys.
When the last little shouts of done! rise from the group, I check my watch and see that the kids went three minutes over the time limit.
I hesitate, staring down at my watch, twenty-six anxious pairs of eyes on me.
“Good enough for me!” I tell the class, to an instant burst of excited noise. “Everyone got their leaf and their sheet?”
There’s a nod from the class, little hands holding up their work.
“Okay - everyone pair up with the person standing right next to you! But you can only be in pairs of two! Go!”
Another silence, and then a general explosion of movement. Each kid seizes the one next to them, and then a few of them go darting off to find someone else when they realize they’ve accidentally formed pairs of three.
But after a moment I’ve got only pairs of two before me, out of breath and giggling.
“Stick with your buddy, okay?” I beckon to the entire group, heading for the door. “No one go running off. And we gotta keep it quiet in the hallways. This is a stealth mission, understand? Utmost secrecy. Super spy stuff.”
The kids all nod at me very earnestly and seriously, falling silent.
There are a few waves of soft giggles as we sneak down the hallway, especially when I strike dramatically sneaky poses before we turn around the corners. But the noise stays low enough that I doubt we’re disturbing the other classrooms.
Or - maybe we are? Hard to say. It’s so ridiculously, utterly silent in this school. The tiny little bursts of laughter and hushing coming from my group are actually kind of reassuring.
I lead us to the door that opens out onto the school grounds. The kids all stare at me in startled silence, then rush forward as one when I beckon for them to come out.
I follow them out into the bright, spacious morning. It’s light blue skies overhead, soft clouds and birds and breeze. The rainfall from the last few days has left all the spring greenery rich and vivid.
The little free souls all around me go spilling out onto the grass eagerly, letting out all the suppressed laughter from our sneaky journey through the hallways.
“Stick with your buddy!” I call again, smiling right down to my heart. “And come back here, we’re not done yet!”
The kids race over to cluster up around me, some of them holding hands with their buddies. Oliver ended up with Daniela, the timidest kid in the class, the only one who didn’t go rushing for a partner when I said to pair up.
She’s hovering close to him, listening in shy silence as he excitedly says something to her about her leaf.
I almost hate to cut it off, but I drop down to be eye level with the kids as they all cluster around me.
“Remember I told you that all the trees you researched grow on your campus?” I nod when they all nod back at me. “So, we’re gonna find each of your trees, and when we do, you’ll get to tell us what your research turned up. Who wants to go first?”
I suppress a delighted grin as every hand shoots up.
“How about you?” I point to one of the kids in the back. “Hold up your leaf, so we know what we’re looking for!”
He holds it up, calls out the name. “And it has white flowers!”
“I know that one!” one of the little girls calls back, pointing at his leaf. “The tree outside the art room!”
“Who knows where the art room is?” I ask, and as one, the group turns to rush across the grounds, following the outside of the school building. “Oh, god - stick with your buddies, though!”
The boy breaks into a giant grin when I confirm that we’ve found the right tree.
“Tell us about it,” I call from the back of the group. “You’re the expert!”
“So this - this-” He’s stuttering a little in his eagerness. “This is a Pacific Dogwood!”
We all listen as he tells us the facts he found about the tree. When he gets to the end, I give him a high-five, ask who wants to go next, and all hands shoot up again.
We go weaving over the grounds together. Some of the trees are close to the school, and others closer to the low wall at the edge of the school property. We end up walking a long ways, back and forth sometimes, the kids tumbling along with their buddies. I keep doing nervous headcounts, but no one has strayed away from the group. Actually, they’re pretty much keeping in an eager cluster, all of them trying to contribute clues to the finding of the next tree.
I leave Daniela to go last, because she’s the only one raising her hand halfheartedly. She doesn’t raise it at all when she’s the only one left, and I realize that she’s dragged Oliver with her to the back of the group, where she’s half-hiding behind him.
But we’re at her tree. The one before it was Oliver’s, and it turned out to be growing right next to hers.
“Daniela,” I say gently, catching her eye. “It’s your turn.”
She hesitates, then slips out from behind Oliver and haltingly comes to stand beside her tree. But as soon as all eyes in the class are on her, she freezes, trembling.
She looks at me with a begging expression on her face, almost crushing her paper in her hands.
“Okay, um-” I turn to face the group again. “Class, you’ve got a teammate in need of assistance. Who wants to help Daniela share her work?”
Oliver weaves through the crowd and takes Daniela’s paper from her hands.
