My parents questioned my choices and thought I was a failure at life.
And yet we both knew what it was like to struggle to please impossible expectations and feel insignificant in the wake of our parents’ cold assessments.
I might not have had a designer wardrobe, but at least my parents didn’t try to buy my love.
I grabbed my purse out of the same locked drawer I’d tucked my lunch into and straightened my pencil skirt as I stood. I felt my spirits lift immediately.
Kara usually had that effect on me. And it helped that we were sneaking out of our jobs, to do something forbidden.
I loved breaking rules.
Just don’t tell my students.
We were halfway down the hall and laughing with each other when we were caught.
“And where are you ladies off to today? I’m certain Ms. Carter has class in a few minutes.” The deep voice made my skin feel too tight and my insides warm slowly.
I turned around and met Eli Cohen’s rich brown eyes and tried not to smile too big. “Checking up on me?” I raised a challenging eyebrow.
Eli moved closer. “I was just in the lunchroom and heard a pair of junior boys discussing their hot English teacher.”
That wiped the cocky expression off my face. “Gross. Don’t tell me which ones. I don’t want to know.”
Eli’s face split into a grin and a rich baritone rumble of a laugh fell from his full lips. “On one condition.”
“This is blackmail!”
He laughed at me again, but when he raised his dark eyebrows and gave me an expectant look, I couldn’t help but soften toward him. He was adorable. “Bring me back something from Garman’s.”
I couldn’t believe him. “How do you know we’re going to the deli? We could just be… just be… going to the bathroom together.”
He shook his head slowly at me and grinned. “I see the determined look in Kara’s eyes. I know that look. She’s hungry. And she’s enlisted you to help her sneak out.”
“He’s good,” Kara mused. “I think our science teacher is a little too good.”
“I’m starving,” he admitted. “I’ve been watching the hall for five minutes hoping to catch a teacher on their way out.” He held out his empty hands. “I forgot my lunch at home today and I have a meeting in three minutes.”
I looked at Kara and tried to figure out what she was thinking. Eli had transferred to our school two years ago and over that time I had gotten to know him slowly. I could now say I counted him as my friend, but for a long time I had kept him at a distance. He was too good looking, too perfect. His skin was nicely bronzed, his hair perfectly quaffed and for a science teacher, his body was surprisingly filled out. I had found him intimidating at first and then, because I was married to a handsome man and supposedly in love with that man, I found it utterly ridiculous to be so affected.
I was a mess. Even back then.
But I had kept my distance until a few months ago. Until after Nick moved out.
“I suppose we can take pity on him,” Kara sighed. “He does look famished.”
I ran my eyes over his broad chest and flat stomach. “He’s practically starving.”
“Should I get you the cobb salad?” Kara asked innocently.
Eli pointed a playful finger at her. “Don’t you dare. I wouldn’t know what to do with something green. I’d probably make my students dissect it.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “You’re hilarious.”
He smiled at me, wide and carefree. “I’ll owe you one.”
“Sure you will.” Kara and I started walking again. “I’ll be sure to collect.”
“I’m counting on it.” His low voice followed us down the hallway and I had to turn around before he saw an inflamed blush spread across my cheeks.
I pressed my cold hands against my face and tried to ignore the burn in my abdomen. It had been a long time since I flirted with someone, even longer since that someone wasn’t Nick.
Kara’s elbow found my side playfully. “What was that?”
“A favor?” I turned my wide eyes to her and silently begged her to tell me it wasn’t as forward as I thought it was.
She pressed her lips together to hide her smile. “Sure it was.”
“We’re just friends.”
“And now you’re single.”
A shuddering breath shook my lungs. “Not really. Not yet.”
“Soon,” she argued. “When the divorce is finalized, you’ll officially be back on the market. Obviously, Eli knows that.”
The flirty tingle turned sour in my stomach and suddenly I’d lost my appetite all over again. The blush drained from my cheeks and I felt myself turn pale and see-through.
Kara noticed immediately. “I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to… to upset you. I just thought… It’s been four months, babe. Nick hasn’t even reached out to you. Not really, anyway. I thought you might be ready to move on.”
Ready to move on after four months? Was that all it took to get over the last ten years of my life? To delete seven years of marriage? I had been with Nick in some form or capacity for a decade, but I was supposed to erase him completely from the important parts of my heart in four months?
How?
I wasn’t against the idea. In fact, I would have loved to forget about him and the poisonous relationship we’d created. I would love for this pain in my chest to dissipate and the sickness that seemed constant and unrelenting to ebb.
But it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t shake our relationship or the hold he had over my heart.
Not everything about him was bad. In fact, most of him was good and beautiful and right. But with me, he wasn’t those things and I wasn’t either.
But how was I supposed to let go of him? I loved him. I loved him for ten years and knew nothing else but loving him.
How could I walk away from him and even entertain the idea of another man after everything I had been through? I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to date again, let alone so quickly after my last relationship failed.
No. Epically failed.
Nick was supposed to be my forever. Nick was supposed to be my “until death do us part.” And now that the rest of my life had taken a sharp, life-altering turn, I didn’t know where I was headed anymore.
I was lost.
I was rudderless.
I was floating in a sea of confusion and hurt. I needed something to tether me, to pull me back to shore. But I knew, more than anybody else in my life that I wasn’t going to find that with a new man.
“It’s okay,” I told Kara with a throaty whisper. “I just wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting that from him.”
She squeezed my forearm and gathered her thoughts. “I know that what you’re going through with Nick and everything is intense, but you’re still young. You’re still gorgeous. You still have a lot of life left to live. I don’t want you to give up, just because the first try wasn’t successful. You’re a catch, friend. You have to know that Eli isn’t the only man lining up to take advantage of Nick’s colossal mistake.”
“The divorce was my idea,” I reminded her. “I’m the reason we ended it.” The words felt like stones on my tongue. I felt their gritty, dirty wrongness and I wanted to spit them out and wash my mouth out with something cleansing.
Something like bleach.