Reading Online Novel

Catching Fireflies(44)



“And it obviously shaped who you are, at least in terms of how you relate to women, so, yes, being a woman who’s sitting here with you right now, I need to know.”

“Okay, then,” he said, pausing before adding with unmistakable reluctance, “I came home one night after a very long shift at the hospital during my residency and found my wife in bed with the chief resident, who was technically my boss.”

He said the words in a burst as if he wanted to get the humiliation out there and over with.

Laura bit back a gasp. “What a lousy thing to walk in on!” She regarded him curiously. “How, in any way, are you to blame for that?”

“I must have been a terrible husband for her to cheat like that. My dad had the same bad fortune with my mom. She was a serial cheater. He just never had the gumption to leave her.”

“Thus the Fullerton-men-are-bad-bets theory,” she concluded. “Okay, I will allow that you might have made equally bad choices when it came to women, but their behavior is all on them. You didn’t turn them into cheaters.”

He shrugged. “Maybe we did. I can’t speak for my parents’ marriage. I was pretty young when things got bad, so who knows how the cheating started. But I was in med school, then doing an internship and then a residency. All of it was more demanding than you can possibly imagine. I was never around.”

“Your wife didn’t know what it would be like when she married you?”

“She said she did, but I doubt anyone can understand what it really means to live with a schedule like that until they do. I didn’t, even though I saw the med students ahead of me walking around like zombies once they started their internships.”

“There you go, letting her off the hook,” Laura said, then added fiercely, “You did not deserve what she did.”

He smiled at that. “Anyone ever mention this protective streak of yours?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. It’s finely honed. Nobody messes with the people I care about.”

He looked for an instant as if he might ask if he was one of those people she cared about, but instead he said, “Thus the determination to fix things for Misty.”

She nodded, willing to allow the change of topic. J.C. still had the cornered look of a man who’d had about as much personal talk as he could handle for the moment.

“I still don’t like what’s going on,” she told him. “Misty’s been in class, but I know things are no better. I can see it in her eyes and in the way she lingers after class to avoid being with Annabelle and her cronies in the hallways. I just wish Misty trusted me enough to let me deal with it once and for all.”

“I imagine she’s just relieved to know that an adult believes her, that you heard for yourself what she’s been living with since school started. Maybe that’s enough for now.”

“Since when is having an adult stand by helplessly while bullying continues ever enough?” she said in frustration. “I want it to end before things go too far.”

J.C.’s expression instantly sobered. “If you ever sense that it’s getting out of hand, you tell me, understood? I don’t care about school protocol or some kind of evidence that would hold up in a court. This is not going to get out of hand and ruin that child’s life.”

She was startled by the vehemence in his voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d sensed that bullying held special meaning for J.C. Tonight, though, with all of the revelations about his marriage, she judged that his feelings might be a little too raw to pursue yet another touchy subject. She would get to the bottom of it, though. She sensed that it, along with the lousy way his marriage ended, were the keys to understanding him.

And the more she got to know J.C., the more she wanted to know everything that had shaped the man he was now. She just hoped those scars from his past would allow it.



“You need to go online right now,” Katie practically shouted in Misty’s ear when Misty answered her cell phone. “I can’t believe it!”

“What are you so worked up about?” Misty asked, still lost in the fictional world she’d been creating for a story for Ms. Reed’s class.

“Just do it,” Katie commanded. “You’ll see. I’ll wait.”

“Are you talking about Annabelle’s page?” Misty asked, already typing in the link.

“What else?” Katie said. “She’s gone too far this time, Misty. You have to tell somebody. This needs to end.”

Katie might be dramatic, but she wouldn’t get this worked up over nothing, A sense of dread settled in Misty’s stomach as the page loaded.