“I got it,” he tells her, with warmth in his little voice.
Daniela stares at him with obvious relief and gratitude as he reads what she wrote out to the class. She smiles and blushes again when I give her the high-five she earned.
“Okay, that’s everyone! Everybody come over here and turn in your sheets, please! You can keep your leaf.” I drop my eyes to my watch. “Oh, and good timing, because we’ve got to get you all to your next class!”
I look up in surprise when this is met with a loud groan from everyone.
“What are we doing tomorrow?” Tempie asks, eagerly pulling at my sleeve.
“You’ll find out tomorrow,” I laugh, taking her sheet from her, then giving her a gentle push towards the door. “Focus on your next classes for now! And nice work, everyone!”
I get warm goodbyes from the kids as they head back inside, until only Oliver is left.
He’s hovering uncertainly, a guilty expression in his hazel eyes. I think he might be feeling bad about hitting me, looking for a way to apologize.
But he can’t seem to find the words, and I want him to know that I don’t hold it against him.
“That was nice of you, to help Daniela.” I smile warmly down at Oliver as I reach out to take his sheet. “Precious little heart, aren’t you?”
He hesitates, wringing his little fingers together, looking up at me like he wants to say something. Then he silently darts forward, gives my legs a quick hug, and rushes past me into the school.
I’m still just standing there smiling when Wren steps outside a minute or so later.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he says stiffly.
“Oh - sorry about that!” I neaten up the stack of filled-in sheets in my hands, instantly nervous. “Class led us outside.”
I didn’t do what Wren told me to do, but hopefully he saw the happy kids running back inside, and I’ve got the evidence of their hard work right here in my hands, so -
“I feel like I didn’t make myself clear.” Wren stares at me with a hard, neutral expression that somehow doesn’t feel neutral at all. “I asked you to work up to the standards of the school.”
My heart slowly but certainly begins to sink. I know when I’m in trouble.
“I - did my best, I’m sorry if it wasn’t-”
“The kids from your class are running inside, in no kind of order, with their uniforms all dirty,” Wren says flatly, slowly. “I’ve heard that there was noise disturbance from your classroom. And I could swear I heard one of the kids in the hallway say - he was nice, even when he got hit.”
I stare at Wren in anxious silence, not sure why that last part is a bad thing.
“Did one of the students hit you?” Wren asks, staring me down. “And you didn’t send them to the principal?”
“It - was-” I hesitate, struggling for the right words, wishing that I could lie. “It was barely anything, seriously - he was upset, but we talked it through, and-”
“It was Oliver, wasn’t it?” Wren cuts in sharply. “That boy has been a thorn in my side ever since he came to this school. I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen.”
I feel myself starting to go on the defensive before I can help it.
“Oliver is actually a really sweet kid,” I insist, finally pulling some force into my voice. “He just gets frustrated when no one listens to him, and he must feel like that happens a lot. That’s probably why he’s been disruptive. But he was actually kind of quiet in my class, as soon as I listened to him, and - he’s a good student. Look at the work he did!”
I take Oliver’s sheet from the top of the stack and show it to Wren, who stares down at it in silence for a second.
“You call this good work?” he asks shortly. “It’s a mess. I wouldn’t even accept it. Oliver barely even wrote in straight lines.”
“Because he was excited,” I explain earnestly, remembering Oliver at his desk dashing out his work. “Did you read what he wr-?”
“None of this excuses the fact that he hit a teacher.” Wren turns swiftly towards the door of the school. “That’s very serious. I’m going to go pull him out of class right now.”
“I didn’t say it was him!” I blurt out, before I can think about it. “I didn’t say that he hit me!”
Wren stops, looks at me over his shoulder. “Well - did he?”
I open my mouth to answer, then close it, bite my lip for a second.
“I’m not reporting that any kid hit me,” I finally answer. “I’m sorry, but I’m not doing that.”
Wren stares at me like he’s trying to light me on fire with his glare, then slowly turns around to face me again.
“Tomorrow,” he says quietly, “I expect you to strictly follow the assigned curriculum. And I’ll want the name of the student who hit you before the bell rings. Or we’ll find another substitute.”
He turns and leaves before I can answer.
I stand there staring after him for a long time, then slowly go inside and head back to the empty science classroom.
There’s a red felt-tipped pen on the desk. I sit down and silently mark everyone’s tree sheet, circling words that are spelled wrong and grammatical mistakes, but giving each sheet a checkmark and a smiley face.
