Page 59 of When He Saved Me
Luis Lopez, Leslie Dawson, and Julie Stephens rounded out the rest of the team, teaching science, math, and reading. Those three were all in their first three to five years of teaching and closer to my age, which was nice. I hoped we’d get the chance to hang out. I’d had a lot of friends back at KU, but since I’d come home to help take care of Mom, I hadn’t had time to form new friendships.
The morning was a blur of sifting through data until our eyes crossed, commiserating about problem behaviors from students and their parents, strategizing how to help students who were underperforming, all mixed in with talk about what everyone did over their break and flipping each other shit. I soaked up every bit of it. Despite the sarcasm and grumbling, I could tell these teachers really cared about their students and were dedicated to finding ways to help them achieve. I was eager to learn from all of them.
After running out for a quick lunch at Chipotle, Mitchell and I spent the afternoon working on lesson plans, making copies, and orienting me to the building. I knew my way around, of course, but he still took me around to introduce me to the staff and showed me the new gym addition that had been built a couple of years ago to replace the small, aging auditorium.
Back in the classroom, I sat at one of the student desks sorting out the poetry packets we would be giving the students tomorrow. Mitchell tossed his pen on his desk and leaned back in his chair behind his desk. “Your mom was one of the best. I was bummed to hear she wasn’t coming back this year.”
I looked up at him, pausing in the midst of counting out another stack of packets. My blood ran cold. She hadn’t retired, she’d just taken a year’s leave so she could fight her illness, and while I knew there was a very real possibility the cancer could take her from us, I wasn’t yet willing to entertain the thought that she might not be back at Swope next year. “Is. Sheisone of the best.”
“Shit,” he muttered, running his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”He let out a frustrated breath. “How is she doing?”
I let out my own breath, feeling the anger leave with it. He was my mom’s friend and colleague, and he meant well. “She’s stable. She had a scan today, and it looks like the tumors aren’t shrinking as much as they’d hoped, but they aren’t getting larger either, so that’s somewhat promising. They are going to try a different combination of meds and see if they can push this thing in the right direction.”
Finn had called earlier with the update, and while it wasn’t the progress we’d been hoping for, anytime the tumors hadn’t grown or spread was counted as a win with this kind of aggressive cancer.
“Good, good,” he said, looking at me with a mixture of pity and sadness. I hated that look the most. He cleared his throat before saying, “You know, when I came to this school, I’d taught high school English for nearly fifteen years, and while I was smart enough to know that I didn’t know everything about teaching, I thought I had a pretty good idea. Teaching seventh graders couldn’t be that much different from teaching freshmen, right?” He chuckled, but I didn’t respond, waiting for him to continue. “My first several weeks here were absolute hell. Kids made fun of my glasses, my haircut, my shoes… They were brutal. They hid my stapler, stole candy out of my desk drawer, ripped up worksheets and left them in tiny little pieces all over my floor. They refused to do their work, refused to put away their phones, refused to do pretty much anything I asked them to. I tried the dictator approach. I assigned detentions and sent office referrals. I sent emails home and scheduled parent meetings. Nothing helped. My classroom was out of control, and I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.”
He took his glasses off and scrubbed his face before putting them back in place. I was rapt now. I wasn’t sure where this story was leading, but he’d just described some of my biggest fears. I’d always been pretty good with kids at the camps I worked at, but teaching was different from being a camp counselor or swim instructor.
“I was sitting here at my desk after school one day, head in my hands, contemplating leaving the teaching profession altogether, though unsure how I was going to afford to break my contract, when your mom came in. She asked how things were going, and I just unloaded. All the bullshit I’d dealt with. Student behaviors. Parental accusations. All of it.
“Annie listened to me go off for probably twenty minutes straight, and when I finally stopped, she asked me who my worst student was. I didn’t know how to choose when there were so many, but I settled on Johnny Jeffries. He’d called me ‘Douchie Davis’ right to my face, and despite being assigned in-school suspension, he continued to be a little shit in my class.
“Your mom looked right at me and said, ‘Tell me one good thing about Johnny.’ I couldn’t think of anything. I just stared at her blankly. This kid had made my life a living hell for weeks, and I couldn’t think of a single redeeming quality. It kind of pissed me off, if I’m being honest. I wanted your mom to sympathize with me, not give me some guilt trip because I didn’t like this kid.” I smiled at him. That sounded just like Mom.
