“Then what do you get out of,” I wave a hand back and forth between us. “This.”
“Nothing more than the chance to say, good job.”
That answer catches me off guard. My eyes narrow on him. “Something’s different,” I conclude.
“I’ve…I’m working on trying to be.”
“Why?”
“Because the guy who walked away from you because of an excuse isn’t someone I want to be anymore.”
“You can’t rewrite our past.”
“No,” he says definitively. “But I can learn from it.”
Silence settles between us, thick but not uncomfortable. A small twitch of his lips warns me something else is coming.Uh-oh.
“People told me something else,” he says.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“They say you’re the real backbone of that school.”
I feel my cheeks burn even as I refute the claim. “They’re being dramatic.”
He recounts what he’s overheard, ticking the items off on his fingers. “All the students—not just your own—seek you out whenthings go sideways. Parents trust you. Other teachers listen to you.”
“That’s called doing my job.”
He whispers the last one. “They said you do everything to make school a safe place for kids to be.”
His words hit deeper than I want to admit. “I try. We both know it wasn’t always that way for me.”
“Especially when you needed it.”
I bristle. “Don’t.”
He lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m not apologizing. I’m owning the fact that when it was you who needed someone to fight for you, I didn’t.”
“That’s not why I do what I do,” I say.
“I know,” he replies. “But that's why I noticed it.”
I look at him then—really look. The tension in his shoulders. The restraint in his voice. The absence of expectation.
“You’re not trying to fix anything?” I question.
“No. I’m trying to understand how I could have been one of the people you would defend your kids against today.”
That strikes the tender spot in my heart reserved exclusively for his pain. I wonder, “Why now?”
“Now, that’s dangerous territory.”
“I’m asking.”
He rocks back on his heels before admitting, “I’ve been seeing a therapist because so much of what you said that night was the truth.”
“Such as?”
