"It wasn't like that," I protest. "I wanted it too. I made the choice."
"You were eighteen!" Dad's voice shakes with fury. "He was thirty-six. My best friend. Someone you'd known your entire life. Someone who should have protected you, not … " He can't finish the sentence.
The silence stretches, heavy with everything broken between us. Mom stands frozen in the doorway, tears streaming down her face.
Dad's breathing is labored now, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His face has gone from gray to an alarming shade of red. "Get out."
"Dad..."
"Get out of my house." His voice shakes with rage and something that sounds like heartbreak. "Both of you."
Jack stands, pulling me up with him. "Robert, please. Let's talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about." Dad points a trembling finger at the door. "You're no friend of mine, Jack Lewis. And you … " His eyes find mine, and the pain in them nearly destroys me. "You're no daughter of mine. I want you both out of my house."
39
JACK
The drive from Robert's house passes in a blur of streetlights and silence. Behind me, Mia's headlights follow at a distance, and I wonder if she's crying as hard as the broken sound of her voice suggested when we left.
You're no friend of mine, Jack Lewis.
Robert's words echo in my head like a death sentence. Twenty years of friendship, destroyed in a single conversation. I knew it would be bad. Knew he'd be angry, hurt, betrayed. But the look in his eyes when he ordered us out of his house ... that was something beyond anger. That was the look of a man whose entire world just shattered.
I pull into my driveway and cut the engine, but I don't move. Can't move. My phone buzzes with a text from Mia:I'm going to Noah's to get the twins. Thank you for being there tonight.
Thank you.As if I did her some kind of favor by helping destroy her fragile relationship with her dying father.
I drag myself inside and pour three fingers of scotch, then add another finger because the first three aren't nearly enough. The alcohol burns going down but does nothing to erase the image of Robert's face, the betrayal etched into every line.
Sleep doesn't come. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation over and over, searching for something I could have said differently. Some way I could have made him understand. But there's no understanding this. I slept with his eighteen-year-old daughter. Fathered children I didn't even know about until now. Lied to his face while he thanked me for being a good friend.
I'm a bastard. A complete and utter bastard.
By four a.m., I give up on sleep and head to the office. Maybe work will distract me. Maybe burying myself in administrative tasks will quiet the guilt eating me alive.
The academy is dark and silent when I arrive, just the way I need it. I unlock my office and sink into my leather chair, powering up my computer with hands that still aren't quite steady.
My inbox loads slowly, the number of new emails climbing with each passing second. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty. The count stops at forty-seven, all received between midnight and now.
My stomach drops like a stone thrown off a cliff as I open the first email. It's a complaint about Mia, a demand to fire her, claiming her morals and past make her unfit to teach impressionable teenagers.
I open email after email, each one more damning than the last. Some reference her "mysterious disappearance" and speculate about what she was running from. A few go so far as tosuggest she's morally corrupt and shouldn't be allowed near impressionable teenagers.
The accusations blur together, a toxic mixture of truth and fiction that makes my head spin. But they're threatening to pull their children. Threatening to go to the school board. Threatening everything I've built at this academy.
I lean back in my chair and press my palms against my eyes. The pressure from the board will be immense. They'll demand answers, explanations, and proof that Mia's personal life isn't affecting her professional performance. And I'll have to provide those answers while hiding the fact that I'm one of the men she's involved with.
I need to warn her. Need to prepare her for what's coming before she walks into school and faces this firestorm. I glance at the clock. Five-thirty. Students arrive at seven-forty-five, but teachers start filtering in around seven. I have an hour and a half to figure out how to handle this disaster.
By six-fifteen, I've formulated a plan. A shitty plan, but a plan nonetheless. I'll pull Mia aside before the morning announcements, explain that there's been a complaint or two, nothing to worry about yet. Then I'll contact the board and start damage control before this thing spirals completely out of our hands.
The fluorescent lights flicker to life as I walk down the hallway, casting everything in that sterile institutional glow that I usually associate with discipline and order. Today, it feels more like a funeral home. Everything is too clean, too quiet, too still. Like everyone's holding their breath, waiting for the catastrophe to announce itself.
"Mia, we've had some concerns raised by parents." No. Too clinical.
"There's been some gossip making the rounds about your past." Better, but that makes it sound like she's fair game for speculation.
