Bad Teacher (22 page)

Thomas

“Exactly.
Were.
Past tense,” I say.

“What happened? Did you divorce?” she asks.

“No.” I lick my lips. “A few years ago, she died.”

***

Two years ago

My heart is racing as I see the scene in front of me unfold.

My wife with tears in her eyes, standing in front of the ten-story building window. Our window. In our home. With a knife in her hand.

I plead with her not to do anything she’ll regret.

Thoughts about what I could’ve done differently spin through my head. Why she keeps going back to this point. This unhappiness. It’s always looming in the background, waiting for a chance to spring back up.

Like now.

She’s tired of life.

It’s been so long since I’ve last seen a genuine smile that I don’t even know what happiness is anymore. At least, not when I look at her.

The confident, cheerful woman I once knew shriveled up and died in front of me. But why?

What drives a person to sit on the edge of a ledge and look out upon their death?

Is it the need to go beyond what we can see in life?

Is what she has not enough?

Every time this happens, it’s always something different.

A new house. A new job. This time, it’s a baby.

Or rather, the lack of.

We’ve had the discussion so many times that I started avoiding talking about it altogether. Maybe I shouldn’t have turned off that switch. Maybe I should’ve kept talking. Or maybe I never should have brought it up in the first place.

Because it was me.

Me, who first asked … do you want a baby?

Me, out of all people.

Can you imagine?

I can’t.

It’s not in my nature, and I’ll never be a good father figure. But I wanted to do it for her because I saw that joy in her eyes whenever she saw her friends’ babies. Whenever she cuddled them. I could feel it in my heart that this is what she needed.

For a moment in my life, I thought I could fix things.

Fix her.

With a baby.

As if a baby could ever fix anything.

As if it would magically solve all our problems.

It was messed up. And I know now that this is ultimately what led to her sitting on the edge of our window this very second.

Because that baby was a seed that I planted in her head. A seed that would never come to fruition.

Why? Because her body wasn’t able to. That’s what the doctor said.

For months and months, we tried, and when we got tested, that’s what came out.

It wasn’t me. God, I begged it was me. I fucking begged that it was me, so she could move on, find another man, and have a baby. So she’d finally be happy.

But that was impossible.

And now, we’ve ended up here.

Again.

First, it was the scissors.

Then, it was the tub.

Now, it’s the window.

Every time, it’s something new. Something else she’ll try to take away her pain.

How many more times can I save her? How many more times will she allow me to?

When I step closer, she says, “Don’t.”

I wonder if this is the last time I’ll ever see her face again. If it’s the last time I’ll hear her voice. It goes through my mind every time she does this, and each attempt is another crack in my heart.

“Please … come here. We can talk about it.”

“No … we’ve talked enough. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“We can work things out,” I say.

“We can’t. Nothing can fix this.” She points at her belly. “Nothing that can fix
us
.”

I don’t know why it became this way. Why we became so disconnected. Why we became two people just living together instead of one love.

I swallow and hold up my hand to make her stop, even though I don’t dare to step closer, afraid of what she’ll do. “Just give me the knife, and I promise I will do something. We can go into therapy again.”

“We already did that. It’s not working. None of it is.” Tears stream down her face. “I’m tired. Tired of this. Tired of life.”

“Please don’t say that. I need you. This world needs you.”

“No,” she says, vehemently shaking her head. “You don’t. You need a woman who can give you something more. Someone who loves herself.”

“But I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

“No!” she yells, throwing the knife on the floor. “You don’t love me. You don’t love me anymore …”

“Of course, I do,” I say, the desperation in my voice seeping through.

She crawls closer to the window and looks over the edge at the ground below. “I don’t believe it.”

Has she gone this far?

Is her view of this world, of me, so distorted that she can’t even see what’s right in front of her?

“I don’t want a baby. I want you,” I say.

“I can’t give you what you want, Thomas. Enough is enough. I don’t want this pain anymore. I need it to end.” She sniffs and smiles softly, but it’s faked. “I love you, I always will.”

Time seems to stand still as the woman I love turns her head away from me and throws herself out the window.

I scream. Louder than I ever have.

Its hollowness will never reach her in time.

***

Now

“Oh, my god …” Hailey murmurs as I tell my story. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t know what to say either except for the fact that I don’t talk about this easily.”

She swallows. “I’m sorry. About your wife … and that you have to tell me like this.”

I smile at her. “It’s okay. I guess it had to come out sooner or later. This time, it was too late. I should’ve told you sooner, considering what happened.”

I rub my hands together and touch my finger where my ring used to be. I threw it in the casket when I buried her, but the mark is still on my finger.

“I was married. And then, I suddenly wasn’t. And it broke me. It broke me into a million pieces, which I slowly glued back together over time, but they never became whole again. And now you know why I never tried to get past the flirting phase ever again.”

“That’s why you were … pushing me away,” she says tentatively.

“Yes. I kept ignoring my growing feelings, thinking they were wrong. I kept pushing away the fact that my wife died. But now, I realize that wasn’t the right way to deal with it at all.” I sigh. “After all, I’m still here, alive, breathing. She’d want me to move on.”

