Pathetic.Thanks for reading and leaving feedback, Carolyn!
Part 34
“I feel numb,” Alex said, his voice flat, expressionless.
“Oh, god.” Liz sat beside him on the couch, feeling so sorry for him. “I wish there was something more I could do for you.”
“You’re doin’ enough just by lettin’ me stay here tonight.”
“It’s no problem.” She had a spare bedroom in her apartment, and he was welcome to stay as long as he needed to. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe she would cheat on you. And with Sean?” The whole thought of it made her sick.
“Yeah, I always thought he was a decent guy,” Alex said. “Guess not.”
Liz shook her head, pressing her lips tightly together. “I’m so pissed at him,” she ground out, hating that he would stoop so low as to have an affair with a married woman. Seriously?
“Apparently they met in Zumba,” Alex revealed.
“Well, if it’s any consolation, that doesn’t exactly sound like an epic love story.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m done. I’m not gonna stay with someone who would do that to me.”
“No, you deserve better,” she agreed. The irony of this whole thing was not lost on her. Here she was, sympathizing with Alex about being betrayed by his wife, and she’d once been a knowing culprit in helping Michael betray his girlfriend. She’d matured a lot since then, though, and learned a lot from the experience.
“Leanna thinks she deserves better,” he grumbled bitterly. “That’s what she told me.”
Liz nearly laughed at that. “First off, she doesn’t. Second . . . Sean’s not better. Trust me. He’s just an immature guy with no concept of responsibility.”
“Must be somethin’ about him she likes,” he said sadly. “And something she resents about me.”
“What is there to resent, though? You’re a great guy, Alex.” He was on the fast track to a life of great success. Most guys his age weren’t doing half the things he was doing.
“But I work a lot,” he mumbled, “and go to school. And have ex-girlfriends who make her jealous.”
Liz winced. “I’m sorry.” She’d never meant for her friendship with Alex to be a point of contention in his marriage to Leanna. Though she suspected his former infatuation with Isabel drove Leanna up the wall far more often.
“It’s not your fault,” Alex assured her. “She just never could handle it if she wasn’t my top priority. And maybe that’s my fault. Maybe she always should have been. I don’t know.”
“This is not your fault.” In her opinion, Leanna had always been very needy when it came to attention from her husband, so much so that it was almost childish. “You’ve been a good and patient husband to her. I think it just started to become clear once you guys were married that you had different agendas and . . . trajectories you wanted to follow in life. And she’s just not the person you thought she was.”
“No, she’s not,” he agreed emphatically. “When we were dating, it seemed great, but . . . I don’t know, I guess marriage changes things.”
If that was true, then for once she was happy to still be on the dating scene. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now,” she said, “but this might actually be a good thing. You’re probably better off.” She’d held her tongue about Leanna for a long time now. It felt good to actually voice her opinion.
“I know,” Alex said with a sigh. “It still stings, though.”
Liz nodded, understanding why it would. Sometimes, certain people just worked a number on you, and no matter how hard you tried to shake them . . . it just couldn’t be done.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Slow day, Michael thought as he played Trivia Crack on his phone. He had games going with both Sarah and Monk, and while his and Sarah’s was pretty evenly matched, Monk was unfortunately kicking his ass.
Slow days at the school were probably better than hectic, busy ones, though. Even though it made the time crawl by, it was technically a good thing. It meant that things were going smoothly and they’d been productive enough to allow themselves a little time to relax.
Vanessa never relaxed, though. When there wasn’t work to be done, she found work to do. Or she found work for him to do. And even though she answered a few Trivia Crack questions with him, she soon became bored with it.
“Take a look at this,” she said, handing him a file folder.
He put his phone away and took a look at the name on top of the folder, not recognizing it. Jake Harper. “New student?” he guessed.
Vanessa nodded. “First grader.”
He opened the folder and took a look at the documents inside. Most of it was medical, provided to the school by the kid’s doctors and therapist. “Oh, wow,” he said, reading his diagnosis. “Severe autism?”
“Yep.”
“What does that mean, exactly? It seems like autism looks different in every kid.”
“Well, it’s a spectrum disorder,” she reminded him, “so it does. But this particular boy came to visit yesterday morning. He doesn’t know how to communicate at all, so when he wants something or feels something, he just yells and screams. That’s the only way he knows how to express himself.”
“Did he do that when he was here?”
“Yeah. His parents are gonna move him here after Christmas because his current school can’t seem to handle him. They’re just biding their time there now until they can find a house in Carlsbad.”
