SWNOVELS Invisible String: Chapter 28
Green Eyes – Coldplay
BEN
difference between Newton’s laws had never been this difficult. My last period junior class were really struggling to grasp the concepts. I wasn’t sure if they were just tired, or if finally the cracks caused by one too many sleepless nights were finally beginning to show and I was doing a terrible job of explaining them.
“Give me a moment, guys,” I said, looking out at the classroom of puzzled faces. Cameron, one of my smarter students, was sitting in the front row, a pen scratching his head as he tried to work out the problem. If he was struggling, maybe I had thrown them into the deep end too quickly.
I turned to my laptop, clicking on the browser and bringing up the most invaluable resource for struggling teachers: YouTube. I quickly searched for one of my favorite channels, finding their explanation video. While it loaded, I plugged the laptop into the projector, sparing one glance at the laptop to make sure there was nothing untoward open on the screen. I fiddled about with the tricky remote that only worked if I banged it twice on the desk, rotated the batteries inside to find the right connection, and pressed the power button with just the right amount of pressure.
Finally, the projector flickered to life, the fan on the device immediately starting up with a worrisome crackle, a visible cloud of thick dust puffing out from the vent.
Something inside me grew a little heavier. I still very much wasn’t over the loss from last Friday. The money that the win could’ve given us, the resources–I would’ve finally been able to take a baseball bat to that projector. I’d been visualizing my revenge on the school’s less than adequate IT equipment since I’d joined, and victory had been so close I could practically smell the partially fried motherboards.
And then it was stolen in one cruel rounding error twist.
“This should explain it properly,” I said, clicking play and leaning back in my chair. The sound blared through the speakers, pushing me back up so I could quickly adjust the noise before anyone was deafened. At least the blast of volume had truly captured everyone’s attention.
I pushed back in my chair again, letting the video play. A quick glance of the clock told me the video should take us right up to the end of the day.
It was Thursday, but this week had felt endless, the hours dragging by. It didn’t help that I’d spent most of it either trying to out run my problems on a treadmill, leaving me so tired my legs felt weak under my own weight; or lying awake in bed completely exhausted, but my mind far too filled with thoughts to properly shut down. I’d keep checking my phone, making sure the volume was up so I didn’t miss any calls. Then five minutes later I’d check again, anxiety chewing up my nervous system.
Without even thinking, I glanced across the hallway and into the classroom opposite, finally finding her.
Olive was sitting at her desk, red pen in hand as she was slumped forward and staring down at whatever she was grading, her brown hair tucked behind her ear. I swear she looked thinner, the line of her jaw more defined. She’d always been small but never thin, never this gaunt and frail. Instantly, I wanted to march across, wrap my arms around her and ask her what she needed. She’d liked the soup I’d brought her, despite my average cooking skills and the fact her father was a professional. Maybe if I bought her a vat of it and a ton of bread she’d eat it.
The pen that had been hanging from her hand fell, landing on the floor beside her feet. She leaned down, her shoulder length hair falling out from behind her ear. I was mesmerized as she gently picked it up.
I missed her touch. She had this thing where she slowly ran her fingers up and down my collarbone, the pads of her fingers sending a million tiny shocks around my body. I didn’t tell her how much I loved it and somehow had managed not to react to the touch but it drove me out of my mind. The memory alone was doing just that.
Then her green eyes were on me. She visibly flinched, her gaze cold and icy and unforgiving.
Crap. Staring at her across the hallways was not giving her space.
She stood up, and I swear my heart lurched in my chest, thinking for a moment she was going to come over here, that I’d finally finally finally hear her voice again and this sick pain that had been eating me up for the last week would lift. But instead she stopped in the doorway, taking one last look at me, before she pushed the door closed.
I can’t begin to tell you what that final clicking of the door did. I should’ve looked away then, should’ve turned back to the class. But instead, I watched her through the door window, watched her as she returned to her desk, not sparing another glance my way.
What was it going to take? What was the price of her forgiveness?
I still hadn’t given an answer to the offer of vice principal, and Rob’s warning was still echoing around my mind. I wanted to say yes. I knew I could make a difference here. The last few months I’d spent my free time either looking up different grants I could apply for, preparing for the competition or trying to figure out how I could ‘accidentally’ run into Olive for a moment of her attention. And my grant research had been successful! It was longer term, which is why it wouldn’t help with the funding for the clubs, but the sooner I could start applying, the sooner we could make a difference: get some new resources and show the outdated IT equipment the door.
But would it mean losing her for good? Would I be doing that anyway with her other job offer? I needed to talk to her and figure this mess out. Figure it out with her rather than guessing what she was going to do. But she needed space. And I was trying to give her that. Trying and failing.
