What He Doesn't Know(3)

But I didn't have a choice in the matter, and I knew I'd offer to help  as many times as he asked me to. That was just who I was. It was who I'd  always been. So, I let it all go with one long exhale as I ran through  my lesson plan for the day.

Charlie Pierce, the girl who always said yes.





Reese



"She should be here any moment, Mr. Walker," Mr. Henderson assured me,  his cheeks high and pink. He rambled on about Westchester as I listened  attentively, trying to take it all in. My head already hurt from the  overflow of information.

Most new teachers would have already been here for two weeks, minimum,  setting up their classroom and learning the ins and outs of the school.  But this was my first day - first day at Westchester, first day back in  my old hometown, first day teaching.

It was the last thing I ever thought I would do - teach. And yet, when  the opportunity had presented itself, I knew it was exactly what I  needed to do. The music instructor who came before me had thirty years  of experience on me, but I had a stint as a pianist on Broadway and a  piece of paper that said I survived Juilliard. It was enough to get me  the job, and enough to get me back to the place I had left fourteen  years ago.

The place I used to call home.

Home was the only thing I wanted to find, and now that I was back, I realized how futile that hope was.

"You're going to adore Mrs. Pierce," Mr. Henderson said, pulling me back  to the small teachers' café where we waited for the teacher who would  be my assigned lunch date for the week. "She's one of the best teachers  we have, been here almost a decade now. And, she's an alum. I had the  pleasure of watching her grow over the years." He chuckled. "She was a  bright student. Always quiet, very studious and shy, but she shines even  more as a teacher."                       
       
           


///
       

I nodded with a polite smile, tucking my hands in the pockets of my  slacks. I'd assured Mr. Henderson I didn't need anyone to tour me around  the campus or sit with me each day at lunch. If anything, assimilating  with the other teachers was the least of my worries. I was more  concerned with being trusted teaching children who would grow into  adults one day. If you told anyone who knew me as a teenager in this  town that I'd one day be teaching at Westchester, or even at all, they'd  laugh at the outrageousness of it.

Though I didn't attend Westchester as a kid, I had plenty of friends who  did, and I'd been reckless enough with those friends to know that  private school students didn't mess around when it came to partying. My  dad had put both my sister and me in public school, mostly because he  wanted us to go to his alma mater, but also because I was a trouble  maker from the time I was born.

I guess he didn't want to pay upwards of thirty-thousand dollars a year  for me to be a hooligan at a school when I could do the same amount of  damage for free at the school closer to our house.

Still, it was prestigious - Westchester. I'd always wondered what it  would be like to attend, and after only one morning within the halls, I  could feel the history.

Maybe this really would be my chance to start over, to find a little  piece of the man who had existed before I'd lost everything that had  meant the most to me.

Mr. Henderson clapped his hands, and my eyes snapped to the woman who'd just walked through the door.

"Ah! There she is!" he said cheerily.

The woman looked up at us from the book clasped in her hands, and that  was the first thing I recognized - a familiar, tattered copy of Jane  Eyre, one I'd seen too many times to count in a life that felt like I'd  never even lived it at all.

"Escaping with Charlotte Bronte again, are we?" Mr. Henderson chuckled, but I couldn't find it in me to laugh.

All I could do was stare.

Charlie Reid stood before me like a ghost, one that had haunted me for  more than a decade, one I longed for just as long but never truly  imagined I'd ever see again.

I realized distantly that perhaps I did imagine I'd see her, if I was being honest with myself. Perhaps I hoped for it.

Perhaps she was part of the reason I was back.

Her brows bent together in confusion over her wide, honey eyes before  she carefully slipped a silk ribbon bookmark between the pages and  tucked the book away in her messenger bag.

"Are you surprised?" she asked, her voice timid and small. It wasn't the  voice I remembered, the cheery, bird-like voice that used to make every  sentence sound more like a song. Then again, she wasn't the girl I  remembered, either. She wasn't sixteen anymore. Her hair wasn't wrapped  in two braids, one over each shoulder, and her eyes weren't bright and  full of life.

No, Charlie wasn't the same girl I'd left crying on my porch fourteen  years ago on the last night before I left her and this town behind me.

She wasn't anyone I should have recognized at all, but I'd never forget those eyes.

"Not in the slightest," Mr. Henderson mused. He clapped me on the  shoulder, squeezing hard as he gestured to Charlie, as if I'd taken my  eyes off her for even a second since she'd walked in the room. "Mr.  Walker, this is-"

"Charlie Reid," I finished for him, and I paused a moment, watching the  mixture of shock and wonder fill Charlie's eyes before I reached forward  to shake her hand. "I'll be damned."

She let me take her hand, her cool fingers slipping across my palm  before I wrapped mine around hers and shook gently. For a moment, I just  held her there, willing her to light up with recognition, to remember  the boy who used to live next door.

But she didn't light up at all.

If anything, it seemed any semblance of light she'd ever possessed had  been extinguished sometime in the years since I'd seen her. Those eyes  of hers felt hollow - not even sad, just empty. Her pale pink lips  didn't curve into the smile I knew and loved, her cheeks didn't flush  with heat at my gaze the way they used to.

She just blinked, pulling her hand from mine and resting it back on the strap of her bag.

"It's Pierce now," she said, and I searched those words for any kind of emotion, but came up empty-handed. "You're back."

I narrowed my eyes a bit, trying to figure her out. She did recognize me - and all she had to say was you're back?

"I am, indeed," I said, smiling as my eyes took the rest of her in. The  long dark hair that I used to watch her braid was pulled up into a high,  tight bun, and she wore a long, modest navy skirt and simple white  blouse, a gold scarf topping off her school spirit. Westchester's colors  on everything she wore seemed to almost blend her in with the school,  as if she wasn't a woman at all, but just an extension of the hallways  she walked.                       
       
           


///
       

"You two know each other, I presume?" Mr. Henderson interrupted, jolly as ever.

"We used to be neighbors," I answered when she didn't. "Charlie and my  little sister were best friends growing up, and I was friends with her  brother. Before we moved, that is."

"Splendid! That saves me a lot of silly introductions then," Mr.  Henderson said, checking the gold watch on his wrist before clapping me  on the back again.

His eyes found Charlie next, and I noticed then that she was staring at  me, though her expression hadn't changed. Her gaze found Mr. Henderson  with a blink as he spoke her name.

"Charlie, as we discussed, please give Mr. Walker a tour of the campus  when you have a chance. And you're still okay being his lunch buddy for  the next week?"

Her eyes skated to me briefly. "Of course. I'll take it from here."

"Wonderful. If you'll excuse me, I have an unfortunate meeting with a  high school mom who can't possibly believe her sweet son vandalized the  bathroom before winter break." He rolled his eyes, but gave us each a  wink on his way out the door.

There were at least a dozen other teachers in that lounge, but I only saw Charlie.

We might as well have been alone, the way the air picked up a charge in  Mr. Henderson's absence. I wondered if she felt it, too. I only had her  expression to go by, which gave away nothing. Either she hid her  emotions well now, or she didn't have any at all.

I wasn't sure which would bother me more.

"Charlie Reid," I mused, hoping she would lighten up a little now that  we were alone. "A tadpole no more. What happened to the braids and  oversized t-shirts?"

"I imagine thirty-year-old's wearing pigtail braids would be a little  silly," she said. "And t-shirts aren't exactly dress code appropriate."

I couldn't tell if she was trying to make a joke or if she was as  serious as an obituary. I smiled anyway, hoping it was the first option,  but the smile fell quickly at her next words.