AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Later is fine,” Erin quickly answered, too quickly, as if she was counting down the seconds that she had to endure sharing the same air with her. “I know you probably want to look at them alone.”
Erin didn’t add anything else to her statement, but Julia should have. She should have told her she would sit there and look at those papers all day, rereading each line three times just to extend the seconds, if it meant she never left that chair. But it’s too messy. It became all too messy.
“Great,” Julia said, setting them back down slowly. “I will be happy to return these to you by the end of the day.”
“Take your time,” she said without expression, her voice a wooden plank.
The sun invigorated the room, covering Erin’s complexion in a luminous sheen. Julia smiled at her. It was so hard not to smile around her, to not smile at her, to not beg for that flash of teeth back. They both sat looking at each other, completely tantalized even though Erin’s lips didn’t curve upwards.
“I’m sorry if I stepped on toes by volunteering for the field trip.” Erin looked down at her papers, pretending to neatly align them. “I didn’t know they were going to pair us up.”
“You didn’t at all,” Julia jumped in before Erin even finished speaking. “We could use the help, and that was a very kind offer when you could use the time to catch up on all this paperwork.”
Julia smiled at her, but Erin still didn’t smile back. It wasn’t the smile, the one that fluttered into her mind when she was lost in thought.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” she confessed. “After day two of seeing you turn around after seeing me in the hallway, I got the idea. I’m happy to rescind my offer, if that’s what you want. You could have just talked to me.”
Julia’s stomach sank. She had no idea. Hearing it said back to her made her feel childish, and she was. Why couldn’t she just tell her? Why couldn’t she just explain that this was how it had to be and pretending it could be anything else was just torture to her already spent body?
“Ms. Jenner,” a knock sounded from behind the door as it opened to the assistant principal, “we’ll be heading into our budget meeting in a moment, if you want to join.”
“Thank you, Mr. Waylon. I’ll be just a few minutes late.”
Julia nodded towards him and then gave her full attention back to Erin when the door latch clicked close in the distance. Erin’s expression changed for a brief moment but Julia couldn’t place it.
Her next words should’ve been that she had it all wrong. Her next words should’ve been an apology for her immature behavior. Her next words should’ve been anything other than the diplomatic crap she actually said.
“I think you would really enjoy getting to know more of the students,” Julia spoke softly. Her stomach descended just a little lower at her cowardice. “The play is truly spectacular, too.”
“Okay,” Erin gave a half-smile, a plastic mask on her face, “then it’s settled.” She stood and began walking to the door. Erin stopped, her back a solid wall against her vision. “Julia?”
Her voice didn’t sound like satin or velvet; it was a subtle, melancholic tremor that finally shook loose after thousands of years of settling. It sounded like the sigh of a child who just dropped their ice cream, the anticipation of that creamy goodness evaporating as it melts on hot pavement. Some glint of hope fluttering off in the breeze.
“Yes, Erin?” Julia still had her eyes on her, now more concerned than ever.
Something was different. The air was so quiet. Their breathing sounded like footsteps on a hollow floor. Erin had her hand on the doorknob, but she didn’t turn it just yet.
She waited just three breath-spans long and then sighed, “never mind.”
She was gone just as fast as she murmured that last word. Julia didn’t know what to think. When the door swung closed, small particles of dust kicked up and floated to the dirty yellow tile, only put in sight from the single ray of sunshine reflecting through the window.
It didn’t sit right. The way Erin held herself, second guessing her words while playing with her hands in her lap. It wasn’t her. The way her voice shook in the most unnoticeable way to anyone but Julia. Something was wrong and she had to know what it was, if it was her. Had she done the very thing she feared the most?
Julia looked around her office. Filing cabinets full of reports and curriculum lined the walls. Above those hung pictures of her and students throughout the years. Behind her desk, the walls were lined with photos of faculty achievements, moments of her accolades frozen in time. Her precious degrees hung on gold-plated plaques to her left, always in view. Always a reminder.
That office contained everything she held close, everything she fought so hard to get and never lose. None of it ever came easy and she kept those reminders to prove that if she kept pushing, if she never lost sight, it would always get better. It had to get better.
Even with all those accomplishments, a professional life well lived, the room felt empty. She felt empty, as if her bones rattled against her skin without any true form. It was like the sky: something and absolutely nothing all at the same time. Erin didn’t make her feel empty. Talking to her made her skin light on fire; it made her feel alive again, like Marin didn’t take the last piece of her when she left.
Pressing her feet firmly to the ground, she stood from her cluttered desk. She didn’t care how much she had left to do. She didn’t care that she’d be late for that meeting. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered in the grand scheme of things. She let it all matter too much already.
She walked through her door, leaving it wide open. As she passed Keegan’s desk just one door over, she began to stand as if ready to ask a question, but Julia kept walking. If she stopped, if she allowed the trembling nerves in her body to settle within her limbs, every ounce of determination she worked up would disintegrate right before her.
She walked to the office with Erin’s temporary name on the front. It was small, at one point a storage room for boxes of platinum white printer paper stacked twelve high. There was only one window, maybe two-by-two feet, in the center of the back wall.
Julia approached the closed door, the blackout poster still covering the little window from the last lockdown drill. Not being able to see if Erin was inside, to see what she was doing or if she’d be bothering her, kept Julia frozen with her fist rolled into the knocking position.
How long did she stand there as her knees buckled under her weight? How long after holding your limbs in the same position before the lactic acid builds to an unbearable pain? Pausing was her mistake.
