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“I’m working on an application,” he said simply.

“An application?”

Bishop sat straighter, adopting an almost defensive posture. Molly tensed; that was what all his caution and distance did to her. It amplified the minefield she felt like she was walking in every interaction. One day she’d be picking shrapnel out of her skull and it wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest.

“For a teaching position,” he said.

“Teaching? At Laburnum?”

“Yes.”

“But you’d have to teach. You’d have to teach children,” she said as if the fact weren’t obvious.

“I have a chemistry degree and teaching credentials I’d like to put to use one day. They have a substitute position that opened up. Temporary, but it would be a foot in the door.”

“Teaching children?”

“I like children. I tutor them already, might as well teach officially.” He couldn’t seem to maintain eye contact. “Besides, by the time they’re at Laburnum, they’re teenagers.”

“I think that’s worse.”

“Maybe.”

Molly blinked, confusion clouding her. Aster Bishop liked kids? Didn’t mind teenagers? That seemed so . . . sweet. Bizarre, yes. Unexpected, even more so. But also sweet.

“And the whole cheating investigation thing isn’t an issue for your consideration?”

She understood Bishop’s tension as soon as the words left her mouth. He’d been preparing himself for a question like this. Regret was a swift swoop in her stomach as she silently cursed her mouth for working faster than her brain.

His voice had no lilt, no life when he spoke. “Since the issue was dropped, I have no mark on my records. I’ve double checked.”

Molly stared down at her hands, unable to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. It just . . . came out.”

Bishop’s face contracted, expression straddling annoyance and resignation. “It was a fair question.”

“You don’t have to be so polite about it.” She exhaled heavily, frustrated at his evenness. “Really. I told our chemistry teacher I thought you must have cheated on that test because I—I was mad you beat me. And I was mad about the plagiarism thing.”

Bishop sighed. “I know.”

“Well, I don’t know what you know so—” She broke off. The limits of her own memory infuriated her.

He sighed again, methodically cracking the joints in his knuckles one by one before he finally spoke. “You had a right to be mad about the plagiarism thing. I basically tripped and fell into accusing you of intentionally omitting proper citation because I was mad I wouldn’t make valedictorian and didn’t know how to keep my mouth shut as a teenager.” He paused, meeting her eyes. “It’s no excuse, but my father was . . . displeased that I was outranked by a scholarship student. That one day in the parking lot where you ran into me—he’d been tearing into me for two hours. I was under a lot of pressure.”

“You tripped and fell into accusing me of plagiarizing my junior history thesis? I started working on that before the semester even started.”

“I talked . . . a lot, about a lot, and to a lot of people. Sometimes I talked about things I knew weren’t true, or that I thought could be but knew nothing about, because it gave me a kind of power, I guess. But I knew I went too far. That’s why I took it back. I just—I ran my mouth a lot.” His focus returned to his laptop. “I’ve learned to be a little more intentional on that front.”

Too intentional, she thought. But Molly didn’t have the heart to point that out, not when he looked so exhausted with himself already.

She let it drop, taking the lull as an opportunity to steer them toward slightly less loaded topics. “Speaking of . . . work things. I got an email from my place of employment. They sent along a proposed schedule to ease me back into working when I’m ready.”

Bishop’s palm rested on his knee, fingers squeezing as he digested what she’d said.

“And are you ready?” he finally asked.

“I’ve taken much more time off than is typical. It’s been well over a month.”

“Your workplace is very . . . flexible. But that’s not what I asked.”