I set them in a stack on one side of the desk, then gather up my stuff.
I take one sheet off of the stack of graded papers and bring it with me. I’m hoping the new sub will know to distribute these tomorrow, but there’s one I really need to make sure gets into the right hands.
I walk slowly down the silent hallways until I spot one of the kids from my class through the windows of one of the classrooms. I come closer and catch sight of Oliver in the back. He has his hand up, but as I watch, the teacher calls on someone else. He drops his hand, then lets out a little breath, turns to stare out of the window.
His construction paper leaf is out on the desk before him, and he has the fingers of one small hand resting on it.
I look down at the graded sheet in my hands, the only one where I wrote something. Amazing work, buddy. A+.
I knock softly on the classroom door. The teacher at the front pauses, then comes over to open it, obviously irritated by the disturbance.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I tell her, keeping my voice very soft. “I’m the science substitute teacher. Can you just hand this to Oliver for me? Some schoolwork I need to give him back.”
“A redo, I’m sure, if it’s for Oliver,” the teacher sighs, taking the sheet from me. “Fine.”
I hand it over, and she closes the door. I watch for a second to make sure she’s really headed for Oliver.
I wait until he blinks and looks up at her, then quietly slip away.
~~~~
I sit perfectly still on the couch, staring blankly at the living room wall, my knees gathered up to my chest.
I startle a little when the soft sound of the front door opening breaks what must have been a very long silence. I turn my head to look, then turn my face away again quickly when Aiden slips inside, his work clothes rumpled from his long day.
“Hi,” he says, his deep voice exhausted. “God, am I glad to see you. Work was awful today.”
“What happened?” I manage, staring with unseeing eyes at the wall.
“Some college students needed to use the archives for their research.” Aiden drops his bag by the door, wrenches open another button at the collar of his dress shirt, then runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “Normally I don’t mind, but this bunch was loud, and they weren’t being careful with any of the stuff. They had me on edge all goddamn day. Big fucking headache.”
“Oh, no,” I say quietly, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. “I’m sorry. That sucks. We have - have some Advil upstairs, do you want me to get you some?”
Aiden stops by the door, staring at me across the living room, his blue eyes narrowing.
I can’t make myself turn to look at him, so I’m only aware of his movements through sounds. First the soft clunk of him pulling off his work shoes, then his footsteps muffled by his socks, then the quiet rustle of his clothing as he gets closer.
He sits down slowly on the couch beside me, tentatively puts one huge, warm hand on my knee.
“Jamie?” he rumbles quietly, his voice full of concern. “How - how’d it go at the school?”
“Um, so…” I’m struggling hard to keep my words from shaking, struggling to even form a sentence. “It w-was - I, um - I-”
I bite my lip, then finally turn my eyes on Aiden. He freezes when he looks into them, instantly goes wide-eyed with alarm. And as soon as I meet his gaze, I can’t hold it together anymore. My eyes fill up and spill over with tears before I can even catch my breath.
“It - it was horrible,” I rasp, in a thin, hoarse voice. “The vice-principal told me that I did a terrible job, and th-the school is probably all pissed at me, and I probably made Gabby look bad for referring m-me, and in the end I had to quit. Or they were gonna fire me.”
Aiden stares at me, unmoving, his blue eyes enormous. It’s a long time before he finds his voice.
“Are you s-?”
“Yeah.” I bite back a sob, hastily swiping the sleeve of my flannel over my cheeks. “Yeah.”
Aiden absorbs that for another moment of stunned silence. Then he wraps his arms around me, draws me up close to him.
The warm, firm press of his body, his strong arms enclosing me, the steadiness of his breathing, his heartbeat. I needed all of it so badly, and I didn’t realize until right now. I close my eyes and curl into Aiden, spangling his dress shirt with tears.
“I should’ve heard you,” he says softly, stroking his fingers through my hair. “It’s been so goddamn loud all day, I haven’t been able to hear a fucking thing with any clarity.”
“I hope - you can’t hear me - now - either,” I stammer, pressing my sleeve to my eyes again. “I’m s-so fucking embarrassed, I can’t believe I fucked up so bad…”
Aiden holds very still, then gently eases me back.
“Okay, Jamie, that - that just can’t be what happened. I’m sorry, but it can’t be.” He takes me by my jaw, makes me look into his blue eyes. “Can you tell me what actually happened? Like - just start from the beginning.”
