Silence fell between us.
Slowly, the tension in her shoulders seemed to disappear as they slumped from the tips of her ears back into place.
“Can you do that?” I pushed her with the question.
Lorraine swallowed and gave me a jerky nod.
“I’ll see you next class, then?”
“Aye.”
I sighed inwardly, feeling my own tension melt. “If you need me to go over anything, or sit with you one-on-one, just say so. There is no one in this class that is rooting for you to fail. They’re all in the same boat. They get it, even if you think I don’t.”
“Aye, aye, okay.” She rolled her eyes and turned on her heel to walk out. “Calm the beans.”
Okay, so sometimes it was like teaching a high school English class.
I grinned, collected my things, and headed for the door. Switching off the lights, I nodded to myself. Every time I walked out of a classroom at the end of the day, I wanted to feel like I’d won something and that therefore so had the people I was teaching. Sometimes, unfortunately, I just felt exhausted and stressed.
Tonight I felt like Lorraine and I had won.
In a good mood, and determined to take some “me time,” I texted two of my friends from university, Suzanne and Michaela, and arranged for Friday night cocktails the next evening.
It was clear from the moment we met up that night that Suzanne was in the mood to party and pick up a stranger for a random hookup. She eyed the men as though she were searching for the best piece of meat at a buffet. Her eyes swung back to me as we sat at our table in a bar on George IV Bridge, and she grinned when I burst out laughing at her.
Michaela rolled her eyes at Suzanne and sipped quietly from her drink.
I’d met the girls at Edinburgh University after moving into Pollock Halls and then we’d gotten a flat together in second year. Michaela moved in with her boyfriend, Colin, in third year and I moved into a smaller flat with Suzanne. Then we’d gone our separate ways accommodations-wise after graduation. Suzanne was originally from Aberdeen, but after graduation she’d gotten a position at a large financial company in the city. She made pretty good money, so she could afford a one-bedroom flat in Marchmont. I, on the other hand, was extremely lucky. My big sister, Ellie, and her half brother, Braden, whom I thought of as a big brother, were well off, and for my graduation they’d bought me a chic two-bedroom flat on Clarence Street in Stockbridge. It did not escape my notice that this put me in the middle between my parents’ house on St. Bernard’s Crescent to my west, and Braden and his wife, Joss’s house and Ellie and her husband, Adam’s house, to my east on Dublin Street and Scotland Street. They were all just a short walking distance from me.
My family was overprotective. They always had been. Unfortunately, this meant I felt the need to dodge their protective instincts from time to time. However, the flat was a different matter altogether. It was the most amazing, outlandish graduation gift – a gift I could never have afforded on my teacher’s pay. I was overwhelmed and eternally grateful to them for it. And honestly I was happy it was so close to my family. I had a growing bunch of nieces and nephews that I loved just as much as I loved their parents.
“See anything you like?” I asked Suzanne as I surveyed the talent. There were a couple of good-looking guys standing by the bar.
“Of course she does,” Michaela teased. “She probably sees five.”
Suzanne huffed. “Well, some of us didn’t find our one true love when we were eighteen. Some of us have a lot of frogs to kiss before we find our prince. And some of us like it that way.”
Michaela and I laughed. It was true that Michaela accompanied us on our nights out only to keep in touch with us. She was happily engaged to Colin, a Scottish student she fell in love with in first year of university. She’d decided not to return to her hometown of Shropshire, England, in favor of attending Moray House teacher training in Edinburgh with me. Like me, she was working toward qualifying as an English teacher.
My two friends couldn’t have been more different. Suzanne was loud, flirtatious, and an assertive drama queen. Michaela was the quietest of the three of us. She was sweet and loyal, and she cared a great deal about her new students. If I wanted a good time and a distraction, I sought out Suzanne, but if I just wanted someone to talk to, I picked up the phone and called Michaela.
“How are the kids?” Michaela asked me, and I knew she was referring to family and not school.
“Really good.”
“And more to come.” She grinned.
“Ugh, I don’t know how they do it.” Suzanne shuddered. “You’d think they’d have learned their lesson with the one.”