“If this is true, Zachary,” Maya says, her voice trembling slightly, “then Dave is the one who was escalating the stress. He wasn’t just a sympathetic witness; he was actively poisoning the environment.”
“And if he did that to you,” I add, my own voice tight with anger and shock, “Why? Is he trying to undermine Trevor? Is he trying to underminemebecause I’m new?”
The quiet contentment from my afternoon hike is completely gone, replaced by a seismic shift in our understanding of the situation. We’ve been focusing on Trevor, who we thought was the obvious aggressor, but maybe there was a quieter, more insidious threat lurking in the shadows.
“We need to know,” Maya says, pulling her hand away and gripping the fabric of the ‘Avocontrol’ shirt on the couch. “If he wrote that note and did the other things like dumping my glitter glue, we need to know how to handle it. Do we go to HR about him, too? Do we gather more proof? Do we confront him to see if this is true?”
The complexity of the situation explodes in the sudden, peaceful quiet of the living room. We look at the shirt, and then at each other, realizing that the bad days might be arriving sooner than we thought.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Maya
The air in the district office's lobby smells like stale coffee and fear. It’s too warm, the kind of heat that makes my skin prickle with anxiety, and the fluorescent lights hum a high, irritating note that seems to vibrate directly in my sinuses. I smooth the skirt of my charcoal suit for the tenth time. It’s the one I save for formal occasions, for funerals, for moments when I need to project an image of competence and poise. Today is definitely one of those moments.
I steal a glance at Zachary, sitting beside me. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the forearms because of this stuffy room, and he’s scrolling through his phone, a picture of calm that I am utterly failing to emulate. When he feels my eyes on him, he locks his phone, tucks it into his pocket, and reaches for my hand.
His palm is warm, firm, and grounding. I clutch it like a lifeline. “You're doing great,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing slow, rhythmic circles on the back of my hand. “Just breathe, Maya. You know the script.”
The script.We spent three hours last night going over it, role-playing the conversation in my living room. Zachary played the head of HR impartially, asking the necessary but uncomfortable questions, making sure I kept the narrative clean, concise, and focused on facts, not just feelings. We practiced the delivery until the edges of my voice stopped shaking.
“I know the script,” I whisper back, but my voice is reedy. “I just... I feel like I'm about to sign my own professional death warrant.”
“You're not,” he says, leaning closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble. “You are protecting your students and yourself. You are reporting a hostile work environment. That is what you are doing. And I am right here.” He squeezes my hand once more.
The lingering tension from our detour this morning still coils in my stomach, leaving me feeling nauseated. I think of Dave, of the shock on his face when we showed up unannounced on his porch, and the cold, awful clarity of his confession.
Just three hours ago, Zachary and I stood on Dave’s worn welcome mat. The sun wasn't quite high enough to burn off the early morning fog, giving the whole situation a more ominous feel. Zachary hadn't wanted me to go, he said he would handle it himself, but I couldn't walk into this HR meeting without knowing. Without seeing it in his eyes and hearing him admit that he was the one that tried to intimidate and sabotage me. Dave, the friendly colleague, the one who always made treats for the teacher’s lounge and who went to the rock-climbing gym with Zachary.
“We know it was you, Dave,” Zachary had said, cutting straight to the point. No preamble, no soft landing. His voice was hard, utterly without the usual warmth.
Dave’s face crumbled, the pleasant mask he wore at school melting away to reveal something gaunt and deeply resentful.He didn't deny it. He just sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and invited us into his cluttered, slightly depressing living room.
“Yeah, okay. It was me,” he admitted, sinking onto a plaid sofa. “All of it. The notes, messing with your supplies, trying to scare and inconvenience you.” He waved a hand dismissively.
I sat stiffly on an armchair, the cold dread turning into a blinding, white-hot fury. “Why, Dave? We were friends. We’ve worked together for years. I trusted you.”
He laughed, a short, bitter sound. “Friends? Maya, I've been here fifteen years. Fifteen years, and I've watched new teachers come in, get the fancy tech, get the praise, and getnoticed. I'm senior staff, head of the science department, as if that means anything. My ideas get filed under ‘Maybe Next Year,’ and Zachary, he walks in, fresh out of a different career and a certification program, and suddenly he's the golden boy.”
He fixed his eyes on Zachary, a venomous look that made my skin crawl. “And you, Zachary, you only started shiningreallybright when she got paired with you. With your ‘innovative, cross-curricular’ lessons. It was her, wasn't it? Her creative influence. She’s the catalyst. You get all the credit, but it's her influence that’s making you look good.”
The realization hit me: Dave didn't just resent Zachary's success; he resented the collaboration. He saw my creative input as the unfair advantage that launched Zachary over his head.
“I tried to make you look difficult,” Dave confessed, his voice now flat, devoid of emotion. “Unstable. Too sensitive. I figured if I drove a wedge between you two, if I made her seem like a problem child, you'd drop her, and things would go back to normal. I acted like your friend just as a way to stay close, to listen, to gather information and see what I could use.”
I stared at him, speechless. All that time, all the hallway chats, the smiles and friendliness—it was a performance. I hadmistaken professional jealousy and deep-seated insecurity for collegiality. It was a cold, hard lesson in who to trust.
“How did you know?” I had asked him. “How did you find out about the lupus?”
Dave had let out a short, hollow laugh that didn't reach his eyes. “Pine Island is small, and people talk—especially when they think no one is listening.”
“I never told anyone at the school,” I countered. “Not even the administration.”
“No, you didn’t, but you were quite chatty back in September. Remember the Knit-a-thon?”
Then I remembered—the community center, the clicking of needles, and Dave walking into the room behind Michael while I was talking about my lupus. It all made sense now.
We left Dave's house with a brief, furious conversation about him facing immediate disciplinary action, leaving the man alone in his dim living room with his years of resentment. The confession, while painful, solidified my resolve for this meeting. If a supposed friend was willing to sabotage me over professional envy, I needed to be absolutely transparent with HR. I needed protection.
