What He Doesn't Know(19)

It was what I'd wanted. I'd gotten exactly what I'd wanted.

And as I came down from the orgasm my husband had given me, I saw the  face of another man I'd given a piece of me tonight, too. The apathy I'd  had downstairs vanished, replaced by a painful guilt.

I couldn't deny I'd done something wrong. If I hadn't, the guilt  wouldn't be there. If I was innocent, I wouldn't have felt dirty in the  clean bed I shared with the man who put a ring on my finger eight years  earlier.

I cringed, curling into Cameron's arms and burying my head into his  chest in a mixture of shame and apology. Of course, Cameron didn't know I  even had anything to apologize for.

As he pressed a loving kiss to my forehead, I knew only one thing.

I had to stay away from Reese Walker.





Reese



I skipped into the halls of Westchester bright and early Monday morning,  two piping hot cups of coffee in hand. Thoughts of my Friday night with  Charlie filled my head as I whistled, nodding a hello to the few other  teachers who were already unlocking the doors to their classrooms. I  knew she would be doing the same - she always came in earlier than I  did.

I'd spent the weekend overthinking every second of that night we shared  together. Sure, she and I had both been drinking, but something had been  different about Charlie that night. From the very first moment she  walked through the bar doors until the last wave over her shoulder when I  dropped her off early the next morning, she wasn't wearing the same  mask she'd had on since I'd been back. All this time, I knew she was  hiding something, I just didn't know what.

I couldn't have imagined what.

Charlie finally let me see inside again, she let the sixteen-year-old girl out that I used to know.

But she also let me see the broken woman she was now, and that was the woman I wanted more of.

I recognized, very distantly, that I was playing with fire. She was  still very much married, and I would have been lying to myself if I said  my intentions with her were completely innocent. But, it wasn't that  they were completely not innocent, either. I wanted to be there for her,  to be someone she could talk to, someone she could lean on.

I wanted to make her realize that she deserved the world.                       
       
           


///
       

Past that, I knew I wanted more, but I wasn't ready to admit those things to myself. Not just yet, maybe not ever.

A friend. That was all I wanted to be.

Or at least, that's what I told myself.

When I turned the corner rounding into her classroom, I stopped  mid-whistle, confusion sweeping over me at the sight of Mr. Henderson  writing on the white board behind her desk.

"Ah! Good morning, Mr. Walker. How was your weekend?"

I surveyed the room, but there was no sign of Charlie, not even a purse or coat hung over the back of her chair.

"It was just fine, Mr. Henderson. And yours?"

"Oh, I've had better. Betty insisted on me cleaning out our fireplace.  She's so sure we're going to get a bad snow storm here in the next few  weeks." He shook his head with a grin. "The old back doesn't bend the  way it used to."

"Well, she's probably right about the snow. I'm surprised we haven't had  anything more than an inch or two since I've been home."

"It's surely been cold enough to blizzard, hasn't it?" He hung his hands  on his hips with an even wider grin, which I returned as much as I  could.

I was done talking about the weather.

"Is, uh …  Is Mrs. Pierce running late or something?"

"Oh! Of course, you're probably looking for her in her classroom, huh?  That would make sense." Mr. Henderson chuckled. "Poor thing, she's ill.  Called me right as my alarm went off this morning. I'm just filling in  until the sub can get up here."

"She's sick?"

"Appears so," he answered, and this time his face bent with concern.  "Doesn't surprise me, honestly. The woman hasn't had a sick day off in  the eight years she's been teaching with us. Probably caught up with  her."

"She's never called out sick?" I raised a brow, suspicion settling low and unwelcome in my stomach.

"Never."

"Huh," I mused. "Well, I picked up an extra coffee this morning. Would you like it?"

"Life saver!" He clapped his hands together before crossing the room to  take the extra cup from my hand. "Much obliged, Mr. Walker. I'll swing  by your room later to discuss the spring concert?"

"Sure," I answered distantly, but my wheels spun, wondering if Charlie was okay.

Maybe she really was sick, it wasn't like people didn't get colds or  even the flu in late January. Still, the fact that she hadn't called out  sick in eight years and she just so happened to do so for the first  time the Monday after we spent a late night together wasn't lost on me.

My fingers itched to reach into my pocket for a cigarette as I walked  the halls back to my classroom, but since I couldn't find relief that  way just yet, I pulled out my cell phone, instead. A friend would check  on someone if they were sick, wouldn't they?

Before I could talk myself out of it, I shot out a text to Charlie.



- Mr. Henderson told me someone's under the weather this morning. Maybe you couldn't handle that beer, after all. -



I sent it quickly, cringing a bit at my lame attempt at teasing her. If  she really was sick, she might smile. But if she wasn't, would bringing  up that night only upset her? Was she regretting it, spending that long  with me, opening up to me the way she did?

Was she feeling guilty?

The thought had crossed my mind. She'd asked me about a night that  passed between us so long ago, and we'd been close enough to kiss, close  enough to do so much more. But neither of us had crossed a line …  had  we?

There was no answer from Charlie before first period started, and when I  checked my phone again at lunch, I was disappointed that her name  hadn't lit up my screen. By the end of the day, I'd given up.

I hoped, selfishly, that she really was sick. Maybe she was buried under  the covers of her bed, doped up on cold medicine and not looking at her  phone at all.

It was an awful thing to wish, but the alternative would have been  worse. It would have meant she was avoiding me, the way the sickening  lurch in my stomach wanted me to believe. Charlie had let me in, but was  she closing me out again, before I even had the chance to get more than  one foot through the door?

I could only wait to find out.





Charlie didn't show on Tuesday.

I ate lunch alone that day, staring at the text I'd sent her and  wondering how crazy it would be to show up on her doorstep with soup and  a get well soon balloon. She never got sick, right? Maybe I could say  the thoughtful gifts were from the entire faculty.

When her classroom was void of her again Wednesday, I nearly tore my  hair out from frustration. I was driving myself crazy with the  possibility of what might be going through her head, even though I  technically didn't know for sure anything even was. She was probably  just sick. She was probably just resting and doing everything she could  to get better, to get back to her kids. That was the kind of teacher she  was.                       
       
           


///
       

It's not always about you, I chastised myself as I left Westchester that  afternoon. It was classic me to be so self-absorbed that I would make  her illness about our night together. I spent that evening doing  everything I could to push it out of my mind, blaring Arvo Part's Da  Pacem as loudly as I could as I finally unpacked the boxes littering my  house. When my belongings were partly organized and I'd built up a sweat  working around the house, I felt marginally better, settling in for a  smoke by my sliding glass door as my thoughts calmed.

She was just sick. Everything was fine.

I called Blake to catch up, feeling guilty that it had taken me so long  to get back in touch after ending our call so abruptly Friday night. But  Blake was busy, too, and long conversations on the phone never were our  thing. We talked for a long while, longer than we had since I left,  before I finally felt tired enough to sleep, to actually sleep.

And finally, on Thursday morning, Charlie was back at Westchester.

A sigh of relief found me when I leaned against the door frame of her  classroom and saw her standing there, back to me, dark hair smoothed  into a high bun. She was writing the day's agenda on the white board,  and for a moment I just watched her, checking her profile for signs of  weariness. Her eyes were bright, a small smile etched onto her face, and  her cheeks held more color than I'd seen in all the other mornings  since I'd been at Westchester.

"She's alive," I said in my best Dr. Frankenstein voice. I slipped my  hands into my pockets as Charlie smiled, her eyes still on the board.  "Welcome back, Tadpole."