Where We Left Off

Congratulations, Mr. McBride!

Big, swirly letters were scrawled across the entire length of my white board.

I’d already eaten up a good ten seconds staring at the dry erase words, my back turned to the thirty-two pairs of eyes that greeted me for first period Honors English. I settled my leather messenger bag onto my desk without looking down, my fingers fumbling, my words not doing any better. I was buying time, but high school seniors weren’t necessarily known for their grace and patience in giving it.

There were two options here, really.

Option One: I could ignore this hulking elephant in the room and continue our section on Flannery O’Connor and the weaving of her faith into her works as planned.

Option Two: I would address this monstrous oversight on my part. The one where I forgot to mention that my ex-wife’s new addition was added without the seemingly necessary help of me.

Tabitha Contreras, one of my seniors who I could count on in any situation to answer questions, no matter how challenging or difficult, came to my rescue. She was going to bail me out, just like she bailed out her classmates when the silence became too thick, when the others avoided the answers and waited for the more astute and dedicated peers to come to their aid.

I locked eyes with her and practiced my best telepathy.

Come on, Tabitha. Bail me out. Please.

“We have a little something for you, Mr. McBride!”

She stood, slipping out from behind her desk. Metal feet scraped against the puke green linoleum. Her arms tucked behind her, hiding something from view. While walking toward me, she swung her ebony hair over her shoulder and offered a smile. It was like she was the spokeswoman for the class, and I knew that curlicue message must’ve been penned by her hand.

I gulped back the bite of acid that bubbled in my throat. That triple shot Americano wasn’t the best breakfast choice, but I needed something strong to combat the hangover I’d incurred from my weekend antics. The ones that involved me getting wasted at my parents’ ranch and shutting out the sun under drapery-drawn windows and patchwork quilts, my head hidden from the outside world and the land of the living. Total zombie style.

I was going to need another highly caffeinated drink by noon at this rate.

“My mom works at the hospital and told us your news! We’re so happy for you, Mr. McBride. You’re going to be an absolutely awesome dad!”

Like a runway, Tabitha shimmied to the front of the class and just as I was about to correct her (at least it felt like I was going to correct her—I was aware I hadn’t done anything to contradict the class’s assumptions), she shoved a haphazardly wrapped gift into my hands. Baby rattles, blocks, and a stuffed teddy bear repeated in a nauseating pastel pattern across the paper. It crinkled in my palms.

“Oh, how thoughtful, class,” or “You really shouldn’t have,” were two options that failed to make their way out of my parched and numb mouth. The shape my lips took must’ve been terrifying. I wasn’t grimacing, but I certainly wasn’t smiling. Just this frozen, wide open gape, like a clown. Clowns were scary as hell.

I was a freaking clown, in more ways than I cared to admit.

“Mr. McBride?” Tabitha’s doe eyes went wide. “Mr. McBride, are you okay?”

There was a scattering of He doesn’t look so good, and What the hell is wrong with him? among my students.

When I heard Toby Kincaid, the six-foot-four, long-haired quarterback, stutter, “Big congrats to your swimmers, McBride!” I knew this shenanigan had to come to a screeching and abrupt halt.

I’m not one of those throat-clearing teachers, but some situations called for it.

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I began, “Listen, class.” My gaze swung over the beige painted room, at the bright eyes of my students assembled before me, their expressions eager and equally concerned. “I seriously appreciate all of this. You guys are incredible. Truly.”

“There’s a but,” Mark Dwayne jeered from his seat in the front row. “I’m sensing a but.” I moved him up there last week because he couldn’t be trusted to pay any amount of attention in the back of the class unless it was to the girls that sat on either side of him. But I saw he had no problem focusing now. Touché.

“Class—Kayla and I split up six months ago.”

“Last I checked,” Mark started, his expressive, dark brows cocked up to his hairline, “It takes nine months to grow a kid.”

Tabitha still occupied the walkway, and when it clicked, her small hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, God, Mr. McBride! I’m so sorry! I just figured—”

“That I’d be the one to have a baby with my wife?” I laughed, genuinely, because it actually was sort of hysterical, in a pathetic way. There was an uneven echo of insecure chuckles across the room. “Yeah, me too.”

Apology was written all over Tabitha’s face as she had clearly been the orchestrator for today’s baby shower. “We are total idiots.”

“Since I have access to the grade book, I beg to differ.” I sat on the edge of my desk. The button-down white shirt bunched at the sleeves and I pushed them back more before folding my arms across my chest. “Only about half of you are idiots.”

That got the chorus of laughter I needed. I felt the energy shift, everything guided back on track. I loved these kids and knew they wanted the absolute best for me, which might’ve been a strange thing for a teacher to say. Of course I had those same feelings for them, but there was a mutual respect and admiration here. In a way, I felt like I’d let them down in letting my marriage down. A hopeful celebration was something we all could have used.

