Oh fuck this. A phase?
“Jessica, what if we had a code phrase? Something you could use when you just feel like you can’t—when you need it.”
A tear escapes from the corner of her bloodshot eye.
“Ok,” she says softly.
“Ok.”
I nod my head, pluck a Post-it from a basket nearby and scribble on the paper with a pen from her desk.
“That’s my email, Jess. And that’s the phrase. You type that to me—any time. And help is on its way.”
She takes the Post-it and by-god she smiles a little when she reads the words.
“What the heck is a Shadow Daddy?” she asks.
“It’s a bit inappropriate actually, maybe we should change it—to something less?—”
“No. Shadow Daddy is perfect.” She folds the pink paper and tucks it into her pencil case.
“See you next year?” I ask.
“See you next year,” she says.
I watch her shuffle out of the room before making my way to the phone by the door. I need to call Nurse Amy—and Elizabeth in guidance. Hopefully they haven’t fled with the wave of children running out of school. As I lift the receiver to my ear, cursing Jessica Stoner’s mother, there’s movement to my right and I turn to find my own definition of male paradise leaning against my door jamb, equipped with a visitor name tag on his left pec that reads Dr. Dick.
“For the love of Pete! You did not walk through the halls with that on your name tag.” I laugh.
He looks down, his eyes wide.
“Who wrote that?” he asks looking behind him.
“Five minutes earlier and you would have made every one of my students’ TikTok feeds.”
He snaps away his disappointment and steps forward.
“You ok?”
I fix my face.
“Yeah. It’s just that girl I told you about?—”
“Jessica?” And there’s the crease between his brows.
I nod and smooth his lines with my thumb. This man. I want to package him up and send him to every woman on Earth. The ultimate gift that keeps on giving. Heart of gold, brain of a surgeon, body of a Hemsworth.
“I just have to call guidance and the nurse, then I’m good to go.”
He nods and walks around my room, taking it all in. I watch him pick up the nerf bow and shake his head with a smile as he sees the arrow still stuck to the target on the white board. I leave a message for Amy and update Lizzie, then approach him while he studies my mental health posters.
“I wonder how many kids you’ve saved—just by letting them know you see them,” he says to the poster Syd gave me.
He turns and looks me over, his eyes filled with something that makes every cell in my body tense up and freeze. That look—it makes me feel like Wonder Woman—unstoppable and invincible. I shudder and he puts his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs circling the base of my neck.
“You ready for this?”
No. No. A thousand times no.