Finally, the bell rang, pulling my attention back to the room. Immediately, students clambered up from their seats, grabbing their bags and stuffing their notebooks inside.
“Please review the notes from today at home, we’ll continue this tomorrow,” I tried to say over the noise, hoping the video had been enough to explain the theory to everyone. I saw a few students nod their heads in acknowledgement but most were too busy trying to make their way out of the class.
When they finally filtered out of the room, I let out a sigh, relieved the day was finally over. I collected the homework that was piled on my desk. It would be another late night getting this all sorted. I took a few minutes to run around the room, making sure the chairs were tucked under the desks neatly, and doing anything to kill a few minutes to allow Olive some time to get ahead of me and avoid any awkward run-ins in the hallway.
Last thing I needed was to further get in her way.
Through the silence of the classroom, I heard a door click open in the hallway. I held my breath for some reason, listening to the echoing footsteps as they grew fainter and fainter, my beating heart the only other noise I could hear. I fought the urge to go to my doorway, make sure it was her, and walk her to her car, but I remained planted at the back of my classroom.
Space. I had to give her that. It was the only thing I could do.
Finally, when the footsteps disappeared, I moved again, heading to the front of the classroom to grab my rucksack and pocket my phone. I headed out, flicking the light switches off and closing the door behind me.
To give her a few more minutes to get ahead of me, I decided to go the long way through the hallway, taking a left through the music department instead. I heard it then, faint at first, but unmistakably someone playing the piano. We’d had a few reports of students hanging around the school after hours over the last few weeks, and had been told to investigate and escort them to the exits at every opportunity.
Following the noise, it took me to the last room in the music department, the door ajar.
The sound was beautiful, the melody new to me, but I instantly knew that whoever was playing was obviously skilled and not just some kid messing around. It was a sad tune, my heart sinking with every new note.
I paused at the door, letting the sound wash over me, my heart aching as I took a moment to allow myself to think of Olive again.
Picturing her in my bed was easy, but it was always the same early morning memory that haunted me. Her bare shoulder sticking out of my navy sheets, her chocolate hair spilled all over the pillow, her back to me. I’d traced my fingers along her shoulder, the touch gentle across her soft, tanned skin.
She’d felt like mine for a moment, like this was where she’d belonged, where she’d always belonged. It felt as though everything–all the heartbreak, the drama, the fights at work–had been leading to that single moment when she finally felt real to me.
It was like we’d always been tied together, never managing to pull apart, fate pulling at the puppet strings to keep us coming back.
And finally, she was there, and I could touch her and she wouldn’t disappear. I could try saying words I was too afraid to voice during the waking hours, but try them out, see how they sounded and settled within me.
I’d never thought I’d feel like this again, but around her it was hard to imagine feeling any other way.
I blinked a few times, finally coming back to the moment as the music stopped. I let the memory fade, before pushing the door open, ready to politely scold whoever was inside the room. I stopped dead when I saw who sat behind the large black piano.
“I didn’t know you could play.” The words escaped me, uncertainty running wild as Olive turned suddenly to find me lingering in the doorway. A breath escaped her as she turned, the shock on her face quickly subsiding into a twisted mix of relief and a sadness I wanted so badly to erase.
“I’m kind of rusty,” she murmured, her gaze back on the keys, her long fingers hovering over them as if she were deciding what to play next.
I stepped inside, taking her response as an invitation to come in closer. Her shoulders were still slumped, little wisps of her hair escaping the bun she had pulled her hair into since I last saw her.
“It’s beautiful,” I replied, truly meaning it. I leaned against the edge of the open door. This was the closest we’d been since last Friday, and every inch closer hummed a panicked tune inside my head. I wanted to ask where she learned to play like that, if she’d ever considered doing music instead of art–but I managed to keep the questions inside, instead allowing a small silence to fall between us.
“Ben.” My name left her lips and my spine stiffened.
“I know, I know I’m sorry,” I babbled. “I didn’t know you were in here, and then… when I saw it was you, I couldn’t help myself.” I put my hands up, rising from the doorjamb. I should have left and remembered she asked for space and not to keep pushing her.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called,” she apologized, her head hanging down. Her shoulders hunched as she took in a deep inhale, like she was trying to gather herself; the urge to be closer to her doubled.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I whispered.
“I need time.” Her voice was small and the room shrank with it.
“I know.” I didn’t know how else to tell her the reminder was unnecessary, that I’d reminded myself of this fact day and night and every moment in between.
She took another deep breath before speaking, finally looking at me. “And space.”
I caught the edge in her voice and instantly began to shift uncomfortably on my feet, raising my hand to rub at a sudden ache at the back of my neck as I looked at the floor, trying to protect myself from her cold gaze.