“I’m going to be completely candid with you all for a moment if you’ll let me.” Tabitha found her seat again and I took the reins now that the class was somewhat in order. “Kayla and I went our separate ways just before Christmas,” I began to explain as I swept the eraser over the white board, each letter blotted away with a stroke of my hand. I settled the felt brush back onto the tray and swiveled on the heels of my leather loafers and they squealed. “In reality, she went her own way long before that. I didn’t mention anything at the time because, as your teacher, my personal life is not meant to be on display nor become a burden and distraction to you in any way.”

Sabrina Temple’s red head snapped up from her place in the second row. Her thick-rimmed glasses slipped down her nose and she adjusted them as she said, “You’re not a burden, Mr. McBride. We care about you, just like you care about us.” As though surprised by her sudden and quick response, her gaze diverted back to her four-book-high stack adorning her desk, a tower of fictional escapes. She fanned and flipped through the top one, though I knew for a fact that she’d read it three times already. Meek and quiet, she wasn’t the one I’d expected to speak up in my defense and I smiled at the surprising gesture.

“I agree, sir.”

Lucas Hawthorne.

He was the guy. The one I knew had my back because I definitely had his. I knew parents weren’t allowed to have favorites, but that was the beauty of being a teacher. We could (and did) totally have favorites, and over my six years of teaching, Lucas took the number one spot, hands down.

“We’re here for you. I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say you’ve always been there when we needed you the most.” He turned in his seat, surveying the class like he was rallying them together. “Like last week when Principal Higgins threatened to cancel Senior Ball because we all skipped class on Senior Ditch Day, even though it’s a tradition that’s been around for the past thirty years. You came to our defense and changed her mind. We owe you big time for that.”

Mark narrowed his eyes, nodding. “Or like the time when Vanessa broke up with me and you totally played along with the new girlfriend story I created to make her jealous. You didn’t question my elaborate, unnecessary details and specifics about said made up girlfriend.”

“Not sure lying was the best decision on my part in that instance, Mark—”

“You had my back, McBride, when it seemed like no one else did.”

Lucas planted his hands on his desk, resolute. He shook his cropped brown hair from his forehead and looked directly at me with thoughtful, hazel eyes. “What we’re saying, sir, is that you aren’t just any teacher to us. You’re not some old, tired dude that’s only here for the paycheck. You genuinely care about us, and we care about you.”

“Which is why we wanted to throw you a shower,” Tabitha chimed in. Her voice fell in disappointment as she swiveled in her seat at the back of the room to make eye contact. “And to tell the truth, why we’re a little hurt that you kept this from us.”

I saw their point and saw the confusion in their eyes. I knew I wasn’t a peer—that as their teacher I had to be set apart even just a little bit—but I also understood that much of teaching, of mentoring, involved transparency and the ability to relate on the same level as people. Forget the divide that came through the gap of years, education, and experiences. I’d taken that from them.

“We just wanted to be happy for you, sir.” Lucas pulled at the collar of his plaid flannel, clearing his throat. He reminded me so much of me at that age—inevitably and awkwardly stuck between a boy and a man. His Adam’s apple lifted as he said, “We just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.” Overwhelmed, a little hung over, and exhausted, too. But these kids—they made me happy. “Happiness is not circumstantial. It can’t be because there will always be something to bring you down.”

“Like your ex-wife shacking up with another dude,” Mark blatantly told it, yet refreshingly so.

“Exactly like that. Just when you think life is going smoothly, something juts in your path and throws you off course.”

She wasn’t one of the usual talkers, so it surprised me that Sabrina spoke up in again. “Always?”

“No, not always. Of course not. But what I’m trying to say is that you can’t base your happiness on things out of your control.”

“I’m not sure any of it really is in our control, sir,” Lucas said. His large shoes planted underneath him as he sat up straight in his chair. I noticed the way Sabrina watched him from her seat next to him, how she tracked his movements, and it was something I’d never recognized between them, this interest on her part. I wondered if he was at all aware. Probably not—he was a high school-aged boy and being clueless often came with that territory.

“I don’t think much is in our control, except for our choice in choosing happiness,” I answered.

Mark laughed. “You sound like a greeting card.”

“Do I?” I chuckled. “I sure as hell hope not, because I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Life sucks sometimes, plain and simple. I’m in the suck of it right now.”

“Preach it, Teach!” I didn’t know who hollered it out, but I took it and rolled with it.

“You think love and life is hard as a teenager? I hate to break it to you, but it’s not any easier at my age. You don’t suddenly figure it all out. You might think you have, but then someone makes a choice that affects your whole world. They pull out that one wrong Jenga piece and it all crashes.”