“Your mom, she wasn’t going to let me off easy. She reminded me that he was a twelve-year-old kid, and I was the adult in the room. She told me his parents had separated over the summer, and it had gotten ugly. His mom was already seeing someone new who also had several kids, and his dad was fighting for full custody but had had a drug charge in his early twenties and courts tended to favor mothers in these situations. The point she made in all of that is that kids will be assholes for all sorts of reasons, but that’s just the thing…there is always a reason. She taught me to look deeper.”
She’d taught me that too. My dad and my mom both taught me to listen and look deeper. It’s why I’d been so persistent with Finn. I knew there was depth behind the attitude he used as a front to keep the world out.
“I’m scared I won’t live up to her,” I admitted.
“You won’t. No one will ever be quite like Annie. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be an amazing teacher. Don’t worry about trying to emulate your mom or put a lot of pressure on yourself to live up to some impossibly high standard of what you think she’d want you to be. Just be the best teacheryoucan be. That’s all any of us can do.”
He was right. I’d never be the person my mom was. And there was a relief in that. There could never be another Annie Felton. So rather than trying to live up to some impossible standard of the teacher I thought I should be, I should embrace who I already was.
Something deep inside of me unknotted, and for the first time in days, I relaxed.
“Come on, kid,” Mitchell said as he stood and grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve done enough for today.”
* * *
By the endof my first week, I was exhausted. Tuesday, the first day with students, I’d fallen asleep on the couch just after dinner, around seven-thirty. Finn had come home from his gig at Ivory later that evening and woken me up to drag me to my bedroom. He’d undressed me and helped me into bed like I was a drunk frat boy at a kegger. Wednesday hadn’t been much better, although that night, I’d at least lasted an extra hour. I’d tried to cop a feel with Finn as we’d undressed, but by the time he’d gotten back to the bed from brushing his teeth, I’d already been asleep. Last night, he’d stayed at his own place, saying that he needed to spend some time with Carmen and get some chores done that he’d been putting off. I’d pouted, but the fact was, I’d been too tired to fight him. Aunt Cathy had been over that day and had stocked our fridge with more meals, so I’d heated up some pasta for Mom and me and then crashed.
I couldn’t believe how tired I was, and I hadn’t even done much actual teaching yet. Mostly, I’d spent time observing Mitchell in action and had helped grade papers. I hadn’t even led any small-group instruction yet, let alone a full-blown class lesson. I couldn’t imagine how tired I’d be then. Mom said it was normal. There’s no tired like first-week-of-school teacher tired.
Friday night, though, I was determined to stay awake and spend some quality time with Finn. He’d spent the day with Mom, but Aunt Cathy was coming over to hang out with her while Finn and I doubled with Carmen and Isa, who was in town for the weekend.
We were getting ready in my room, but I kept getting distracted, watching as he swapped out an old pair of jeans for a newer pair of dark-washed denim. I watched as he slid those pants up his lean thighs and admired the way they hugged his ass. He moved his hips a little from side to side, and I looked up to see humor dancing in his eyes as he watched me in the mirror. Busted. I grinned at him shamelessly and walked over to hug him from behind.
He’d already shrugged on his button-down but had yet to do up the buttons, so I took the opportunity to slide my hands under the fabric and run my palms up his chest. I kept my eyes locked on his in the mirror as I flicked his nipple with my thumb. His breath caught, but he kept his eyes trained on mine, the humor there replaced with heat. I pressed my hips into his as I held him to me, my cock cradled in the cleft of his ass. Even through layers of cotton and denim, I could feel his heat as I thrust against him in suggestion.
It had been nearly a week since we’d done anything more intimate than kiss, and I wanted him desperately.
Our eyes finally broke contact when he dropped his head back on my shoulder, baring his neck to me in invitation. I licked a path up the column of his throat, where I then nipped along his jawline until he was forced to turn his body into mine so I could attack his mouth in a kiss.
I licked into his mouth, his tongue eagerly meeting mine as we kissed, hungry and desperate for each other. He turned all the way so he was facing me, chest pressed to mine, cocks grinding against each other. He hadn’t done up the fly of his jeans, so I reached between us, shoving my hand roughly into his briefs to take his hard length in my hand.
His breath stuttered as I stroked him, rubbing my thumb over his tip, smearing the bead of precum around his head, using it as lubricant. “We’re going to be late,” he whispered against my lips.
