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Bent over a table with her back to me, her hair a crimson curtain draping her face. I think my mind may still be frozen in shock, because I feel almost as if I’m outside my body, looking on from somewhere else. I’m watching this scenario play out between two different people, feeling pity for them both.
I’d thought about it before, what it may be like to run into her again. At first, I thought it would be some grand reunion, a collision of all the lost feelings we never had the chance to express. As the years passed and we continued to miss each other, I started to think that it may never happen at all. Or that it would, at some point in the far-off future where both of us were married, happy, and fulfilled, and it would just be a funny little water mark on our adolescence. But five years is nothing compared to the number of years I spent in her presence. It may have only been one kiss, but I spent my whole childhood falling in love with her. The first time I noticed a person inthatsort of way. The first lips I dreamt about at night. Every single fantasy between that dream and the day I actually kissed her. She was never actually any of my firsts, of course. Not the physical kind, anyway. But even then, she was who I wished they could’ve been. No, five years certainly was not enough time to recover from the way she wrecked my world.
Now, she’s standing right in front of me. She’s helping walk a group of students through the guidelines of their group project on ancient Greece, and I can’t help but wonder if she felt it too. The palpable tension that floated in the air around us. Five years couldn’t have been enough time for her to forget the drumming of our hearts and the fire in our bodies. Where the moment in the past was a tidal wave, the moment in the art room today was rapid. I heard her gasp, the acceleration of her heartbeat. The way she shivered when I touched her hips.
She remembers.
I’d spent these years replacing her lips with so many others, all in an attempt to heal the scars she left on mine. Nothing thus far has been comparable to that moment in the dark pantry of my parent’s kitchen. That is, until I found myself alone with her again.
Penelope was helping her students by outlining a rough draft of a map they were supposed to draw. I remembered when very few people knew her creative side. She was an artist at heart, and I considered myself one of the privileged ones who’d seen her art before. Although, I’m probably not anymore. But by the sound of it, she doesn’t draw these days. She doesn’t talk about it with her friends, assuming that girl—Macie—was her friend.
I used to glance at Penelope’s notebooks in class, all the drawings sprawled across them. I would wonder how she could be so distracted, creating drawings so detailed and beautiful, and yet still have the highest grade-point average in our school. She left her sketchbook on the kitchen table in her house once, and I looked at it when nobody was around. The doodles in her notebooks were no comparison to the drawings sprawled across the pages of her sketchbooks, unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
I had so many questions for her. How her life has been and what it has become. Why did she end up back here when I had known her to desire living anywhere else? I wanted to know every detail of what her life has been like since the last time I saw her. I wanted to ask her about the last time I saw her. How she felt about it then, how she feels about it now. I wanted to ask her if she has a boyfriend.
I should not want to ask her if she has a boyfriend.
I suddenly realized I was staring far too intensely at her while she was bent over a table and her back was facing me. She was wearing a pair of deep purple jeans that hugged every curve in the just the right way and drew my eyes to all the places they should not be going. I struggled to pull my gaze away from her ass and glance around the classroom. I wouldn’t lie to myself and pretend I wasn't excited to see Penelope again, but at this moment it felt strange. I did, as much as I could manage, try to shadow Penelope and the other teacher, Christine, as they worked with their students. I tried to understand the way they interacted, the way they critiqued, and how they listened. Penelope, of course, was a natural.
Starting next week, I’d be taking over three photography classes, a study hall, and the Yearbook Club. I only knew how to take photos. I had no clue how to teach other people to take photos. I had no clue how to interact with students, but the contract was a solid income and gave me an excuse to live with my parents rent free for the next few months. I couldn’t turn it down.
After the last bell had rung and the class had cleared, both Penelope and Christine remained. They split a stack of assignments that Christine slipped into her bag to grade at home later. She packed up her things, but Penelope seemed as if she’d be staying for a while. I wasn’t sure if I should stay too.
“You sure you don’t mind tidying up?” Christine asked.
