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"I have no idea," I replied with a long sigh. "I don’t know what’s taking them so long. I thought that they would have it all in hand by now, but it seems like it’s taking longer than they thought it would..."
"That’s because Rhona’s trying to push through for something specific," She told me, draining her glass and going for another. "You know that she must be seething about all of this to kick up such a fuss."
"But why do you think she’s so angry?" I wondered. "I mean, it’s just dating. It’s not like Joseph has to tell her everything that’s going on in his life."
"He’s her oldest, right?" She asked. I nodded.
"Tell me if I’m playing amateur psychologist," She began. "But maybe she feels like she’s losing him? First one of her kids who’s really left home, especially with working on the rig, and then she finds out that he’s found another woman around her age who’s dating him. Maybe she feels like she’s being replaced or something."
"I wish I could just get her to see that it’s not happening like that," I sighed, and I put my head in my hands. "I don’t want to be his mother. I just want to be..."
"His lover," She finished up for me, and even in the state that I was in, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
"Alright, I think that we put a ban on that word from here on out, okay?" I suggested. "Every time I even think about it, it makes me cringe."
"Agreed," she replied, holding her hands up in apology. "What are you going to do now, though? Going to keep working? Take some time off?”
"I think if I take more time off then it’s just going to give people more space to make up lies about me," I pointed out. "If I’m actually there in front of them then it’s going to be harder for them to spin the bullshit and make it stick. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway."
"I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all week," she agreed, and she touched her glass to mine. "Cheers to that. I know you’re going to get through this fine, I know you are. No way they’re going to let something like this get in the way of your career. You’re way too important to them at that school, I know it."
"I hope you’re right," I muttered.
"I know I am," Mallory replied firmly.
But I could hear the tiniest little waver in her voice, and I wondered if she wasn’t just trying to be nice to calm me down in the face of everything that was going on.
It wasn’t until a few days later that I noticed something – kids were sliding out of my classroom.
Not just one or two on sick days, as would have been totally normal. No. More of them. More than there needed to be. And unless that the whole class had been struck down by the same case of dangerous lurgy, then I was pretty sure...
When I was on gate duty later that week, it clicked into place. People were pulling their children from my class. Parents who were there to pick up their other kids came along with my students in tow. It was clear that they weren’t sick. Just that they didn’t want them to be taught by someone the likes of me – someone with my reputation. I tried not to let it sting me too badly, but how could it not? I was being painted as a monster, some awful bitch who exploited and used the people who were meant to be able to trust her the most.
No wonder these people didn’t want their kids anywhere near me.
I managed to keep it together as long as I was still at school, but the moment that I got off, I went back to my place and wept into my bed. I couldn’t believe this was happening. All of this had started because I didn’t want to be alone any longer, and where had it landed me? Feeling more alone than I ever had in my life before. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid.
Joseph slept over with me as much as he could, keeping away from his family; he didn’t blame his sister, he said, because she could never have known all the crazy stuff that her ratting us out would have brought into her lives. It was his mother that he was mad at. She knew what she was doing, knew the weight of it, and she had gone ahead and done it anyway. Because she was angry at me. At her son. Angry at us for daring to fall in love with each other, and angry that she couldn’t control what was happening between us.
Sometimes, I felt angry, too. Not just at myself, but at all of this. I was angry at Rhona, of course, for pushing all of this forward when she had no good reason to; if she’d listened to me, or spoken to Joseph first, she would have heard that her son had been the one to come on to me, that I’d had no real clue who he was before we had first gotten together. Sometimes, there was anger at Joseph – not real anger, but frustration, the anger that a man I loved so much came with so much excess baggage to his name. I wished that it could have been easy between us, and I supposed I was angry with the universe at large for not making it that way for me. I had already been through enough as it was; at what point did I get a break, did I get it easy? Was it ever going to be easy for me?
"You know I’m not going anywhere, right?" Joseph told me, as he lay next to me in bed an evening about a week after it had all come out.
"I know that," I promised him. And I did, I really did. I was glad to have him here, and I wasn’t sure that I would have been able to make it through had he not stuck by my side so surely.
"I’m sorry that you have to deal with all of this," he murmured, pulling me against his chest. I closed my eyes and rested my head on him, feeling the thump of his heart through his chest. I knew that heart beat for me, and it was about the only thing that made any of this survivable. If he hadn’t been here, then I would have given up by now, I was sure of it. How could I make it through when it felt like the whole world, every card on the deck, when it felt like they were all stacked against me?
None of this was fair, but at least my prize for surviving it was to have this man.
The students missing from my classes were bad enough, but it went further than just that. It didn’t take long until the rumors of what was happening started swirling with more speed, and soon, people outside the school had stuff to say on what was happening.
I passed Damien, one of the dads who always used to hang out at the front gate and flirt with me, as he was emerging from Jonah’s office; he gave me a look, and then swiftly averted his gaze, as though being seen interacting with me on any level would land him in more trouble than it was worth. My stomach dropped. No way that this was good news.
A few hours later, Jonah called me into his office; he was regularly checking in with me to let me know how things were going, and to hear my side of whatever had been brought in that particular day. But I got the feeling that I wasn’t much going to like hearing what he had to say to me right about now.
"Abigail, I’ve been speaking to some of the parents who encountered you when you were on gate duty," he explained, before I’d so much had a chance to sit down. "And they said that you were often – well, often acting provocatively with the men?”
I stared at him for a long moment, before I finally sank into the seat in front of me. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I hated that I had to even deflect these bullshit claims, but if it was what was keeping me from doing my job to the best of my ability, then I would make sure I did what I had to.