I take a deep, shaky breath, then stumble my way through it, struggling to catch my breath the whole time. I can’t bring myself to look at Aiden, so I don’t know what he’s thinking, but about halfway through, he gently takes my hand in his, then holds it for the rest.
“So I had to quit,” I finally finish, breathing out a heavy, tear-ridden exhale. “If I go back, I have to hang Oliver out to dry, or they’ll fire me. And I’m not gonna do that, so.”
I fall silent, keeping my eyes trained on my sock, picking anxiously at the fabric. Aiden doesn’t say anything, even though I give him a good long moment.
“I just feel so bad.” I close my eyes and hang my head, sniffling. “I let everybody down. I don’t even know why I thought I could do this in the first pl-”
Aiden takes me by my chin with his thumb and his knuckles, tilts my face up to his.
I’m caught off-guard by the swift movement, then beyond startled to see Aiden beaming at me, his blue eyes glowing with warmth and affection.
“What happened?” I ask, then let out a startled gasp when he practically flattens me into the couch.
“Oh, god,” he rumbles, his deep voice helpless. “I love you so much, Linden.”
“I - what?” I slide my arms around Aiden to hold him back, savoring the warm weight of him even in my total bewilderment. “Think I made it pretty clear that I fucked everything up-”
“No,” Aiden says, with the firmness of fact. “No. You did such a good job.”
“I did?”
“Yes. You don’t even know how good you did.”
“But I - I quit on it, and after only one day-”
“Quitting isn’t always the wrong thing to do, alright? Take it from someone who quit drinking.” Aiden turns his head to brush a kiss onto my neck, the intimate tickle of his stubble making my toes curl. “What are you gonna be able to do, if you go back? Play a video for the class. That’s it. And at the cost of getting Oliver in serious trouble. Right?”
I take long breaths of vetiver, my pounding heartbeat slowly starting to come down in pace. “I mean - yeah…”
“So, sounds to me like what actually happened is that you gave the kids a badly-needed bit of fun, and taught them something - gave them all you could, given the circumstances.” Aiden nuzzles his nose into my neck. “Sounds to me like the kids were happy. And you were a bright spot for Oliver. Doesn’t that matter?”
I fall silent for a long moment, letting his words sink in. Aiden twines his fingers into my hair, then slowly sits back, draws me upright with him.
“You did great, Linden,” he murmurs, gazing into my eyes as he affectionately knuckles my cheek. “Just like I knew you would.”
I sniffle at him, but I’m not crying anymore. “Isn’t Gabby gonna be-?”
“Pissed? Yes, absolutely. Not at you, though. At the school, when she hears how fucking rude they were to you.”
Aiden sits back a little more, a dark scowl sweeping over his face. A flare of burning fury flashes through his eyes.
“That guy,” he says, his voice dropping to a deep growl. “Wren. You happen to know where he spends his off-hours? Love to have a word with him. In person.”
“What - stop it!” I let out a startled laugh, dragging my sleeve beneath my eyes as Aiden menacingly rolls out his neck. “Listen-”
“Yeah, yeah. You be glad you didn’t tell Ralph or Noah about this. Don’t think I’d even be able to slow them down. And I’d be right behind them, if I’m being honest.”
“Aiden!” I let out another helpless sputter of laughter, then blink in surprise, realizing all at once how much better I feel.
Aiden’s scowl drops as soon as he hears me laughing. He smiles again, gathers me back into his arms, rests his forehead against mine. I close my eyes, warm relief slowly starting to work its way through me.
“I’m so glad you’re here for me, Aiden,” I murmur, in a ragged voice. “On the hard days. So - so good to know that I can always come home, and you’ll be here, and…”
I leave the rest unspoken. And everything will be okay.
Aiden lets out a deep, slow exhale, tightens his arms around me.
“I know exactly what you mean. About how good that feels.” He kisses my forehead, then sits back to look at me, ruffles my hair. “You were even there for me today. By accident.”
“Was I?” I stare at Aiden in surprise. “How?”
Aiden shrugs his shoulders, then gently smooths one of my tears away with his thumb. “Pretty much forgot all about my shitty day the instant I saw you crying.”
I let out an affectionate little laugh. I take a real, deep breath, then sink into Aiden’s arms again. He folds them warmly around me.
“I’m surprised you agreed to take the gig in the first place,” he rumbles, after a moment. “I could tell how nervous you were about it.”
