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“I see that,” I said. I looked at my phone. “I might need to eat quickly, though. I spent more time in the shower than I thought I did.”
“Allison thought you might sleep in,” Ryan said. “She made you a to-go box.”
“She did?” I asked, touched. Allison and I had spent approximately two hours together total, and most of that was last night before I went to bed. She was very sweet, and clearly the love of Ryan’s life, but we barely knew each other. It was such a kind gesture for her to do that for me.
“Yeah, man,” he said. “All you might have to do is warm it up. There’s even a thermos of coffee on the counter. Get on out of here and be early for your first day. Don’t forget to take some bacon, though.”
I laughed and stuffed some bacon into the plastic container with the rest of the food and shut the lid again. Grabbing the thermos, I headed for the door and out to my car. Ryan and I had detached the trailer last night so I could drive to work without it, and I pulled away, having to back around it to get out.
Ryan and Allison lived a good fifteen minutes away from the school, which was par for the course with Murdock. The center of town was away from all the neighborhoods, which were still designed to give people space between houses. When I finally got to the school, I was still stuffing hot bacon and eggs into my mouth, determined to finish my breakfast before I went in.
Habit, fifteen years deep in my brain, had me trying to go in the student door with the kids. I had to stop halfway there and turn, heading toward the front offices and the door that led to them. I didn’t have the key that would allow me in, but Principal Runnels knew about that and was going to be waiting on me. When I knocked on the door, it opened quickly.
Ryan wasn’t lying. Principal Runnels was an excitable man, portly and squishy, but still with the air of someone who was deceivingly athletic. He certainly moved quicker than I expected. As he showed me around the offices, introducing me to other staff members, the grin on his face was infectious. He was having the time of his life, and when we got to his office, I saw why.
A framed newspaper with my picture on the cover of Murdoch Times from the day after I threw the no-hitter hung on the wall. Baseballs and footballs littered the shelves, most of them signed. He wasn’t going to bug me to sign a bunch of stuff. He was going to ask me to sign one thing, and it was going to live there, in his shrine to sports.
We sat and talked for a little bit before he handed me a keyring with two keys on it and my keycard to get into the building.
“These are for your office,” he said, the latter consonant coming out with a ‘th’ sound. “We hope you know we are excited to have you home.”
I thanked him, and he guided me back to the gym area, and then to the office where my key fit in the door. It was empty, save one giant cup that I instantly recognized. It was from when Murdock High won the state championship my senior year. The door closed behind me, and I sighed.
Well, here I was. No turning back now.
19
MALLORY
The first day of school was always fun. The chaos of kids running around trying to find their classes. Running into their friends that they hadn’t seen all summer, showing off their new clothes or haircuts or how much they’d grown. It was exciting to meet the new students that came up from middle school or moved into one of the surrounding counties that fed into Murdock High.
Getting to know them was part of the fun too. It kept me young, I felt, in a way that I didn’t even feel when I was running around New Yorkbeingyoung. I knew so much about what the current generation felt about the world, about politics and fashion, about music and art.
Sometimes, even early in the year, personalities would clash and create stressful moments. Students sometimes weren’t ready to open up and be vulnerable in front of each other on the stage and made teaching theater difficult until they felt comfortable. Until they felt like they belonged. It could be a lot.
But this morning had been good. It had been stressful, as usual, but good. The kids were energetic and excited and seemingly got along well. They were louder than they would be later in the year, owing to still not being in the swing of school again and finally having a class during the day where they were encouraged to connect with their emotions.
Still, I was ready for my break, and when it came, I lay down on the stage for a moment to center myself. I only had a short window to eat lunch, but I needed this. To lay on the hard wood of a stage, staring at the ceiling of the theater and letting myself relax. A minute or so of that and I felt refreshed enough to brave the teacher’s lounge and the inevitable irritable teachers with the coffee that they desperately wished contained whiskey.
I opened the door to the small kitchen and break room, relieved to see I was the first one there, and went right to the refrigerator. My lunch was inside, and I pulled it out excitedly. I had been looking forward to the pasta salad I had made the night before all morning, and when I grabbed the container, I smiled. I turned and shut the door, prepared to go to the normal chair I sat in by the window and eat while I waited for the other teachers to arrive and begin the new year of teacher gossip.
As I turned, however, the door of the breakroom opened, and my eyes shot to it. Sometimes kids would open the door, looking for a teacher or seeing the vending machine inside and wanting to grab a soda that they didn’t allow machines for in the normal cafeteria anymore. But it wasn’t a student.
It was Graham.
My heart jumped into my throat. I froze, nearly dropping the container of pasta salad and having to fumble it between my hands to get control. He froze too, seemingly surprised to see me. Of course, I’d known that he was in town and that he was supposedly working at the school, but I wasn’t prepared to run into him. I could only imagine how surprised he would be to see me.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” he muttered, the flicker of a smile on his face. “I… how… hey.”
I laughed.
“Smooth,” I said, “as usual.”
He shook his head and walked farther into the room.
I’d never thought it was going to come to this. I’d never thought I was going to ever see him again, much less run into him in the place where we’d met. I didn’t really know what to do next.
