We brought our kids to the gym and took our seats for our section, both of us required to sit on the end of the row so we could watch our kids. That put him behind me, his knees hitting my back a few times.
“Shoot, sorry.” He fumbled, blushing and trying to reposition himself with long legs. It was so awkward, my God.
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. His familiar scent of soap and laundry detergent floated my way and made me so sad. A week ago, I would’ve leaned back into him to tease him, or winked, or done something to distract him. But now, I could barely look at him without my heart hurting.
“Okay, Mountains!” Dave yelled over the microphone.
All the kids cheered as loud music played. Everyone started dancing, and I tried my absolute best to not think aboutafter school.Our talk, what we had to say to each other. The more the assembly went on, the larger the knot in my gut grew.
The rest of the afternoon passed by in a blur of nervousness, anger, and exhaustion. Dealing with Samantha, and the emotions that the entire situation evoked, made my body sore all over. It was like I had the flu of the heart, just no fever and constantly on the verge of tears.
Thank God I wore a black shirt that day. I sweated up a storm until the last student got onto the bus, and I made my way to my room. Christopher stood outside my door, leaning against the wall and looking so out of place, it would’ve been endearing.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, unlocking my door and walking in, not bothering to hold the door open for him. I sat at my desk, put one leg over the other, and crossed my arms. It felt like a battle stance, adon’t mess with meposition like I used all those weeks ago when he came in hot and determined to hate me.
He swallowed hard and took the chair opposite me, the piece of furniture squeaking in protest with his weight. “Will you look at me?”
I gritted my teeth and met his gaze, hating the absolute aching feeling where my heart was. “There. Happy?”
“Gilly, I can’t…God,” he said, putting his hands over his face and groaning. “I messed up. I messed up so damn bad.”
“You said we’d talk about the float.” I kept my voice firm and was proud that it didn’t shake or give away the absolute misery I’d felt since he assumed I stole from his sister. “Honestly,” I said, waving my hand in the air, “I don’t care what you do for it. I’m out.”
“You’renot going to help decorate it?”
“No.”
“But Gilly, this is your thing,” he pleaded, his eyes going wide again. He sighed, shaking his head as he looked at the ground. “I did this. I broke the most spirited person on campus.”
He hit the top of my desk with a fist, making me jump a bit, and our gazes met for one, two, three horribly long seconds. “I let my shit with my dad cloud my judgment and ruin what we had. I can’t sleep imaging how much I hurt you, and God, I am so sorry, Gilly. I need you to know that.”
“You never even let me explain,” I snapped back. “You tossed me aside without even a conversation. If you told me your suspicions, I would’ve told you the truth about my inheritance.” I swallowed. “Just do the float however you want. I’ll show up for the parade because I have to, but…whatever we had is broken.”
He frowned harder and wiped his palms over his eyes for a few seconds. “Is it true she took your Teacher of the Year award?”
“Yes.” I huffed, annoyed that he was still here, talking to me, looking as sad as I felt. “Why?”
“It got me thinking. It would be crazy…but…that night we spent together,” he said, looking at the ground and shuffling his feet together.
“The night you thought I conned you?” I said, enjoying at the way his shoulders tensed.
He sucked in a breath and narrowed his eyes at me. “One of my awards was missing. It was stupid—just aFantasy League Championaward I had on my counter. Do you think it’s possible, somehow, that it was…Samantha?”
I closed my eyes, thinking about that night. I’d thought about it a million times, trying to figure out if I did something wrong to make him hate me and all this time. I forgot that IthoughtI saw her at the bar. But before I could investigate, Christopher joined me, and I forgot about it. “She does seem to like framing me and stealing awards. It could be. No way to get proof of it though.”
“Right.”
“Right,” I repeated, rubbing my lips together as the awkwardness set it. Samantha could’ve stolen from him all those months ago, somehow making it work so Christopher would think it was me. It was her MO. But even if he could prove it, it wouldn’t change a thing between us. “Well, you should go.”
He didn’t say anything else. He looked at me for a second longer, his expression absolutely broken, but I shook my head. He walked out of my classroom, and that action had more finality to our relationship than everything else. We’d said everything we wanted to say.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Despite knowingChristopher and I were done, I couldn’t help but search for his car every morning I got to school and every afternoon when I left. He was there before I was and left after I did. Before everything happened, we would’ve stayed late together—worked on the float, gotten dinner, then probably would’ve spent the night at one of our places. A tiny part of me wondered how he was doing with the first-grade float. I had tons of items in my checkout cart online that I hoped to overnight ship once I survived my month of no spending, but the thrill of shopping died when my heart broke.
There wasn’t the same amount of joy in buying stuff for the parade. It was easier to sit back and let Christopher do everything. He could figure out the costumes, the decorations, getting the kids the right roles for the float. It was different to take a back seat, but it was what my heart needed.