“Yeah, well…” I twist the ring around my finger slowly, suddenly exhausted from the day I had. “It was a chance for me to be around little ones, and you know - we’ve talked about maybe having some of our own one day, so I want the practice. And it was gonna be some extra money, which would have been good, since we’ve been thinking about maybe buying our house when our rental lease is u-”
“Okay, wow.” Aiden draws back and presses a fingertip over my mouth. “You need to stop, like, right now, man. You’re not allowed to say one more cute fucking thing all night. Maybe all the rest of the week. My heart can’t take it, Keane. I was already - you just - stop.”
I smile at Aiden with eyes full of love, and he closes his, like he’s honestly going to malfunction.
I sit back in surprise as he gets swiftly to his feet. “What are you doing?”
“Dealing with the thing that’s still bugging you,” he says over his shoulder.
I have no idea what this means, so I get up and follow Aiden into the kitchen, where he finds my laptop and opens it up. I was signed in with my temporary login to the school’s staff portal, and it’s still pulled up. Aiden silently clicks through the options until he finds the student directory.
“Great, there’s only one Oliver.” He shoots me a relieved look, slipping his phone out of his pocket. “Makes things easier.”
I look up at him, bewildered. “I’m sorry - what are we doing?”
“You’re worried about how that kid is at the mercy of a school admin who pretty much openly hates him, right?” Aiden starts putting the number into his phone. “You want to warn his parents, don’t you?”
I stare at Aiden, astounded. “Okay, how the fuck did you know-? That’s scary, I didn’t even say-”
“The good thing about my voice is that I sound old enough to be anyone’s parent.” Aiden hits the call button. “Nobody has to know that this tip came from the science substitute. And I’ll do all the lying.”
“That’s not the only good thing about your voice, first of all, and what do you mean, the lying-?” I press my fingers over my mouth in alarm as Aiden puts the phone to his ear. “Aiden, what-?”
“Hi, there,” he says into the phone, holding up a shushing finger at me. “I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this. I think that my kid goes to the same school as your kid, Oliver? I got your number from the student directory.”
There’s a pause, and then Aiden gives me a thumbs up.
“Well, parent to parent, there’s something I wanted to discuss with you about Oliver,” he says. “Do you have a second to talk about it?”
There’s another pause, and then Aiden nods at me.
“Great, I’m just gonna give the phone to my b- my husband. He’s the one who noticed something was up, he’ll be able to explain it better.”
Aiden silently hands me his phone. I take it slowly, my cheeks suddenly burning.
Play along, Aiden mouths at me.
“Hello?” comes a concerned female voice from the other end of the call. “Anyone there?”
“Yeah, hi,” I say hastily, struggling to pull it together. “Sorry about that-”
“Your husband was just telling me something about Oliver?” she cuts in anxiously.
“Right, my - my husb- my - yeah,” I stammer, my eyes flitting to Aiden, then quickly away again. “Um. I’m also sorry that we’re calling you out of the blue, but I’ve noticed something about how Oliver is being treated at school-”
“Is he being bullied?” Oliver’s mom asks, her voice filled with obvious alarm.
“Um… yeah, I’m concerned that maybe he is. But not by the kids.”
I launch into a careful explanation, relaying what I saw in the simplest truths possible.
Oliver’s mom listens in silence. There’s a long pause when I get to the end.
“I knew something was going on,” she says quietly. “He came home glowing today, he’d gotten a really good grade on something, he couldn’t wait to show me… and I’m realizing that it was the first time I’ve seen him like that in way too long.”
I close my eyes, happy to know that Oliver was glowing, even for a little bit.
“Thank you,” his mom adds. “For telling me. I think Ollie’s been trying to tell me, but I’ve been so busy, it’s been so hard, now that I’m doing this on my own, and… just - thank you.”
I stare at the phone for a long time after she hangs up, then slowly look up at Aiden. He’s leaning back against the kitchen wall, his arms folded over his chest, ocean eyes watching me.
“All better?” he asks softly, and I nod at him.
“Two for one save, Guardian,” I tell him, my voice rough around the edges. “Oliver, and his mom. And me, kind of, so. That’s three.”
Aiden blinks in surprise, then breaks into a warm smile. He reaches out and draws me to him, wraps his arms around me. I lean gratefully into his embrace, then snuggle my face into his chest. Happy to be home, in all meanings of the word.
My hard days have soft endings, with my Companion Plant around.
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