It wasn’t the exact same, considering she was a horse shifter who still had her whole herd, and I was a former alpha and wolf shifter with no pack left, but we’d both been caught up in that maelstrom of loss. We’d helped each other the best we could through the aftermath, although the help was weighed in my benefit. I liked to think that one day I’d be on top of the ball enough to pay her back, but instead of progressing, I seemed to be slipping further and further behind.
Goddamn it, I missed my packsomuch.
I wished I hadn’t failed them.
THREE
GISELLE
All Work and No Play Makes Giselle a Sick Girl
Benny was asleep again.
I tried not to let it distract me, but it was difficult when my mind wanted to overanalyze every single detail I possibly could to figure out if there was danger at home, if it was a growth spurt, or terrible nightmares keeping him up. I had hoped my counsel would help him instantly even though I had told him that it sometimes took a few tries to find something that worked. Naïve optimism, I supposed. But then again, I always liked to think there was a certain kind of strength in holding on to hope in a world that so often liked to treat the idea as if it were a four-letter word.
Either way, I resolved to keep my eye on it. Although his situation seemedverydifferent from Addison’s, there was no reason I couldn’t double/triple/quadruple check. Also, if Benny was having persistent nightmares, even if it wasn’t due to issues at home, it was worth exploring.
But I didn’t draw attention to his snoozing, and thankfully no one else did either. At least some of what I had said the previous day seemed to have sunk in a little. I roused him for lunch, and I waited for the lunch monitor to escort all my students in a relatively neat line before I headed to the teacher’s lounge. I hoped to get some insight there. I was somewhat new as a teacher compared to the tenured staff, so I figured it never hurt to get experienced advice.
No one was there while I microwaved my food, then sat at one of the two circular tables. There were also two couches and two recliners, but I didn’t enjoy eating there. Something about the posture was off. Or at least that was what my brain told me, particular as it could be.
Besides, when I was at a proper table, it gave me a chance to take out my meds, set them on a napkin, and space them throughout my meal. Before the lunch monitors were hired, I’d used to have to down them all at once in case the kids distracted me, and that was kind of hard on my stomach. I much preferred the system we had set up now, where only one teacher needed to be present with two lunch monitors to assist them.
I wasn’t alone for long. Three more teachers came in. I recognized them as Mrs. Breechcroft, who taught third grade all the way in the back of the farthest wing of our elementary school; Mr. Gottmik who taught fifth grade; and Mrs. Angie, a Southern woman who also taught fifth grade.
But no Francine Delgato, also known affectionately by most students as Mademoiselle Delgato. She taught fourth grade and had been at the school for twenty years. That was nearly as long as I had been alive. She was a sweet soul, and while she wouldn’t offer advice without prompting, I always found her nuggets of wisdom incredibly helpful.
I supposed I could just hurry up, eat my food, and walk to her room, but there was an unspoken rule between teachers: unlessit was an emergency, if a teacher wasn’t in the lounge during lunch, it meant they were off limits. There were any number of reasons why she was choosing to eat her meal elsewhere, so I wasn’t going to interrupt her.
I settled into my lunch, focusing on each bite. My doctor had encouraged me to do that because it helped me eat more and feel less nauseous. I wasn’t sure if it was working, but I was willing to give it a try. I’d lost so much weight during my last big flare, and while the three months of radioactive iodine treatment had brought me back to normal, my doctor stopped it after I started to display moderate eye symptoms. I was deathly afraid of Graves’ eye disease after watching my mother go through it, so I wanted no part in that.
It was a bit crazy to think that the onset of Graves’ ophthalmopathy was what hadfinallygotten my mother her diagnosis. Once she hit college, she started getting sicker and sicker, going to doctor after doctor. Most refused to test her, citing anxiety, menstrual issues, anxiety, stress, more menstrual issues, oh and…anxiety.When I was a preteen, it started getting really bad and our town doctor finally started taking her seriously. But it was clear he never kept up on his continuing education because he never hit anywhere near Graves. First, it was “stomach sensitivities” then an “unknown psychosomatic illness”, for which he suggested therapy.
When my father had had the last straw, he drove her into the city to see a new doctor. It took six months to get an appointment, but finally, someone took my mother seriously.
But that was over a decade ago, so her treatment wasn’t nearly as good as mine was now, and unfortunatelysomuch damage had been done. The damage to her heart from years of never getting help weakened it so much that after a single thyroid storm, she couldn’t recover.
And that’s when I started to get sick too.
Lucky me, I was an outlier. My symptoms set in during my senior year of high school. Rotten timing, really. But at least?—
“Grace, I hope this isn’t too nosy of me, but did you see the news from your old town?”
I didn’t like to think of myself as a gossip—I had enough on my plate—but my interest piqued when I heard Mrs. Angie’s drawl. I mean, yeah, I wastryingto give my lunch my full attention, but yogurt could only be so engaging.
“Oh my gosh, I did! I can’t believe it.”
Interesting…
Was there a teacher scandal? Embezzlement from a superintendent? While most people thought of small towns as sleepy and boring, everyone I knew who came from them always had the craziest stories and juiciest gossip. Maybe it was because there wasn’t much to do so they had to make up their own drama.
“So young to have lost both her parents, and an entire semester in the burn unit. I can’t imagine going through all of that at eleven and then trying to hide it to keep going to school.”
Ohno.
This wasn’t fun gossip at all. My heart lurched as I put the pieces together in my head. A student from Mrs. Breechcroft’s old town had lost her family in a fire and spent a significant time on medical leave, then tried to hide it somehow. I hated that a young girl who’d gone through so much was scared of that, but I couldn’t blame her kid-logic for putting it together that way.
“I tell you what, though,” Mrs. Breechcroft continued. “Her teacher’s just a few years younger than me, and I tell ya, he was one of the sweetest boys when we were in school. It makes sense that he noticed her being cagey about stuff and talked it out with her. I imagine finding out that she didn’t need to hide and no one was going to force her to change schools just because she was living with her auntie was a huge relief. One she needed.”
