AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She has no way of knowing how dangerous a question that is, and I can share as much or as little as I want here. “I needed a hobby.” There. It’s safe, not too revealing.
She tugs up on her swimsuit top and readjusts her arms on her mat. “And you picked running? Training for a whole marathon?”
“I had some… free time,” I admit, opening the door to more. Maybe I shouldn’t have, because maybe she’ll be turned off by everything I have to say and I’ll ruin anything we could have before we get a chance to have it.
But all she says is “Oh,” and then “My therapist told me I should take up a hobby, too. Do you think lounging in the ocean counts?” And I’m so relieved that I don’t even respond. “Sawyer?”
“Hm?”
“Nothing. Sorry. You were talking about having free time.”
“Right. So, extra time, needed an outlet, needed discipline.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know how you do it. I know teachers are always so busy.”
My chest tightens, and I take three quick, deep breaths to ease away the tension there. “I, uh… I haven’t been teaching for the last few months.”
“Oh.” She opens and closes her mouth, licks her bottom lip and bites it, like she’s trying to figure out how to dig deeper without intruding too much. “Did you— I mean, what are you doing instead?”
“Mostly running,” I confess. She looks embarrassed for both of us, like she’s stumbled too far into the conversation and can’t find her way out; like every possible door is a booby trap and she’s trying to avoid them all.
“There was an incident,” I offer, resigning myself to telling the story, trusting her with it. “My girlfriend, Chelsea, was one of the English teachers in my building.”
“And you broke up?” She says it so hopefully, so sweetly, and I smile.
“Yes, eventually. After the incident.”
She squints against the sun, and I see her trying to play it cool while she does the math in her head. “When did you get together? Because Nancy was trying to set me up with you last fall.”
“Only in February.” I laugh, remembering. “I was one of those chumps who asked out the girl right before Valentine’s Day. And it was great. We got along really well, knew a lot about each other…” I feel the effects of the words before they ever leave my mouth, and my skin tingles at the idea of getting to know Gwen the way I knew Chelsea. “I was in the office one day, toward the end of the school year, making copies for our final exam reviews. I hear yelling from our principal’s office, and then the door opens and Chelsea’s booking it out of there. This guy—a parent of one of her students—follows her out, freaking out about a project she’d assigned. I guess he’d called a meeting to fight for his kid’s right not to do this project. But anyway, this guy is just going off on both of them. Red face, screaming, swearing… all of it.”
“That sounds scary.”
“Yeah, well. It’s the norm, now, having parents scream at you. But this was a book his daughter chose to read for an anthology assignment, and he didn’t like it. Chelsea tried explaining it to him over and over, and he just wouldn’t listen. He got right up in her face.”
Gwen leans in, hanging on every word. “What did you do?”
“I told him to back the fuck off. And when he didn’t, I got in between him and Chelsea, and he kept coming at me, and I shoved him back.”
“Oh. Good for you, protecting her like that.”
“Well.” I scratch the back of my neck and avoid meeting her eyes. “The district didn’t think so. They suspended me, pending an investigation, for the year.”
“Ohhh,” she says, like everything’s clicking into place in her brain. “So that’s how you have the time—”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Sawyer, I didn’t know. And I’m sorry, because that sucks.”
“Thanks. One of the conditions for me being able to go back then was to get some counseling for my ‘anger management’ issues, and my therapist recommended running.”
“And Chelsea?”
“Ghosted me for two weeks before officially ending it.”
Gwen swallows, and her voice comes out hoarse. “That’s awful. I’m so, so sorry. I know how shitty breakups can be.”
There’s a story there, and she seems almost ready to tell it. But the sun is high, the temperature has risen, and my stomach growls.