“I know it might not seem like it, but I’m trying to give you as much space as I can.” I shrugged desperately, knowing that while I was trying, self-control was not my greatest asset where Olive was concerned. Being around her drove me out of my mind, but not being around her? That was some sort of unbearable and excruciating self-inflicted torture I had absolutely no tolerance for. “As much as possible considering I work across the hall from you.”
Those green eyes didn’t hold any glimmer of joy, any lightness I’d once spotted. The dark rings around her eyes told me she still wasn’t sleeping, her faded skin and the almost line of her cheekbones an unnecessary confirmation she still wasn’t ‘doing okay’.
I wanted to walk over, sit on the bench next to her and run my fingers down the line of her jaw, following the line to her chin, tracing my thumb on her lips; full and pink and always perfectly soft.
“We should talk about that.” Her voice cut through the silence. Had I been staring at her too long?
“I-I can’t move back to our old classroom,” I tried to explain. “The AC in there only blasts hot and it was either fix that or the clubs, so I’m a little bit stuck there for a while.” I wish I could move away and give her more space. It must hurt her more to see me every day, and I wished I had another option but it was her or heatstroke and while I’d endure it, thirty students definitely wouldn’t.
“You don’t have to move,” she replied, but I plowed on.
“I promise to stop looking over.” It was entirely a lie. She knew it, I knew it. But I tried to convince myself I could do it anyway. Like not wanting to look at her for every single moment of the day was something that was well within my control.
“Ben, I handed in my notice on Monday. Tomorrow is my last day.”
I didn’t know why–maybe because only a little while ago I was teaching Newton’s laws–but I imagined a giant Newton’s cradle, the device with all the balls strung up and hung side by side, as big as a human. I imagined Olive picking up the first ball, letting it go. I could hear the soft clink as the first ball hit the second, the motion running through the set like a wave until the final ball, solid and heavy, finally kicked up with equal force, and hit me squarely in the balls.
“You quit?” The words left me in a stammer.
She nodded, “I resigned.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?” I exploded, stepping further into the room and immediately pacing. “Is it the new job at the other school? Surely, they would make you work a notice period?”
She was slipping through my fingers. One moment she was in my bed, her hair sprawled on the pillow beneath her, her bare skin within my reach.
The next she was gone, the bed empty and cold.
She shook her head, her gaze stony. “It’s not the new job.”
My heart stopped in my chest, a realization dawning. I paused, looking straight at her, my spine somehow stiffening further. I tried to find the words like a cautious first step into the unknown.
“Did you… did you find out I got the vice principal job?” I started out carefully before the words tumbled out of me like rocks in a landslide. “Because I asked; Dane stepped down from the panel. There wasn’t any influence–I swear, Olive. I was never handed any favors.”
She shook her head, but that wasn’t enough to stop me.
“Are you sure? Because it was just politics and bullshit with subjects, and- and I’m sorry I got the job, I’d turn it down if it helped, if it means you’d stay here –”
“Ben,” she said gently.
“Just don’t leave, Olive, please don’t leave.” Finally I was begging for the inevitable. It hurt more than I’d thought, watching her slip out of grasp. She’d asked for space, and I’d tried–but this? This was too much. Was she moving away? Taking a new job? Was this one of the last times I’d see her?
“I have to go, Ben,” she said. The way she looked at me then was resolve mixed with that infinite sadness I’d seen too many times across her face. “I don’t fit here anymore.”
“You fit with me,” I said like my heart was breaking into a million pieces.
She sighed, tearing her gaze away from me, and her words were cold and icy, slicing into my heart like a sharp blade. “I’m still trying to figure out if I do, Ben.”
“So, what, this is all I get? You get to disappear and pretend like we didn’t happen?”
She didn’t say anything. She sat there, staring down at the piano, refusing to meet my gaze.
That’s what she wanted? To move on from us? Forget… about us? I had ruined this so spectacularly there was no recourse, no solution that could bring her back to me. I wanted to get on my knees in front of her, get down and beg for her forgiveness, for another chance. To tell her that although I didn’t deserve it, I could make it up, I would do anything not to lose her.
But I knew then, it was beyond me. I’d given her all the space I could manage, and it wasn’t enough.
“It’s for the best, Ben,” she said, finally getting up from the piano. She grabbed her bags that were sitting on the ground, and finally looked at me. I froze, her green eyes were almost too much, showing me everything I needed to know.
She wasn’t okay. She wasn’t close to okay. She hadn’t been herself this entire semester, the entire time we had been together. And maybe that’s why she knew she had to let me go. And suddenly, all the fight I had for us dimmed.
I watched her leave, knowing the entire time this was it for us. But if that’s what she needed, if she’d needed to forget me and move on to find some peace in her life after everything, then that was what I needed to let her do. Even if it felt like I was ripping my heart out of my chest with my own fingernails.