But I don’t say anything and let Frankie go to school the next day, pretending life is just really fucking fantastic, packing her a Totoro-shaped sandwich and one thousand blueberries with a note that saysI love you more than anything in the universe. I draw a big heart surrounded by a bunch of planets.
I need to get some shit done at the school for the Fall Festival this Saturday, and this makes me even angrier at myself. I’m going to have to be in the school every fucking day this week, hanging flyers, organizing the PTO team, meeting vendors. Meeting Lina. Running last-minute things by her.
On second thought, maybe I deserve to have her beauty and tenacity rubbed in my face every day. Penance for the third big mistake my dick has made in my lifetime.
No, that’s not it, another part of my brain tells me.You loved her. You love her.
These are the intrusive thoughts racing through my head as I slowly climb up the stairs to the school at five thirty and walk directly into Ollie.
He looks at me after I almost bowl him over. “The fuck?”
I scrub my face. “Hey.” I look around, actively willing my brain to process information and form connections. I give up. “Why are you here?”
We stand to the side of the front doors so people can walk in and out. “What do you mean, why am I here? Would you like a list of reasons?”
“No.”
“This is my old school,” he says anyway. “I was the principal here for years. I like saying hi to my old staff.” He begins to count off on his fingers. “My girlfriend teaches here, so I’m picking her up from work.Yourgirlfriend now has my old job, and she also happens to be a close friend of mine, so I’d like to check in and see how she’s doing. My niece also goes here, and I’d like to say hi to her, too. In fact, it’s highly likely that all of these people will be in the same place.”
“Okay,” I mumble.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Why do you look like shit?”
“I—” I sigh, and try again. “Could you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Can you get Frankie for me and bring her out here? She’s probably sitting in Lina’s office.” Because I am a coward. I can attempt to face Lina tomorrow.
He studies me. “Oh,” he says finally. “It’s like that?”
I blow out a breath. “It’s like that.”
“Does Frankie know?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s going to figure it out, eventually.”
“Yep.”
He studies me some more. “Remember what I said to you on the beach?”
“You were wrong,” I tell him. “Lina ended up being exactly like them.”No, that part of my brain whispers again,that’s not right.
He frowns at me now, because he knows it’s not true. “Really?”
“She left,” I tell him.
“What do you mean, she left?” He points into the school, towards her office. “She’s right there.”
I sigh. “Okay, that was dramatic. I ended it because of my own insecurities. Happy?”
“…No?”
