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This year, I could see the top of her head.
“What?”
She removed her hand from my arm and sat at the edge of my desk, a look of deep concern creasing a line between her brows. “Is everything okay?”
I shrugged and hoisted my heavy backpack onto my shoulder. “Sure. Why?”
She didn't look like she believed me. Not at all. And she had every right not to.
“Well”—she wet her lips with her tongue, and the act stirred that stupid thing in my pants—“I know things have been difficult …differentat home, what with your grandmother passing away earlier this year and you and your mom having to move and all. So … I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
My fingers tapped erratically against the strap of my backpack at the mention of Gramma dying of cancer.Of movingfrom thehouseI’d grown up in to live in the nasty apartment building across from the train tracks. She hadn't mentioned Sully dying or Mom losing another handful of jobs, but I guessed she wouldn't have. She didn't know about that stuff, and Idefinitely didn'ttalk about it. But I thought about it now, tacking that stuff onto the long list of heartache I'd been dealt since Grampa had had a heart attack in front of me over two years ago.
So, no, I wasn't okay. Far from it. But I wasn't going to tell her thatin the event thatmynotokaynesscould lead her back to Mom.
Mom had enough problems. She didn't need my teacher to be one of them.
“Really, I'm okay,” I lied.
She tipped her head and pulled her lips between her teeth. Mrs. Henderson was the prettiest teacher I'd ever had. I thought about her a lot, especially at night and in the shower. But when she pulled her lips into her mouth like that, she looked like the Crypt-Keeper, and I smirked and made a mental note to tell Billy.
“You'd tell me if things weren't okay, wouldn't you?”
No. “Yeah, sure.”
She didn't look like she believed me, but she relented with a nod anyway. “Okay. I'll see you tomorrow.” I hurried to the door, relieved to be released, but she wasn't finished. “Oh,and,Soldier?”
Come. On.
I noisily huffed out my agitation before glancing over my shoulder. “Huh?”
“If you ever need a break, if you can't handle the work and you just need to focus on yourself and how you're feeling, let me know, and we'll figure something out. Okay? Just … just let me know.”
An overwhelming rush to tell her everything whooshed through me like the trains that passed across the street from our crappy apartment. My eyes met hers as a painful ache pressed against my chest, making it hard to breathe, and I thought maybe she could see every truth I tried to hide behind my lies. I hoped she could. I hoped she’d help and rescue me in any way she knew how. But she didn’t. She just offered a sad smile and wished me a good night, and I turned away and hurried down the hallway while I thought about how notokayI was.
***
“She didnotgive you a free pass from doing homework‘causeyourfrickin’ grandma died,” Billy said as we pushed our bikes down the dirt path, paved between the thick brush of trees.
I cracked a grin, thinking about Mrs. Henderson’s pretty lips and sad smile. “She definitely did.”
Billy scoffed. “Nobody gave a crap when my grandpa died.”
“You jerk,” I grumbled, shoving against his shoulder. “Icared.”
“Yeah, okay, but my teachers didn't care.”
I didn't say it, but Billy had also gotten two weeksoff ofschool after the death of his grandfather. Mom hadn’t even had a funeral or anything after Gramma died, and she had seen no reason why I should have to take off from school if she didn't get to take off from work.
Maybe I do need a break. Maybe Mom does too.
I fantasized for a minute about taking a vacation. A real one, like the ones kids at school took. I had never been to Disney World or the Grand Canyon or New York City or anything like that, but maybe that was exactly what Mom and I needed. Maybe that was why everything sucked so much—we had never gone somewhere. We had never gotten away from this crappy town and had fun. But I also knew vacations and trips cost a lot of money, and Mom barely made enough to pay our rent. She'd laugh at me if I suggested going on a vacation.
Besides, Mom didn’t even like getting up from the couch. How would I get her to the friggin’ Magic Kingdom?
Billy and I continued our walk down the path, coming closer to The Pit—a clearing in the center of the unkempt woods near our high school. It was where a lot of the kids came to chill, make out, and whatever else they wanted to do without their parents hovering over them.
Not mine, of course, but everyone else's.
