Page 46 of Teach Me How

She winces. “He wasn’t gossiping or anything. But he was really wrecked after the breakup.”

“I was too.” I could have used a good friend. Too bad none of them sided with me.

I guess a tempting Jezebel isn’t entitled to friends.

She adjusts the purse on her shoulder. “The prayer team really helped him through it, I think. I guess Kevin had to break up with his first girlfriend over the same differences.”

“Differences?”

She blushes. “About waiting until marriage and all that.”

“What?” I close my eyes, counting to three before I look at her again. “He told the prayer team why we broke up?”

“Well, yeah. You know how it is. That’s when we open up, you know? We bring our biggest struggles before the lord.”

“And, apparently, we trash our ex-girlfriends there, too.”

She puts a hand on my arm. “I’m not judging you. We’re all sinners, Reese. None of us are perfect.” She squeezes my arm and lets go. “I miss hanging out. Maybe we can get coffee sometime?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Probably not. I glance back at the building. “If I get the job, I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

She winces.

I squint at her. “What.” The word isn’t pitched as a question, so much as a growl.

She shrugs, glancing down the sidewalk like she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Hallie, what?”

“It’s just… I think they’ve already got someone for that position, Reese. I’m so sorry.”

“Why post it if they’ve already selected their candidate?”

“It’s a formality. Part of the university policy. You have to make the position public before you can hire internally.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “God damn, it.”

She’s looking at me, conflicted. Maybe she genuinely feels bad, but I also know, she’d take that little curse personally.

Using the Lord’s name in vain and all that.

I pat her arm, sidestepping around her. “I’ll see you around, Hallie.”

But, probably not.

Damn it.

Damn it all to hell.

30.

Skyler

With the tap of a screen, the combine drives itself.

I sit behind the wheel, fixing a client’s IT disaster from my phone, while the combine mows across the cornfield. Metal teeth grab the stalks, like a vicious zipper, pull the stalk in and devour the cobs. It’s powerful enough to rip a man’s arm off. Which happens often enough. Farming is a dangerous profession. There isn’t room for silly fuck ups.

But you can sit and check your email while your tractor auto-steers across the field.

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