Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Kendra headed around him as he stepped in, and Valerie turned to him. He faked a smile, which reminded me that the one he offered me usually was just mine.
All mine.
Despite knowing Valerie and Kendra’s presence prevented us from the chat I desperately wanted to have with him, I was relieved he was here. At the very least, he’d reopened the door between us, the one he’d closed last week, keeping me on the other side of it.
I quickly jumped in to explain our process to Kyle so Kendra wouldn’t feel the need, and then we spent a few hours sorting. Not talking too much, not even as much as we might have on a day at the build. Kyle spent most of his time working on the other side of the room from me, but just knowing we were in the same room…what that did to me… I knew I shouldn’t have been so excited, but I fucking was.
Kendra had to pop out to drive her son home from baseball practice, and Valerie managed to stick it out a bit longer before she headed off as well, leaving just Kyle and me.
A rush of adrenaline coupled with a swirling sensation in my chest. Why did being alone with him again excite me so much?
I told myself I just missed our friendly chats. It hadn’t been so long, yet it felt like an eternity.
He finally moved from his cart over to me. “I see you’re managing to grab about as many volunteers as usual,” he teased.
“Hey, Valerie came. This might be the biggest turnout I’ve had for extra-credit projects. I guess people in this town don’t care about making As.”
He chuckled before assessing my expression. “What?”
“You’re laughing again. I think I deserve some kind of award.”
“Shut the hell up, Big Man.” He passed me a book off the cart I was working from, which I promptly put where it belonged on the shelf.
“You make me smile plenty, Mr. Warner.”
“I haven’t been making you smile recently.”
“Have I smiled as little as that?”
“When I first met you, you didn’t do it much. You were that kid who was a mix of helping out some fumbling teacher and beating the crap out of a guy in an alley.”
“And now?”
“You’re a strange mix of that guy I can crack up with on a roof, or talk about serious things, and the one who totally shut down on me.”
His expression turned serious.
“Kyle, talk to me. No matter what you say, I know that response you wrote wasn’t nothing. What’s going on?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“What?”
“Your wife, who clearly hurt you so much, whom you haven’t quite divorced yet. Every time you mention her name, you get this look on your face like a dog waiting to get smacked.”
Hearing him say the words, I felt ashamed, yet I wasn’t surprised that’s how I’d come across to him. “It’s not appropriate to discuss things like that.”
“Well, there’s your answer.”
“My answer?”
“To why I have to stop this.”
“Stop what? Kyle, what are you dancing around?”
“Stop coming to builds to see you and talk to you. Because there’s always going to be this line. At the end of the day, I’m your student and you’re my teacher.”
Again, it reminded me of the comment he’d made the other day.
“Yes, that’s true.” My answer only seemed to frustrate him more.
“So you just gotta treat me like any other student.”
“I’m trying to do that.”
His face flushed red, in a way that made me wonder if he was about to hit me.
“James, no one can be this oblivious. Do you not get it? I don’t want you to treat me like any other student. I’ve been really getting along with you, and then there’s this thing that’s fucking it all up. You think it’s easy to meet people who actually get you? You know how long I’ve lived with no one understanding me? And then you come along, and there’s just barrier after barrier. All these things we have to fucking walk on eggshells around.”
I could feel the hate and rage emanating from him.
“God, I hate this. It burns in my fucking chest.” He took a breath, panting. “Mr. Warner, I should go.”
“Kyle, wait—” He was already at the entrance to the library by this time, so out of desperation, I called out, “She cheated on me.”
He froze.
It was painful to say, but I knew it was the only thing that could keep him there. To let him know he wasn’t just any student to me anymore. And it wasn’t that I wanted to tell just anyone what happened. I wanted to tell him.
“I tell everyone we grew apart,” I confessed, offering that phrase I’d practiced telling myself so that when we broke the news to everyone, it would be that much easier. “It started as one guy—I thought it was a one-time thing, learned it was so much more. Then the next. And the next. The professor, the colleague, the counselor, the client. She was prolific. And I was…so forgiving. Embarrassingly forgiving.”