She smiles gently. “She’d want you to find someone to love again.”

“Exactly,” I say, nodding. “And I found it in you.”

***

Hailey

I rub my lips together to try to understand, but it’s coming slowly.

He didn’t want to commit because he was afraid he’d hurt me. Because he was afraid to lose me too.

He chuckles and shakes his head. “It’s sad, I know. Pathetic, how I handled life after what happened to her.”

“No,” I say, grabbing his hand. “I get it now. It’s not pathetic.”

“Really? When I made the one girl I truly cared about think I was cheating on her? Yeah, that’s pathetic.”

“But you weren’t …” I say. “I just saw you two together.”

“And you put two and two together,” he continues. “I know.” He looks me deeply in the eye. “But I promise you, Natalie and I are not fucking. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. I wouldn’t even touch her with a ten-foot pole.” He shakes it off. “Like I’d ever want to date my sister-in-law. Nope. Not sexy. She’s also my boss, so that would only make it more awkward. Well, ex-boss.”

“What?” I stammer . “Your boss? You mean to say she hired you to teach us?”

“Yup. Look, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but you have to believe me. This is the truth. She’s a friend. Albeit, one I didn’t want.” He chuckles. “When my wife died, everyone around me blamed me for her suicide, except Natalie. But she was mad … understandably. And even though part of her hated me for what had happened to her sister, she still tried to help me. Got me a job here at the college so I could move on. I got an apartment and tried to move past what happened. I drowned myself in work … and with alcohol and women. I was in a shitty place.”

I swallow away the lump in my throat when I hear him say that.

“Well, you know the rest.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, she only drove me to school that one time you saw her because my car was at the garage. And that time she wanted to talk to me was because I was messing up again. I have a history, you see …”

“Of what? Chasing school girls?”

“No … just, drinking … and maybe a lot of random sex.” He sniffs. “The point is, she was looking out for me. Granted, it was mostly done through scolding.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she didn’t want you to get hurt.” He looks up at me. “And because I’m not supposed to hook up with students.” He clears his throat. “When she found out about you, she fired me.”

“Fired … you got fired?” I don’t know why, but I suddenly feel bad. Guilty. I knew it was gonna happen, but still, it’s tough to hear.

He shrugs. “Yeah, but I don’t really care. Besides, it’s not like she could keep me on after finding out. I understand.” He smiles at me again. “It was worth it, though. I got to have you in my life, even if it was only for a little while.”

He gets up and stares ahead. “You know, I once thought I was unlovable. That I should stay away from everyone because I could only hurt them. I didn’t want a relationship because I’d always end up hurting the people that I love. Turns out I was right.”

When he tries to walk away, I grab his hand.

He stops and glances at me over his shoulder. “I hurt you, Hailey. I know that. I wish I could turn back time, but I can’t. I made the wrong decisions. I put more value in keeping my job than keeping you, and it cost me both. I won’t make that mistake again.”

I nod and rub my lips together. “I never wanted to lose you,” I say. “But when I saw you with her, I thought … I thought …”

“That I was a cheating bastard.” He raises a brow. “Yeah, I know. And I had it coming. I should’ve told you about her before.” He cracks his knuckles. “But talking about my past is difficult for me. It makes me feel weak, and I don’t like feeling weak.”

He leans in and caresses my cheek, then tips up my chin. “
You
also made me weak.”

My brows furrow, but when I try to speak, he places a finger on my lips.

“Weak from your love.”

Love.

That word.

It’s all I wanted to hear but never got from him.

He pulls me up from my seat with just the tip of his finger. “I know it’s too late to say this, as I’ve already ruined my chance, but I just wanted to say it to make you feel good again because you deserve it. Because it’s the truth. I love you, Hailey Walters. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I freeze as he leans in and presses a delicate kiss on my cheeks, smiling after. He turns around and starts to walk away. I want to call out for him to stop, but then a door opens, and my mom steps out. I’m torn, but I know I can’t go after him and leave my mother here.

So I stay, staring at him as he opens the door, goes down the steps, and disappears from my view.

Blinking a tear away, I gaze at my mom and ask, “And? How did it go?”

She smiles, tears welling up in her eyes. “They’re going to press charges, and I’m hoping he’s going behind bars for a long time.”

“Really?”

She nods, and I rush to her, hugging her gently as I don’t want to hurt her. Finally, justice has been served.

“I’m sorry for all those years …” she mutters, but I shush her.

“It’s okay, Mom. It’s finally over now.” I brush the tears from her face and peck her on the cheek. “Let’s go home, okay?”

She nods as I grab her hand and walk out the door with my mother by my side.

With the sun shining brightly, I breathe a sigh of relief and stare up at the sky.

Each second we spend on this earth is another one we should cherish. I know that now.

We shouldn’t get stuck in a place we don’t wanna be, or do things that go against our hopes and dreams. We should chase the things we love, and more importantly, never, ever look back.