It was May. I’d had this particular group of students for nine months now and their attention had never been as rapt as it was in that moment. Eyes wide and perceptive, ears alert, minds focused. Maybe I’d been teaching them the wrong things this entire time because my audience had never been so captive.

“Kayla was your latest Jenga piece,” Tabitha said.

“One of many. But you have to keep playing the game. Keep restacking the pieces.”

Lucas shifted toward Sabrina, unintentionally, I figured, but she sensed it. I saw the nerves straining her brow and quickening her breath. “Who pulled out the first piece?”

“My parents. They yanked me from my school when I was a junior—moved me back across the country away from everything I loved. Everyone I loved.”

“What was her name?”

They were quicker than I gave them credit. “Love of my life.”

“Aww!” Tabitha cooed.

Lucas looked right at me, ignoring his classmate’s fawning. “Where is she now?”

“I have no idea.”

“You have no idea?” There was a bit of anger in his voice, at the very least, annoyance. “How could you be in love with someone and not know where they ended up?”

I officially scrapped today’s lesson.

“I was in love with her. A long time ago. Back when I was your age.”

Mark hissed disapprovingly through his teeth. “I will always know where Vanessa is. Until my dying day.”

“And that, my friends, is what we call a stalker,” Lucas teased with a nudge to Mark’s elbow so that his arm slipped out from him and slammed onto his desktop. His friend shot a glare, but it was playful in nature. They had the sort of relationship where they could get away with being an ass to one another, and I was admittedly jealous of their easy camaraderie. It wasn’t so simple the older you got. There was baggage and walls and insecurities that only deepened over the years. Age and time complicated so many things.

“We lost touch.”

Not fully a lie, not entirely the truth.

“You do realize that we live in the era of the Internet, don’t you, Mr. McBride?” I didn’t know why I kept Tabitha in the back of the class when she so eagerly engaged and interacted. She had to raise her volume so I could hear her from the front of the room, but she had no problem doing so with her cheerleader lungs. “There’s this really incredible thing called Google.”

“I’ve Googled her.”

“And?” Mark, Sabrina, Lucas and Tabitha all formed one loud, inquisitive voice that caught me off guard.

“And she’s married. I stopped searching after that.” Just in case they didn’t catch my drift, I added, “Off-limits.”

“In fairness, McBride, you were married until recently, too,” Mark said. “And now look at you.”

“Thank you for that reminder, Mark. But I can guarantee she is still happily married.” Emotion sneaked up on me, a force unexpected but not unwelcome. There was a hollow feeling in my stomach, this dip-on-a-roller-coaster type of sensation. My seventeen-year-old self crashed in. I was sweaty. Nervous. I was flustered, all from thinking of her.

“How are you so sure, sir?”

“Because she isn’t the type of girl you willingly leave.”

Again with the surprises, Sabrina looked up suddenly from her book, the one she’d been fake-reading for the last five minutes. “I don’t consider you to be the type of person someone would leave, either, Mr. McBride.” She closed her book sloppily and it tumbled to the floor. Clearly embarrassed by the commotion, Sabrina’s freckled cheeks reddened, and the pigment only deepened when Lucas bent down to retrieve her novel. “Thank you,” she muttered as he placed it into her hands.

“Sure.” He smiled back. He wore the grin even after she’d looked away.

I cleared my throat for the second time this period. “Why are we talking about my teenage love life?”

“Because you are sad and lonely and maybe looking up this chick might make you not so sad and lonely.” Mark flashed a toothy grin. He was all muscle and dark features, cocky and confident. The girls adored him. The guys wanted to be him. And apparently he was also a cheerleader. He broke into the chant, “Google her, Google her,” and the entire class joined in, their voices of encouragement pulsing around me.

“If it will get you all to move forward and focus back on your schoolwork, then yes, I’ll Google her.” I surrendered, but it wasn’t that hard. It was one thing when my mom suggested calling. That was a step I wasn’t about to take, to hear her voice—matured and full—on the end of the line. But a simple Internet search—this I could do. I pushed up from my desk and grabbed my reading glasses from my top drawer, then closed it shut as I pulled my book from my messenger bag, readying for some Flannery O’Connor.

“I expect a full report tomorrow,” Mark said, one last request before we started today’s studies.

“Be sure to cite your resources,” Sabrina added.

“Be sure give us all the juicy details,” Tabitha interjected.

Lucas looked me square in the eye. “Be sure to take a deep breath and just remember that whatever you find, the girl you once loved is still in there and chances are, she’s probably thought about you a few times over the years, too.”

I cocked my head, perplexed by his insight, but appreciative all the same. “Deal.”

“Deal,” they all agreed back.

Deal.