“Huh.” As much as he was all about helping kids who needed it, sometimes they just weren’t equipped or prepared to help every single kid. “Isn’t this the kind of kid who should maybe be in the Life Skills program and not the regular classroom?”
“Probably,” Vanessa agreed. “But his parents don’t want that for him. They want him to be normal.”
“He’s not normal, though.”
Vanessa sighed. “They just haven’t accepted that yet. So he’ll be our responsibility soon enough. We’ll have to try to find a way to educate and socialize him.”
Based on what Michael was reading . . . that might prove to be impossible. But with schools having such an ‘inclusion’ mindset these days, they didn’t really have a choice but to try. “Are you gonna try to do a Circle of Friends for him?” he asked. There were two other autistic kids in the school who had something like that.
“Definitely,” Vanessa replied. “But Luke’s already in one. And so are some of those other boys he hangs out with.”
“Dylan would be good,” Michael suggested. He wasn’t already part of a Circle.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Yeah, he was a good leader out on the football field.”
Vanessa smiled. “Isn’t that amazing that you start seeing qualities like that even at such a young age?”
“Yeah.” It made him feel proud, knowing that the little boy he’d technically helped raise was turning out so well. “He’s a good kid.”
Vanessa held out her hand, and he closed Jake Harper’s file folder and handed it back to her. “So,” she said, putting it away in her bottom right desk drawer, “how was it being his coach, given your prior relationship with him and his mom?”
Amazing, he wanted to say. Now that football was over, the thing he would miss most about it was seeing Dylan so often. But he downplayed it. “It was fine,” he said nonchalantly. “I got a handle on that now.”
“Good,” Vanessa said. “Because you sure didn’t back when you were pummeling his father’s face.”
“Yeah, I still don’t like him,” he admitted.
“Well, at least you learned to be professional.”
He grinned and joked, “So when my practicum’s over, then I can stop being professional and just kick his ass.” Oh, if only . . .
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” she said.
“What, kicking his ass?”
“No, about your practicum coming to an end,” she clarified. “I know you’re plenty busy, but I just thought I’d mention that we’re in desperate need of some classroom aides to work with some of our kids. And with this new one coming in . . . well, he’ll need a lot of help.”
Holy crap, he thought. Is she offering me a job? Had he really managed to turn her opinion of him around that much?
“There would be some pay,” she said, “but I’m not gonna lie, it’d be minimal.”
“So basically you want me to volunteer to work with a bunch of really challenging kids,” he surmised.
“Basically.”
He thought about it for a moment, then couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“It’s just ironic.” He thought back to all those tutoring sessions with Alex, and how challenging those must have been for him. “People used to have to volunteer to help me.”
“That’s why you’re the right person for the job,” she declared.
When she put it like that . . . yeah, it did make sense. He didn’t have the same kind of disorder this Jake kid had, but he’d had his own issues to overcome.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” she told him. “Just think about it.”
He definitely would.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So how much does it pay?” Sarah asked as she unloaded the dishwasher that evening.
“It basically doesn’t,” Michael admitted.
“So you’d just be doing it for the experience then.”
“Yeah. I mean, it’d be a good thing to put on a résumé someday.”
“It would,” she agreed, straining as she tried to put a large mixing bowl away in the top cabinet. It was hard for her since she was short, so he took it out of her hands and put it away for her. “Thanks,” she said. “So would you still keep your housing job, though?”
“Yeah, this would pretty much just take the place of my practicum.”
She shut the dishwasher and faced him with both hands on her hips. “So you think you can handle it?”
“Yeah.” He felt confident. “I don’t think I’ll be any busier than I am right now, and I’ve been handlin’ this fine.” His grades were still where he wanted them to be, and his stress level was manageable.
“I think you should do it then,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yeah, it’d be a good experience.”
He was glad she was on board with it, because ever since Vanessa had mentioned it, he’d been pretty sure that it was something he wanted to do. “You know what else would be a good experience?” he said suggestively, pulling her in close to him with a mischievous gleam on his face. He kissed her greedily, starting to feel like they’d done all the talking they needed to tonight. He didn’t have homework, and neither did she, so there were obvious ways to spend the evening.
“You promise me you’ll always have time for this?” she murmured against his lips.
