“Shh, sweetheart. Just calm down and tell me what’s wrong?”
The concern in his voice and the feminine pet name he used made me pause. A thick layer of jealousy tasted like acid on my tongue. Who was Sweetheart, and why did he sound so invested in her?
That’s when he hissed, “Pregnant? You’re pregnant? How can you be... Jesus Christ. But you said—”
Pregnant.
My ears rang with a hollow pain I couldn’t even brace myself against. But he’d gotten some girl pregnant? I couldn’t...this was just...
No.
“Just save it, okay,” he growled savagely into the phone. “You can apologize until the cows come home, but that’s not going to change the fact there’s going to be a...Jesus, how are we going to afford a kid? Holy fuck.”
He jerked his hand over the back of his head, his fingers shaking. “Stop. Stop crying right now. You got yourself into this one. And now we’re both going to pay. Fuck. I can’t...I just can’t...” He let out a world-weary sigh and messaged his temples as he bowed his head. “I can’t talk about this right now. I have to get to class. No...no... Damn it, no! I’ll call you later.”
He hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket. Glancing to his right as if to make sure no one had overheard him, he didn’t bother looking left, or he’d have seen me not moving, staring right at him with my heart shattering to pieces in my eyes.
The pain of knowing he’d impregnated someone else splintered until a fresh anger rose. He’d been nothing but rude to that poor girl. She’d been crying and apologizing, and probably scared out of her mind, and he’d yelled at her, scolded her, made her feel like shit.
What a total douchebag.
My disappointment rose up my throat. I couldn’t believe I’d been falling for this man, thinking he was noble and good.
Curling my hands into fists, I wanted to hit him, and make him hurt the same way I hurt. Hell, the same way his sweetheart hurt.
But for now, I had to get to class too.
After marching the rest of the way to my room, I set my briefcase on my desk hard enough to make a student in the front row who was lying her head on her desk to jump and sit up. Crap, I needed to cool myself down before I did something stupid.
Easier said than done because Noel walked into the room a second later, igniting every pissed off nerve in my system. I glanced at him, and he met my gaze. He looked very solemn and grave, and I wondered if he was going to confess everything to me. But then his lips twitched as if he was trying to force them to smile for my benefit but couldn’t quite get the job done. All the while, his eyes remained hooded and troubled.
As he passed, he flipped a folded slip of paper my way. It landed perfectly in my closed briefcase. He didn’t even slow his pace as he kept going, finding a spot in the back of the room.
Thinking he was going to ask me to meet him somewhere so he could tell me what had just happened, I reached for the note with unsteady hands and unfolded it. But it was just another quote for my board. And a cheerful, happy quote at that.
“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” - Phyllis Diller
I frowned, the straight line of my lips showing that everything was indeed not straight.
How dare he? After what he’d just done to that other girl, after what he’d just found out...how fucking dare he try anything with me? Awful, no good, rotten, cheating bastard.
Opening my case, I slid out my pile of notes. Blood seethed through my veins as I shuffled through them without a clue as to what I was actually looking at. Then, calmly, I stood in front of the room, my hands curling around the notes as I watched seat after seat fill until it looked as if everyone was present.
Noel sat low in his chair, his eyes closed, and his face in his hands as he rested his elbows on the desk. It was more than obvious news of his fatherhood was bothering him. Well, I decided that clearly wasn’t enough for him to worry about.
Cramming my notes back into my case, I clicked it shut and rested my hands on top.
“In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work, The Scarlet Letter,” I started, with my chin high, “the protagonist, Hester Prynne, has to wear a red letter A on her clothes to show everyone she committed adultery and had a child out of wedlock. She became an outcast for the rest of her life. While her lover, who committed the very same act, got off scot-free because she refused to name him. But even though he lived out a life of good reputation, he ended up driving himself insane and dying from the guilt. Mr. Gamble.” I lifted my voice and shot him a hard stare. “Which do you think is worse?”