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But...
“Even a fool learns something once it hits him.” - Homer, Iliad
~ASPEN~
I hadn’t seen, talked to, or heard from Noel in three days, not since he’d driven me home from the carnival, walked me to my door, and kissed me senseless on my front porch. I guess he’d been serious when he’d told me the next step was completely and totally up to me, which freaked the crap out of me.
The smartest thing to do was stay away. I knew that and my head was on board. But my body just didn’t understand, and I don’t think my heart had caught the memo either. I was restless all day Sunday and Monday. I kept checking my phone to see if I’d missed a call. I kept glancing out my living room window to see if anyone was walking up my front walk. At work, I perked to attention in my office every time I heard footsteps in the hall. But no Noel, or any student or professor for that matter, stopped at my door.
Today, though...today I’d see him. In class. I was so on edge relaxing was impossible.
All my classes took place in Morella Hall except one, a beginning literature course I taught remotely through telenet to a local community college. I had to cross the street and walk half a block to the campus library, which had the closest video broadcasting system to the English department on campus.
As soon as I was finished with that, I had ten minutes to return to Morella to lecture for Noel’s Modern American Lit class.
Keyed up to see him, I hurried from the library, nearly galloping in my heels. I knew I couldn’t tell him I wanted to start a relationship, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t having some serious withdrawals. I needed a Noel fix...soon.
So when I spotted him as I was nearing Morella where he leaned a shoulder against the building with his back to me and his cell phone pressed to his ear, everything inside me soared.
I started his way so he would see me pass...until I heard what he was saying.
“Shh, sweetheart. Just calm down and tell me what’s wrong?”
The concern in his voice and the feminine pet name he used made me pause. A thick layer of jealousy tasted like acid on my tongue. Who was Sweetheart, and why did he sound so invested in her?
That’s when he hissed, “Pregnant? You’re pregnant? How can you be... Jesus Christ. But you said—”
Pregnant.
My ears rang with a hollow pain I couldn’t even brace myself against. But he’d gotten some girl pregnant? I couldn’t...this was just...
No.
“Just save it, okay,” he growled savagely into the phone. “You can apologize until the cows come home, but that’s not going to change the fact there’s going to be a...Jesus, how are we going to afford a kid? Holy fuck.”
He jerked his hand over the back of his head, his fingers shaking. “Stop. Stop crying right now. You got yourself into this one. And now we’re both going to pay. Fuck. I can’t...I just can’t...” He let out a world-weary sigh and messaged his temples as he bowed his head. “I can’t talk about this right now. I have to get to class. No...no... Damn it, no! I’ll call you later.”
He hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket. Glancing to his right as if to make sure no one had overheard him, he didn’t bother looking left, or he’d have seen me not moving, staring right at him with my heart shattering to pieces in my eyes.
The pain of knowing he’d impregnated someone else splintered until a fresh anger rose. He’d been nothing but rude to that poor girl. She’d been crying and apologizing, and probably scared out of her mind, and he’d yelled at her, scolded her, made her feel like shit.
What a total douchebag.
My disappointment rose up my throat. I couldn’t believe I’d been falling for this man, thinking he was noble and good.
Curling my hands into fists, I wanted to hit him, and make him hurt the same way I hurt. Hell, the same way his sweetheart hurt.
But for now, I had to get to class too.
After marching the rest of the way to my room, I set my briefcase on my desk hard enough to make a student in the front row who was lying her head on her desk to jump and sit up. Crap, I needed to cool myself down before I did something stupid.
Easier said than done because Noel walked into the room a second later, igniting every pissed off nerve in my system. I glanced at him, and he met my gaze. He looked very solemn and grave, and I wondered if he was going to confess everything to me. But then his lips twitched as if he was trying to force them to smile for my benefit but couldn’t quite get the job done. All the while, his eyes remained hooded and troubled.
As he passed, he flipped a folded slip of paper my way. It landed perfectly in my closed briefcase. He didn’t even slow his pace as he kept going, finding a spot in the back of the room.
Thinking he was going to ask me to meet him somewhere so he could tell me what had just happened, I reached for the note with unsteady hands and unfolded it. But it was just another quote for my board. And a cheerful, happy quote at that.
“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” - Phyllis Diller