“I’ll always have time,” he promised, lifting her up. She squealed and held onto him, legs around his waist, arms around his shoulders, as he carried her around their dividing wall and into the bedroom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria rubbed Max’s back as his hips rolled against hers. He was in quite a rhythm at this point and was working up a sweat. She lay practically pinned beneath him, her legs open as he moved inside of her. It felt good, but it was obvious that he was closer than she was. So she kind of just started to drift off, turning her head to the side while he buried his face in the side of her neck. His breathing was coming in hot, heavy pants at this point.
His hips stilled when he came, and he groaned. It took him a minute to recover from it, and he stayed on top of her, his body pressing heavily against hers. When he managed to prop himself up on his elbows, she noticed that his hair was damp with sweat and sticking to his forehead.
“Feels good to do that again,” he breathed out.
She smiled a little, brushing his hair out of his eyes. Yeah, it had been a while since they’d had sex. Ever since she’d lied to him about what she was up to on her visit home to Roswell, things had been a little . . . distanced. Tonight, she’d just seen that look in his eyes, the one that made it clear that he was looking to . . . reconnect.
“You okay?” he asked her. “You seem kinda . . .”
“I’m just tired,” she said, rubbing his sides.
He stared down at her for a few seconds, then kissed her deeply. As he was doing that, he slid out of her. He rolled over onto his side, facing away from her, and reached down under the covers to take the condom off and dispose of it. “Goodnight,” he said, peeking at her one more time over his shoulder before he settled in on his side of the bed.
“‘Night,” she echoed, straightening her legs out beneath the covers. She squirmed around a bit, trying to find what felt like a comfortable position to fall asleep in. But she didn’t feel tired. Not really. It was weird, though, because she didn’t exactly feel awake, either. It was like she was just . . . stuck. In between.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Even though her intention hadn’t been to eavesdrop, that was exactly what Isabel found herself doing when she went to Alex’s office on Friday. She stood outside the door, picking up bits and pieces of what he and Liz were saying inside. Something about Alex’s wife cheating on him? It sure as hell had her intrigued.
“Just remember, you’re better off without her,” Liz was saying for about the twenty-thousandth time.
“I know,” Alex said. “Thanks, Liz.”
Oh god, I hope they don’t get together now, Isabel fretted. It wasn’t that she was jealous or anything; Liz and Alex together would have just been too . . . predictable. He deserved to have some spark back in his life after suffering through an abysmal marriage to Leanna as long as he had.
Isabel backed up from the door as Liz came out. Judging by the look on the other girl’s face, she’d caught her by surprise.
“Isabel,” she said. “What’re you doing here?”
What was she doing here? She’d gotten so caught up in listening in that she’d honestly sort of forgotten. “Just came to talk to my professor,” she replied vaguely, brushing past Liz. She slipped inside, shutting the door, but Alex gave her one look and said, “Open that back up.”
She got a little laugh out of that inwardly, just because her old Princeton professor never would have told her to do that. She did as he wished, though, and sat down across his desk. “So how do I look?” she asked him.
He wrinkled his forehead in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Better than the last time you saw me?” That whole hospital gown, though it had been drafty in some fun places, just wasn’t a flattering ensemble on anyone.
“You look better,” he agreed. “What do you need?”
“What do I need?” she echoed, thinking about what a big question that was. “Lots of things.” The answers would range from more cock to mental therapy, depending on who you asked.
“What do you want?” he rephrased.
She shrugged innocently. “Just thought I’d drop in and wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Got any plans over break?”
Instead of answering the question, he shook his head as if he were annoyed. “Isabel . . . you can’t do this. Students don’t just ‘drop in’ to say happy Thanksgiving.”
“But friends do,” she pointed out.
“We’re not friends.”
She huffed. “You stayed with me at the hospital.”
“Because I was worried. The way any normal human being would be.”
She swallowed hard, gulping down her disappointment. So if any one of his students had staggered into his classroom, doped up on medication, and passed out in his arms, he would have stayed at the hospital with them, too? She wasn’t sure whether she believed that or not, but she was certain she didn’t want to.
“Do you have any advice for things I can do over break to improve my grade?” she asked, changing the subject. “Maybe that’s also part of why I’m here.” It hadn’t been, but . . . oh, well. At least it would keep the conversation going.
“Your creative nonfiction piece needs a lot of revision,” he told her bluntly. “Start there.”
“Okay.” She waited for him to suggest something else, but he didn’t. “That’s it?”
“You could work on your sonnet a little more,” he advised. “Maybe go back and tweak the ending of the story you wrote at the beginning of the year.”
Isabel smirked. Of course, the ending. Alex never liked her endings. “Sounds good,” she said. “Are you gonna have time to relax over break now that . . .” She trailed off, not sure if she should say anything about his current . . . situation. But she was curious. She wanted to know more.
