Rose would do what Rose wanted to do. Pride above all.
With an awkward bob of his head, he gathered his shit, dumped it on his cart, and escaped into the hall before his own pride abandoned him and he begged her to forget everything he’d said and just take him back. Take as much time as she needed before going public with their relationship.
For such a new relationship, he’d demanded a lot. Too much, too soon, especially for a woman like Rose. A different man—the right man—would have had more patience.
He wished he could be that man.
But his past had shaped him, just as her own history had transformed her into the glorious, prickly, loving woman she was. Rational or not, he needed more than she was willing to give right now, and he was going to hold out for it. Even if it felt like dying by inches, every second of the day.
Once he’d returned to the sanctuary of the social studies department office for his planning period, he parked his cart and slumped into his chair, face in hands.
The last two weeks of school were going to hurt like a motherfucker. And there was no telling how he’d feel when he showed up again next fall, and there Rose was, calm and gorgeous and perfect and completely unaffected by him.
Maybe he should move back to Wisconsin after all.
When he finally reopened his laptop, he’d received another new e-mail message. This one, oddly, from Rose.
I think I accidentally dropped an important letter, and it got mixed up with your stuff. It’s notebook paper, made into a kind of envelope. Could you look through your papers and try to find it?
Which meant he’d have to see her again to return it. Damn, what a shitty day.
But he started rifling through his mess. Drafts of student projects on the UN. Others about the current refugee crisis. Lesson plans. Memos.
The lined notebook paper, shaped and folded into a triangle, fell out of a pile of essays about global warming and its international effects.
He hadn’t known students these days still passed notes like this. He hadn’t seen one tucked so carefully into an envelope since his own high school days.
He’d rolled back his chair, ready to return the letter to Rose, when he noticed the writing.
Specifically, Rose’s bold green scrawl on one side of the note.
He couldn’t misunderstand the message.FOR MARTIN. PLEASE OPEN.
It was his name. The note was for him.
Why was the note for him?
No matter how long he stared at it, no extra information revealed itself. No clue as to why she’d apparently slipped this folded triangle into his papers and sent him searching for it.
When he started plucking at the note’s edges, he realized he’d underestimated the artistry involved in its creation. In true Rose fashion, she’d ensured no one else could accidentally see its contents, and either one of them would know immediately if someone had intercepted and pried open the message, unless that person had a goodly amount of time and patience to burn.
He supposed he had enough of both.
Half an hour later, the note lay spread before him, unripped, creases delineating the neat folds Rose had made. The message was simple. Direct—again, in true Rose fashion—but filtered through a girlhood she’d left behind long ago.
Do you still like me? As inlike me, like me?
She’d drawn three little checkboxes below. One forNO. One forYES. One forNOT SURE. Stars and hearts decorated the expanse of paper, and she’d signed the note with a tiny, terrible sketch of a rose.
It was a perfect recreation of the type of note he’d never, ever received in high school, but had always wanted to find slipped into his locker. The only contradiction of early-1990s teen custom was a little addendum toward the bottom of the note.
P.S. Please place your answer in my department mailbox before the end of third period.
He didn’t know what she wanted or what she intended, but he wouldn’t lie to her. Wouldn’t dishonor his own emotions by denying them. He put a clear, neat check in theYESbox, and then attempted to recreate her folds to close the note.
Nope. Not even if he had a year.
He brought out the department stapler and made certain no one else could see the note’s contents, unless they wanted to rip the edges of the paper to shreds or spend a lot of quality time with a staple remover.
