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Pep sighed. “Me.”
The wormy guy, Marshall, cackled. “They must be desperate.”
I looked at Penelope, expecting her to be offended. She just shrugged and nodded as if she agreed. Marshall continued, nodding towards me, “Since Penelope, clearly, isn’treallyan art teacher. Are youreallya photographer?”
“Yes, I amreallya photographer.” I tried, and failed, not to grind my teeth.
He frowned, shrugging, and then shook his head with a condescending snort.
Penelope’s eyes flashed to me with a look that was almost apologetic, but mostly blank. It was silent for a few beats before Macie rang out, “Oh, and I already called dibs on the front seat!”
“You can’t just call dibs when I’m not there. It doesn’t count unless all parties are present,” Penelope argued. They stopped walking and stared at each other. Only a fraction of a second could’ve passed before the realization dawned on them both.
“Dibs!” They yelled at the exact same time.
“I said it first–” Macie started.
“No, I said it first!” Penelope exclaimed.
“Macie definitely said it first,” Marshall chimed in with a sinful smile on his face.
“I know you’re only saying that so you can sit in the back seat with Penny, but I won’t argue with you.” Macie laughed.
I tried not to make a face at Macie’s observation.
Penelope straightened up, no longer glimmering with the shiny expression she held when she was joking with Macie. “The driver decides who gets shotgun whenever the declaration of dibs is too close of a call to tell who said it first,” Penelope said seriously, like she was reading off a contract.
All eyes turned to Jeremy, including mine. I probably should’ve stepped around them and continued on my way, but I somehow got pulled into their strange dynamic and wanted to see what happened.
“I think Macie was a hair quicker,” Jeremy said. Macie cheered and wrapped her arm around his waist as they walked away. Marshall threw his arm around Penelope’s shoulder, and I thought I may have caught her stiffening slightly. He moved off behind the other two, pulling her along with him. Once they made it to the fork in the hallway, Jeremy and Macie absent mindedly turned left, with Marshall following right behind. Penelope glanced back at me with a soft expression.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said just above a whisper.
“See ya, Mr. Carter!” Macie yelled without turning around at all.
“I’m so confused, is his first name Carter, or his last name?” I heard Jeremy ask her as they disappeared through a set of doors.
I chuckled briefly at that because I had no idea why Macie decided to call me by my first name with a suffix in front of it. Their laughter and conversation faded into nothing, and I found myself standing alone in the middle of the hall, staring after the living, breathing ghost who’d been haunting me all this time.
I thought my heart had healed from the soul splitting anguish she’d cause me. As I watched her disappear from sight, another man’s arm around her, I wondered if I’d ever had a stitch in it at all.
Chapter Three
Penelope
“ALITTLEHEADSUPwould've been appreciated,” I said, shutting the front door behind me. I’d hardly made it through trivia last night as I found myself reliving every dreaded moment of yesterday afternoon. By the time I made it home my parents were in bed, and when I woke up this morning my dad had already left for work. I hadn’t had the chance to confront him about his potential involvement in the scheme to appoint me Seaside Middle’s newest art teacher, or maybe worse, Carter Edwards’s new office mate.
Regardless, I wasn’t sure I wanted to confront him about it. Wasn’t sure I could. The last year had been rough for my parents and me. The moment I stepped out of the terminal at PDX, my father forced a smile that said:I’m so disappointed in you right now but I’m still trying to love you.More than anything else in the last year, maybe more than anything else in my entire life, that look on his face broke me. I’d failed the man who never failed me. The man who saved me.
The drive home from Portland to my hometown of Brighton Bay was silent. We got home late, and my mother hadn’t stayed up to greet me. My father went straight to bed. I collapsed onto the floor of my childhood bedroom and sobbed. Sometime later, my sister silently opened my door, pulled me onto my bed, and slept with me. We’ve never talked about that night. My parents didn’t tell Maddie the full extent of my experience at Oxford, but I did. None of us speak of it now.
That was nine months ago, and I’ve been walking on eggshells every moment since. I knew that I’d disappointed them. They were trying to be supportive, trying to mask that disappointment, but I could see through it.
“They’re not pretending to forgive you, Penelope. They were upset, yes, but they’re over it. They love you. Of course they expect a lot from you, they expect a lot from all three of us, but you put all this pressure on yourself to be perfect. I promise you, Mom and Dad do not expect perfection. They just want to make sure you’re happy,” my sister had told me a couple of weeks after I returned home. What she didn’t understand was that while my parents may not expect perfection from me, I did. I owed it to them in a way she never would. I was adopted– I was a fucked up little kid and they took me in. I’ll always owe them a debt that can’t be repaid. The least I could do was not be a failure and an embarrassment. And my parents could pretend all they wanted, but they were embarrassed. I’d failed them and failed myself.
After I returned from England, I immediately began applying to graduate programs within the United States, the west coast specifically. I wanted to remain as far away from England as I could reasonably get.
My parents begged me to take a gap year, saying diving back into school too soon would do more harm than good. I think they just wanted to keep me under their roof until they could ensure I wouldn’t fuck up again. Regardless, I continued applying, but once I’d been rejected from the first two programs, I began to give up hope. By August, my father had enough pity on me to ask Tom to get me a job with the school district. Preferably something with history, I believe he expressed. Something that would make me feel like it wasn’t all a waste. The day that Tom offered me the teaching aide job was the first day I’d allowed myself to think about Carter. I had wondered if news of my situation would reach his side of the ocean.
