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Though I had no idea how to deal with anything this coming week, how was I supposed to talk to him? I still wanted to keep my distance. I needed to talk things out with Aldric on a purely him and I basis and spend some time with us without the topic of Ciro coming up.
I needed to get to know the new Aldric because, obviously, Greece had changed him. Though he was still very much the man I loved, there were things I needed to know, and there was more he needed to know as well. I went to the campus the next day with a firm grasp of what I needed to ask for and what I wanted from him at that time.
Finally, we could move forward; I gripped my bag tightly, finding confidence in the weight of it against my shoulder. I knew he would be supportive. Aldric has proved that he wants to support me, and he has shown he knows how to follow needs and boundaries. When I stepped through the door, Aldric was already there waiting for me. His clothes were rumpled, and he looked incredibly exhausted. I wondered if he had stayed at the college overnight to catch up on work.
I stood still, drinking in his presence for a moment before his gaze finally met mine. “You look like crap,” I blurted. He snorted and shook his head, “You suck at subtlety.” “Meh, why try to deny the truth?” I said with a wave of my hand. “It’s definitely true if I look like how I feel,” he laughed and ran a hand through his already messed hair.
I watched the action affectionately. I got ready to ask him what I needed to do before he beat me to the punch. “I know I said I’d wait, but I figured there would be no issue with me extending an invitation to you only,” Aldric said both vaguely and formally.
“Would you like to get coffee with me? Just coffee, not lunch or dinner, but thisisa date.” I nearly laughed because I didn’t need his clarification, yet the seriousness and dogged desire in his eyes made my voice shrivel up. He had no intention of letting me go, even if I pushed him away.
Something inside me glowed from the idea that he wanted me, wanted a life with me and my son, our son; this made me smile. “Sure,” I nodded, my smile still plastered on my face, and Aldric quickly matched it. “Alright, let’s get prepared for today,” he said, rubbing his palms on his slacks.
The morning was relatively quiet, and classes went by easily, with students showing remarkable improvement over the two weeks. As a teacher, I felt a growing pride in my plan, which seemed to be working. I regularly checked in with the struggling students, and it seemed to be working with most of them.
The date didn’t happen until several days later, on a weekend that I had requested Saturday off and had a friend stay with Ciro. I arrived ten minutes early only to nervously fuss over my hair as I stared out the window of the café.
Of course, I didn’t expect to see Aldric sitting on the other side of the said window and for him to smile at me and wave. The grin I sent back was sheepish. How much earlier had he arrived? I walked inside to the cheery chime of a bell above the door, announcing my arrival into the shop and dragging the attention of all the employees onto me. Hurrying over, I set my bag down on the empty chair across from Aldric.
My cheeks felt warm, and I bit down on my lower lip to suppress my embarrassment. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long. I’m not late, right? We said 10:00 a.m.?” I asked, feeling far more flustered than I ever had in front of him. He snorted and shook his head, “Nah, I’ve been here… just a few.” I looked at the cup of coffee before him and noticed it was drained. Right, just a few minutes, I nearly laughed at his poor lie but let him get away with it. I began to sit down before I was stopped by him standing and gently supporting my arm. I stood back up and raised my eyebrow in surprise. “Hm?”
“Did you want to come up to the counter and order, or do you already know it?” he nodded toward the menu.
“Just get me a café latte, and if they have any croissants grab me what looks good,” I smiled at him, giving him a small show of trust and sitting down as I idly watched him walk up to order.
He stood at the pick-up spot of the counter and tapped his fingertips against the wood in a specific rhythm that looked like a drum beat to a song. I could only tell because the rise and fall of his fingers seemed timed and thought out. I wondered what song he was playing and if it was on a specific instrument.
My eyes wandered to the street where pedestrians walked and noticed that slowly over the days, their clothing had been getting thicker in preparation for the cold. I noted that I needed to pull out Ciro’s warmer clothes and ensure he hadn’t outgrown them.
“Here you go,” Aldric said as he placed my order in front of me, and I was greeted with the smell of warm flaky pastry, butter, and chocolate.
“Do you play an instrument?” I asked just as he sat down, and he blinked in surprise. I watched him from above the mug while I sipped my hot coffee and went on to take a piece of the chocolate-filled croissant. They made chocolate croissants right, too, not just a scattered half handful of chips, but also big thick ribbons of brown lusciousness ran through the buttery layers of bread.
“I used to play drums back in college. Why?”
“You were tapping out some sort of song on the counter,” I pointed to where he had been standing.
He smiled awkwardly and warmly, reminding me of someone experiencing nostalgia. I watched silently, waiting for the explanation that would be coming. “I didn’t realize I still did that,” he looked down at his fingers in amazement. “I used to do it all the time when I was still practicing. Like any time, I stood still or sat down.”
I laughed, imagining him as a college kid in faded jeans sitting behind a drum set and not in some chemistry lab. I took a sip of coffee while he looked at me, his eyes wrinkling lightly at the corners with fondness. “What, you thought I was a Bio-Chem geek my entire life?” he joked and shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint, but I spent my first two years completely unaware of what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I would become a professional drummer.”
I blinked in surprise, realizing how little I knew about Aldric. We’d slept together and had a kid together. In fact, our entire relationship was one giant leap away from the ordinary but still, I found myself in the burning stages of new love, craving to learn more about him.
“What stopped you?” I asked. He frowned thoughtfully, glancing out the window at the wandering pedestrians and seeming to go somewhere distant as he remembered something.
“Honestly, it was because of my brother,” he said. “He came down sick with a staph infection that worsened even with treatment. It wasn’t until a doctor ordered a culture that we could treat it directly with the right antibiotics. I remember being amazed watching him get better from this little pill after this invisible thing, to me at the time, had made him so sick. I thought the doctors were magicians. It wasn’t until later in college that I learned that it wasn’t the doctor who saved him but the culture and the person who engineered the antibiotics that I realized I could become one of those powerful people. I’d never wanted to be a medical doctor due to my bedside manner, or lack thereof.” He laughed and shook his head.
I had grown rather still and silent during the whole story. Learning something so immensely powerful about his past was amazing.
“Why did you want to go into biochemistry?” he asked.
“I told you before my mother had cancer,” I said bluntly.
He blinked slowly and then followed with, “Yes.”
I sighed, “She was a bitch when I was young until she needed me for something. My dad ended up drinking himself into an early grave, and when Mom got cancer, she came to me to take of her. In the end, I’m grateful to her because she helped me a lot with Ciro when I was in school. But she never did it for me as a child. I would have liked that. However, I saw just how adept a killer cancer was, and it fascinated me while also horrifying me. I learned about it relatively easily and began to read other information in the various sciences. I never thought I’d ever get a chance to go to college, but I got some scholarships with some work. I was lucky.”
It was Aldric’s turn to fall deadly quiet as he listened to my story and slowly absorbed my life during a major turning point. There was a proud light in his eyes at the end and something that spoke to me and told me how much my world inspired him. Not that his life had been easygoing from what I had learned.
