“I’m not really in the mood to eat,” I said, glaring at my lap.
“That’s fine. But if you think you’re getting any liquor on an empty stomach, you’re crazy.”
I let out a breath and put a hand over my face. “This is a nightmare.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Stephen’s green voice was like a balm spread over my torn-up soul.
I looked at him. “Where the hell do I even start?”
“Beginnings work best.”
Stephen’s whiskey and fries were dropped off at the table while I struggled to sort out the chain of events.
“I was with Felix this morning,” I eventually said. “We’d sat down to have breakfast, and he got a call saying Snowy Ridge was on fire.”
Stephen nearly dropped his drink. “What?”
I nodded. “We told Alan to take the bus to school and went over right away. It was the gift shop. But… there was no saving it. The fire chief is saying it’s arson. There was some vandalism too.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry. How’s Felix holding up?”
“I don’t… know.”
Stephen arched an eyebrow.
I’d like to say I was weighing my choice of words as Stephen patiently waited for clarification, but the reality was, I had no idea what to say. When Felix had walked away from me at the orchard and turned his phone off when I tried checking on him, it was like being kicked when you’re already down and out.
“I think, he, uhm, may have broken up with me.”
Stephen narrowed his eyes. He picked up his glass, swirled the whiskey a moment, then took a sip. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head. “One minute I’m comforting him, and the next he’s telling me to leave.”
“Maybe it’s just shock, Bowen.”
It wasn’t.
“He turned his phone off when I tried calling.”
“Oh.”
“When I got to the high school for rehearsal, I went to apologize to Cass for missing class. I tried to explain the fire… but he started arguing with me about improper conduct around my students. He said he had emailed complaints from some of my kids that I’d… done sexually inappropriate things on school property.”
That time Stephendidspill his drink. He swore and mopped up the liquor with a napkin.
“And Alan apparently dropped both of my classes this afternoon. I can’t….” I stopped and collected myself when I felt a lump form in my throat. “I can’t think of any reason he’d do that, except if Felix got in touch with him at school and told him we’d split or something.”
“But droppingband?” Stephen set the soaked napkins to the side.
The whiskey smell burned my nose.
“He’s very protective of his father.”
