Not when it comes to her.
Not when every part of me is screaming to stop fighting and just let go.
CHAPTER 10
Emma
Monday morning reading time is my favorite part of the day.
The kids are scattered across the carpet in various states of concentration. Some are curled up against bean bags, others are lying on their stomachs with their chins propped on their hands, a few sit cross-legged and mouth words to themselves as they read. I move through the room quietly, crouching down here and there to check in, to help with a tricky word, to offer a whispered “great job” when someone sounds out something difficult.
The classroom has that particular hum of productive quiet that took me weeks to figure out how to create. Turns out the secret is letting them choose their own books and bribing them with extra recess minutes if they hit their reading goals.
Not exactly what they taught us in education school, but it works. For now at least. I fully expect them to renegotiate the terms at some point, because seven-year-olds are ruthless little contract lawyers when they want to be.
I pause by Chloe’s desk and watch her for a moment. She’s completely absorbed in a book about ocean animals, her fingertracing under the words as she reads, lips moving silently. That familiar tightness grips my chest. Guilt, mostly. I kissed her father on Friday night and he walked away saying it was a mistake, and now I’m standing here watching his daughter read about humpback whales and wondering if I’ve ruined everything.
I want to protect her more than anything. She’s seven years old and she trusts me completely, looks at me like I hung the moon. The last thing I would ever want is for something between me and Theo to hurt her. But there’s another part of me—the selfish part, the part I’m not proud of—that keeps thinking about how maybe, if we did this right, we could all be good together.
Chloe has to come first, though. It just doesn’t make any of this easier.
I keep moving, heading to Samantha’s desk. Samantha has dyslexia, which I found out during her first week when she burst into tears during a reading assessment. She has an IEP that brings her to Mrs. Rodriguez, our resource specialist, three times a week for one-on-one reading support. She’s made incredible progress since the start of the year, but in my classroom she was still struggling.
I spent a recent weekend researching everything I could find on classroom accommodations, then consulted with Mrs. Rodriguez about what else might help. She pointed me toward books printed in dyslexia-friendly fonts, so I ordered a whole shelf of them with my own money and set them up in a special section of our classroom library.
It’s a small thing on top of the real work her specialists are doing, but sometimes the small things are the difference between a kid who thinks she’s broken and a kid who believes she can learn. She’s hunched over her book now, brow furrowed in concentration, and I crouch down beside her.
“How’s it going over here?” I ask quietly.
Samantha looks up at me with wide eyes, and then herwhole face splits into a grin so wide I can see the gap where she lost a tooth last week.
“Miss Hayes, look!” She holds up her book and reads a full sentence out loud, slowly but steadily, not stumbling over a single word.
“Samantha, you did it!”
“I did it,” she says, like she’s not quite sure it’s real. Like she’s waiting for someone to tell her she made a mistake. “It doesn’t feel so hard right now.”
I hold up my hand for a high five and she slaps with enthusiasm. “That deserves a sticker. Actually, that deserves two stickers. Go pick out your favorites from the sticker box.”
She takes off toward my desk like I’ve just told her she won the lottery, book still clutched in her hand, and I stay there on my knees for a second, watching her go. Watching her dig through the sticker box with the kind of focused intensity usually reserved for brain surgery.
This. This is why I’m here. Not for the paycheck, which is laughable. Not for the respect, which is minimal at best. Not for the glory of spending my evenings grading papers and my weekends lesson planning. For moments like this. For the look on a kid’s face when something finally clicks. For the twenty-three small humans in this room who are figuring out how the world works, one tiny breakthrough at a time.
The teachers’ lounge smells like someone’s leftover fish, which is a special kind of assault on the senses at eleven-thirty in the morning. I’m picking at a sad salad—the kind you buy at the grocery store in a plastic container and pretend counts as a real meal—when my phone buzzes.
Sophie:So??? Did you make your move on him or what? You haven’t replied to my last message you little stinker.
I stare at the screen. My sister has exactly zero chill aboutthis situation. She’s been texting me every other day since she visited last month, demanding updates like this is a reality show she’s emotionally invested in. Which is fair.
I glance around the lounge to make sure no one’s paying attention, then hunch over my phone like I’m guarding state secrets. The last thing I need is for someone to look over my shoulder and see me texting about kissing a parent.
Technically there’s no rule against it, but that doesn’t mean I want it becoming staff room gossip. Not when it could get back to Chloe, and not when the man in question would apparently rather die than have anyone know about it.
Which is honestly infuriating, because I’m not used to this. Men don’t usually run away from me. Men usually want my number. Men usually text the next day asking when they can see me again, and I’m usually the one making excuses about being busy. I’ve spent my entire adult life fending off guys who couldn’t take a hint, and the one man I actuallywantacts like kissing me is a felony he’s trying to cover up.
The universe has a sick sense of humor.
Me:Actually yes. He drove me home from Parent’s Night as a polite gesture, which I repaid by kissing him. It was the hottest kiss of my life, which he then stopped, said it was a mistake, and fled into the night like I’d set him on fire.
