My feet move but then come to a halt at Sarah’s next words. “You’re such a piece of shit, Thomas. You’re married. You just had a kid and this is what you do to your wife? Sleep with a student behind her back?”
Yeah, a piece of shit. That’s what I am. I’m a motherfucking piece of shit who only thinks about himself. I am selfish, incompetent, pathetic. Her insults sound like my own conscience—the conscience that was buried under my anger at Hadley and my need for Layla. It’s surging now, along with the nausea.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? Is that all you have to say for yourself? You’ve broken a thousand school rules, not to mention successfully wrecked your marriage. Hadley will never forgive you for this—you know that, right?”
“What Hadley will do is none of your business.” She left me. I fist my hands to curb my impatience. “What I want to know is what you plan to do with the information.”
“Sure, let me give you a step-by-step description.” She smiles tightly. “First, I’m going to go to Jake and tell him everything. I’m sure, being your friend and all, he’ll try to save you somehow, but I won’t stop there. After Jake, I’ll go to the chairman. I’m sure he’ll have something to say when I tell him his star poet is sleeping with a student.”
The headache explodes. “I’m asking you again, what do you want from me?”
Her face is streaked red with her anger. “What I want is for you to quit your job. I deserve that position more than you ever will.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then be prepared to get fired anyway, because I’m not going to sit on this. So, it’s really your choice, Thomas: do you want to get fired and be disgraced, or do you want to go quietly?” Before leaving, she adds, “Go back to where you came from, Thomas. You don’t belong here.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. White stars pulsate behind my lids, temporarily blinding me with the pain and anger.
I can’t go back. I need this job. I need to stay in this town.
The thoughts float inside my head by default, like some sort of a memory that won’t stop playing. They go on and on and on, until the words change and become something else. I don’t want to go back, because where I came from, there is no Layla.
The shock of it is enough to get my legs working, and I take off at a run.
I run and run, doing exactly what Layla has been doing every night, exactly what she did tonight. I come to a stop, right in front of her apartment building. I don’t know what floor is hers because I never bothered to stop long enough to find out. I’d drop her off and rush out of there.
Panting, I crane my neck up and stare at the top of her building. I can’t imagine her living anywhere else but at the top. She belongs in the sky. She belongs with the stars. She is bright and loud.
But more than that, she is scary.
Layla Robinson is fucking scary, and I don’t know what to do with that.
Now that I am here, I don’t know why I came. What was the purpose of it all? What was I hoping to do? Go up to her apartment and knock until she opens the door? And then what? Apologize? For what? For telling her the truth? For setting her straight? No, this is better. We have no future. Maybe I told her those things because I never want her to come back to me.
I’m not brave. I don’t know how to be brave, and I don’t fucking know how to talk.
Gritting my teeth, I turn around and walk away.
________________
I’m woken up by the light footsteps. They are moving toward me. I know them, that light tread.
Hadley.
Am I dreaming? I don’t even remember falling asleep. My body is curved in an unnatural angle on the floor. I open my groggy eyes and realize I’m in Nicky’s room, sitting under the window. Last night, for the first time in a long time, I came back home before dawn. I checked up on Nicky and then crashed on the floor.
I blink and find Hadley on the threshold.
She is back.
I spring up to my feet, any sleep forgotten, the entire world forgotten at the sight of her.
I whisper her name.
Now that she is here, her absence glares even more. I remember all those calls I made, frantic and panicked, the voicemails I left during those first couple of days. She never got back to me. After that, I was too blinded by my rage to call her.
Or maybe it wasn’t rage. It was the weight of all the wrong things I’ve been doing. It was my lust, my need for someone else. When she left, it was a small kiss, but now my lust has a life of its own. It has a body, a heart, and a soul. It is strong and vibrant, and she needs to know. She needs to know the person I’ve become in the last ten days.
“Thomas,” Hadley whispers, walking forward.
We meet in the middle of the room.
“Hadley, I need to—”
“Will you hold me?” she asks, delicate and vulnerable. Her words shock me. It’s a zap to my already chaotic system. It’s everything I’ve been dying to do. Just hold her. My arms, my chest, they tingle with memories of holding her…but there’s something else too. There’s relief. I don’t have to tell her about Layla right now. I can hold her. I want to hold her.
Selfishly, I take the out she gives me. “Yes.”
“I missed you…” she whispers.
I nod but the reciprocating words won’t come out.
She wraps her fragile arms around me and I do the same. She slides into place, tucking her face in my neck, and I breathe her in, her sweet, feminine scent. I let her sagging posture sink into me. I nuzzle the soft skin at the nape of her neck and my gaze falls on my son. He sighs in his sleep as if he knows this is it. This is where Mommy and Daddy have made up, and now everything will be fine.
At last, I have everything.
This hug has all the makings of a new beginning. This right here is what I’ve been waiting for.
Still, my stomach churns. Still, I gasp for breath. Still, my lungs are suffocating as if I’m holding on too tight. Still, I feel like this is the end of something and I’m dying.
A few days ago, when everything was perfect, Nicky said his first words. Lay-la. Yeah, that’s what he said.
He looked right at me with Thomas’ eyes, gave me a drooling chortle, lifted his pudgy hand in the air, calling me to him, and said, “Lay…la.”
I remember tearing up, and then laughing, and then tearing up again. It was a weird thing to do in the middle of Crème and Beans on a Saturday morning.
“Did you just say my name?” I asked, and then I looked up at Thomas, whose lips were twitching. “Did he just say my name?”
“Lay…la. Layyy…la!” Nicky jumped up and down on his dad’s lap and laughed again, bumping his head on Thomas’ chin.
“He did!” I remember being astonished. “Oh my God! He did. Am I his most favorite person or what?”
“Don’t get too excited. He’s probably just making up words like he always does.” He ruffled Nicky’s hair. “And in his defense, your name does sound made up. Two randomly put together syllables.” Thomas shrugged. I remember the dark strands of his hair catching the winter sun and hitting me right in the chest.