“Now that what?” he prodded.
“Well . . .” She glanced back over her shoulder to make sure no one was waiting out in the hallway, then leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I couldn’t help but overhear that you and your wife might be calling it quits.”
He sighed heavily. “You were listening to me and Liz.”
“She was just here when I showed up. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop,” she insisted, although somewhere along the way, that was all she’d been trying to do. “So what exactly happened? It sounded like she cheated on you?”
“Isabel . . .” He rolled his chair back from his desk, as if he were trying to put some space in between the two of them. “I can’t have this conversation with you.”
Ignoring him, she said, “I’m sorry. Being cheated on . . . I know how that feels. It sucks.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will be.” Alex was one of the most level-headed guys she knew. He wouldn’t go on a downward spiral like she had. “Liz is right: You’re better off without her. And you know, if I’m being honest, I never really saw you two as a match. It just didn’t seem like she appreciated you.”
“Yeah, story of my life,” he muttered.
Is he talking about me? she wondered. He acted like it didn’t bother him nowadays, the way she’d once tried to use him to get over Michael . . . but was it too much to hope that maybe it still did?
“Look, Isabel, you have to go,” he told her sternly. “If you were here to discuss class, that’s one thing, but you’re not. You’re here to discuss my personal life, and that’s . . . not okay. I’m your teacher, and you’re my student. There’s a professional boundary I won’t cross.”
She frowned, dissatisfied with the way this had gone. She wasn’t asking him to cross any lines. All she wanted was to talk to him. Was that too much to ask?
Apparently it was, because that stern, decided look on his face wasn’t changing.
“Fine,” she said, pushing the chair back so she could stand up. She couldn’t leave without saying one more thing, though, so she added, “For what it’s worth . . . I think it’s her loss.” And as someone who had blown any shot she might have once had with Alex . . . she knew all about losing out on him.
When she got out to the parking lot and got into her car . . . she didn’t start it right away. Because she knew that if she started driving, she’d just go straight home. And if she went straight home, she wouldn’t do anything all day. She’d lie in her bed, listen to music, and look at magazines. If Jesse was home, they’d probably have sex a few times. He’d take a nap this afternoon. She might, too. And when they woke up from it, they’d probably have sex some more. That was just . . . the routine.
****
Isabel had barely gotten out of the car when Jesse’s arms were encompassing her. “I missed you, babe,” he said as he hugged her and swung her around in the air.
She stumbled as he set her back down on her own two feet. “I missed you, too,” she said, halfway expecting Eric and Courtney to come out and say hi to her, too.
As if reading her mind, he told her, “Oh, they’re upstairs.”
“Oh.” That was all she needed to hear to know exactly what they were doing. “Well, are you sure they’re gonna be okay with me staying here for a while?” She didn’t want to intrude, but honestly . . . she had nowhere else to go. Her mom had made it very clear that her house was off limits, and she couldn’t stay with Tess now that they were no longer friends.
“Are you kidding? They’re excited about it,” Jesse assured her, rubbing her arms. “In fact, Eric and I were thinking about packing up and moving all of us down to Las Cruces, or maybe Carlsbad. You know, somewhere where you could still be in college if you want to.”
She shuddered just thinking about it. So far, college had not been good to her. “I got kicked out of Princeton. I don’t know if any school’s gonna want me.”
“You’ll find one,” he promised her.
“I don’t know.” He sounded optimistic, but she was finding it hard to be hopeful about anything anymore. “My own mother doesn’t want me. She won’t let me stay with her. She doesn’t even wanna see me now that I’m back. She’s just so ashamed of me.”
He stroked her cheek, kissed her lips gently, and said, “Don’t worry about it.”
How could she not, though? She’d screwed up Princeton. Princeton. An Ivy League school. How many people were that careless?
“Don’t worry,” he said again, slinking his arms around her waist. “We’re your family now.”
She knew he was just saying that to try to make her feel better, but for some reason . . . it made her stomach twist into knots.
****
Isabel turned her key in the ignition, starting up the car. She backed out of her parking space slowly, in no real hurry to get home, but resigned to the fact that there was really nowhere else for her to go.
Her “family” would be waiting for her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pulling her long-sleeved shirt down over her hands, Maria shivered. It was definitely getting cold outside. Winter was coming, and the year was flying by.