“Not at all! I was actually part of the carpool this morning, so I’ll be waiting on Macie anyway.” Penelope smiled a smile I’d never seen before, and I realized it must be the one she created specifically for Christine. I wonder how many of her other smiles have been created in the last five years that I haven’t witnessed yet.
Christine thanked her again and smiled at me softly before leaving the classroom, her heels clicking down the hall in echoes. Penelope went back to what she had been doing before, stacking books in corners and picking scraps of paper off the ground. I began doing the same.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” she chuckled. The tone in her voice was light, as if she didn’t care either way if I stayed or went. That bothered me because I had no idea what I should do. I tried removing the connotations of our past and considered how I would act as a professional, simply in this situation with a coworker of mine and not… well, nother. My eyes wandered about the room, and everything seemed to look like it was in the place it was meant to be.
Except for myself, of course.
I assumed she’s just diddling until she meets her friend to leave for the day. “Okay, sure. I’ll take off then,” I replied blithely. She was kneeled on the ground, sorting through a box of books. I knew she was attempting to make herself appear busy as a way of dissolving the awkward tension between us.
“Okay, have a good night.” She reached her hand back to wave but didn’t turn around. I tightened my lips in frustration. I had no way of knowing how much she’s changed but one thing about her that certainly has not; she remains reticent. Pushing down all emotions until she feels she’s in control. I used to do the same when it came to her, mimicking her movements because I wanted to do what made her feel comfortable. The constant game we played when we were young. The both of us too afraid to convey the way we feel.
“Pep, we should talk about this.” I found myself saying it before my brain could tell my mouth to stop, frustrated with everything I’d pent up for so long.
She was silent as she slowly stood up and straightened out her jeans, kicking the box of books back into the corner of the room. She sighed. “Talk about what?”
“Come on, Penelope.” I was exasperated. “You know exactly what–” I was cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps and laughter. She turned around to face me just before I turned around to face the door, but I noticed her close her eyes and let out a breath of relief at our interruption. I rolled mine.
The woman that flurried into the art room earlier, the one who (more than once) referred to me as hot, strode into the classroom, her tight blonde curls bouncing with her laughter. Close behind her was an incredibly tall man, and another man entered behind him, shorter with a wormy face. They all stopped abruptly as they entered the room, like they thought they may be interrupting something. Macie smiled at me kindly. The tall man stood close to her and smiled as well. His hair was red, like Penelope’s, except his was ginger where hers was cherry. He stood close enough to Macie that I assumed they may be involved. The shorter man with a stocky build and a wormy face held my gaze with narrow eyes and a judgmental expression.
“Hi, Penny,” Macie said slowly. “Are you ready to go? We don’t want to be late for Thursday night trivia.”
“I’m ready.” Penelope had a hint of annoyance in her tone. “Carter, will you be able to find the parking lot on your own? We normally park in the teacher lot in the back.”
I chewed my lip. She clearly wanted me to leave, but I realized I could use the excuse of pretending I didn’t know where to go so she’d have to show me. She’d probably just send one of her friends to show me instead and that would be even more awkward. “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll manage.” She tilted her head in a brief nod and reached around her desk to grab her bag.
Macie cleared her throat. “Mr. Carter, this is Jeremy and Marshall. Jeremy teaches math and Marshall teaches health and PE.” She pointed at each of them, Jeremy being the redhead and Marshall having the wormy face. I shook both their hands. “Oh, and you can call them Mr. Bridges and Mr. Ross when students are around.”
“The name thing is all so confusing.” I smiled as genuinely as I could. “Nice to meet you both.” Jeremy smiled back at me in a dopey yet honest way. Marshall seemed much more reserved, almost impertinent as he greeted me.
“Carter will be covering for Katie while she’s out on maternity leave. He’ll be taking over her photography classes and Yearbook,” Penelope explained as she floated past me and the rest of us filed out the door behind her. We all walked together on the first stretch of the long hallway where I’d cut off towards the right and they would all cut off towards the left once we reached the end of it.
“Who's taking over her other art classes?” Jeremy asked.