Beside her, Michael sat comfortably in his t-shirt, apparently unaffected by the change in the weather. “You cold?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Wasn’t it obvious? She’d been shaking like a leaf ever since they’d walked out of class. She knew she didn’t have to sit out there on Plaza Verde with him, but . . . why not? She didn’t have much to do this afternoon.
He’d introduced her to one of his other friends today, Monk. She wasn’t sure why his friends all seemed to have such weird names and weird personalities to go along with them, but when he told her that Monk had Asperger’s syndrome, his personality made a lot more sense.
“So what he has is a form of autism, right?” she asked for clarification as Monk and Fly played around with the Frisbee. Michael had opted to sit this one out today.
“Yeah. It looks different in everyone,” he explained to her. “But like with Monk, it doesn’t affect his intelligence or anything. He’s really smart; he just can’t always communicate in the normal way, so it makes him really socially awkward.”
“Huh. He seems nice, though.”
“He is.”
“I think a few of the kids at Dylan’s school have autism, but it seems like it affects more than just their social skills.”
Michael nodded, as if he knew exactly who she was talking about. He’d probably worked with them throughout his time there. “They’re gonna get one more after Christmas, too,” he said. “And apparently with him it’s really bad.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna try to work with him.”
She frowned, trying to piece together how that would be possible. “I thought you said he was coming after Christmas, though.”
“He is.”
She felt like an idiot, but . . . something just wasn’t making sense to her. “Won’t your practicum be over by then?”
“Yeah, but . . .” He cleared his throat and twisted his whole body to the side to stretch out. “I think I’m gonna stay on there, kinda like as a volunteer. Or a minimally-paid volunteer, I guess.”
“Oh.” So that meant Dylan would still see him around then. He would like that. “That sounds like it’ll be a really good experience for you.”
“That’s what I keep saying.”
She wasn’t about to voice it, but she wondered if that would be her only way of seeing him next semester. He wouldn’t be in Music Appreciation with her, and it wasn’t like she was going to enroll in any of his psychology classes. No way was she so desperate to be around him that she’d sign up for a class she wasn’t even required to take.
She’d miss him, though. After all this time apart, she’d actually grown used to having him in her life again. Even in a just-friends capacity.
“So are you looking forward to Thanksgiving break?” she asked, shivering again as the wind whipped past.
“Yeah.” He leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows. “Hopefully I can just relax.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t yet know what her own plans were, but if they involved her mother in any way, it definitely wouldn’t be relaxing. “Do you remember a couple years ago, my first and only Thanksgiving with you guys?” she asked, unable to stop herself from taking a little stroll down memory lane. “Your grandparents came to visit.”
He groaned, tossing his head back. “That was awful.”
“Yeah, it was kinda tense.”
He pressed his mouth together tightly, shaking his head. “You know, I haven’t even seen them or talked to them since my dad’s funeral. Not once, ever.”
“Ever?”
“Nope.”
“What about your mom’s parents?”
He sighed heavily. “They kinda . . . cut ties with her when she got pregnant with me.”
“Oh.” She felt bad for him, because even though he hadn’t always been the ideal grandson growing up, she knew that his grandparents would be proud of him now if they knew what kind of man he was becoming, what kinds of things he was going to do with his life.
“Yeah, my family really sucks,” he openly admitted. “I’m so glad you were there.”
She bristled a bit, not sure what he meant by that. “For what?”
He just smiled at her and said, “All of it.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to react too much to that. But inside, she was feeling a few butterflies. Because she felt the same way. Despite all the hardships she’d observed and been a part of while living with Michael, she wouldn’t have traded it for anything. It was exactly where she had wanted to be.
“Michael . . .” She wanted to tell him that she was glad—no, not only glad, but thankful—that he’d been there with her, too, because it had meant so much to her; but the words got stuck in her throat.
“Anyway, I gotta go,” he said abruptly, sitting up straight again. “Work.”
“Oh. Right.” They weren’t just going to sit there and talk all day. He had stuff to do, and surely there were other things she could have been doing.
He unzipped his backpack, reached inside, and took out a crimson Aggies sweatshirt, dropping it into her lap. “Have a good Thanksgiving,” he told her, getting to his feet.
She waved goodbye to him, looking away while he walked off with his backpack slung over one shoulder. She held the sweatshirt in her hands, knowing she should give it back the next time she saw him. But right now, it looked so warm, and all she wanted to do was put it on and be warm. She couldn’t help but smile when she looked at the cowboy mascot on the front.
TBC . . .
-April
Any meal in this fic is like a chance for me to explore some group dynamics.
if you'd like.