Unteachable

by Leah Raeder

  “Can I help you?” he said with strained politeness.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I was looking for Evan.”

  The man frowned. “Who?”

  “It’s the weekend,” I said helplessly, starting to back up. “We’re usually here. I thought—”

  A light went on in the guy’s eyes. “Oh, shit. You’re Eric’s girlfriend. Right?”

  I stopped backing up. In my head, every single neuron swiveled a spotlight on that word.

  Eric.

  “Right,” I said slowly. “Eric Wilke.”

  And I heard Evan’s voice in my head saying, Now I was her only child.

  The guy’s posture relaxed. “He said he was going out of town this weekend. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “We must have miscommunicated,” I said glibly, amazed at my poise when my brain was screeching with static. “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening.”

  The woman came up behind the guy, touching his arm. “Park?”

  “It’s okay, honey,” Asian Guy said. “Just a mix-up. This is my buddy’s girlfriend…”

  He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Maise,” I said. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Come in,” he said, stepping aside. “Please. I’m Park. Jun-yeong, but everyone calls me Park. This is Kara.”

  Kara, bleach-blond and tan, her boobs squeezing out of her tube dress like toothpaste, kept her eyes on me. I must have looked pitiful, shivering and bedraggled, drained from days of weeping and bone-breaking angst like some consumptive Victorian heroine, but still she stared at me as if I might run off with her boyfriend any minute.

  Focus on Kara and her ridiculous boobs. Focus on anything but the horror building in me.

  Park led me to the kitchen. “Cocoa,” he said, “tea, coffee? Or there’s some bourbon—” He turned around and gave me a funny look. “Are you old enough to drink?”

  “Twenty-one,” I said smoothly.

  Kara raised her eyebrows. Kara didn’t look much older than twenty-one herself.

  “What’s your poison?” Park said.

  “Tea, please.” I desperately wanted alcohol, but getting drunk around strangers was never smart.

  Kara’s phone rang. She left the kitchen to answer it.

  “I’m really sorry,” I told Park. My voice sounded like an answering machine, tinny and small. “I didn’t mean to ruin your evening.”

  “Actually,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “let’s hope that’s a ‘friend’ who has an ‘emergency.’” He widened his eyes.

  Kara called him over. He set a mug on the counter.

  “Excuse me.”

  I warmed my hands on the cup. My head felt like a shattered mug that had been inexpertly glued back together, and now it was leaking something scalding.

  “I’ve got to go,” Kara hissed, loud enough for me to hear. “Jen’s having an emergency. And I’m not into babysitting teenagers.”

  “Okay, honey. I’m sorry about this. I’ll call.”

  Kissing sounds. Kara moaned—for my benefit, I thought. The door closed, and Park reappeared in the kitchen, rolling his eyes in relief.

  “You don’t like your girlfriend?” I said.

  “I’ve been trying to break it off for like, three weeks.”

  “How long have you been seeing her?”

  “Three weeks.”

  I laughed, maybe too harshly.

  Park poured himself a rum and Coke and sat one stool away from me. “Things going bad with you and Eric?”

  God, it was like a bullet in the chest every time. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, you showed up without him. And you didn’t know he’s in Chicago this weekend.”

  Chicago. Chicago.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” I said emptily.

  Park took a drink, looked at me, took another drink, and then said, “How old are you really?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Shit,” he said. “High school?”

  This gave me a feeling of mortal dread. “Does it matter?”

  He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “What did you call him, when you came in?”

  “Who?” I said. “Eric?” Maybe he’d forget.

  “You called him something else.”

  I turned to face this stranger. I could smell his cologne, hard and clean and slightly alcoholic. Despite being built like a brick shithouse, there was something innocent and soft in his face. It made me not want to lie to him.

  “I called him Evan,” I said.

  Park’s eyes scanned me rapidly. “Are you in trouble?”

  “What trouble?”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  I’m pretty sure my eyebrows briefly touched the roof. “No. Jesus, what kind of question is that?”

  “Sorry. Had to ask.” Park took another drink. “Did you drive up here?”

  “Greyhound.”

  He nodded. “Okay. It’s pretty late. I’m going to head home. I have another place downtown. You can stay here tonight.” He took his phone out. “I’ll give you my number. Just in case.”

  He even made sure I had enough money to get home in the morning. So much for The Friend being “kind of a douchebag.” Another lie, I guess. When Park looked at me, there was something sad in his eyes. I refused to see it as pity.

  Then I was alone in this apartment where I had fallen in love with a man who didn’t exist.

  At first I curled up in bed, but I felt like I was going to vomit. So I dragged a blanket to the couch, but we’d had sex there, too. And in the bathroom, and the kitchen, and pretty much everywhere in this fucking place.

  I stared to cry, standing in the middle of the loft, surrounded by memories.

  No. Fuck that.

  I booted the PC in the small office area. Guest login. Browser window. Google search: eric wilke westchester illinois.

  His face.

  A hundred different photos of him, thirtysomething, twentysomething, teensomething. Him in high school: debate team, drama club (not lying about being a nerd). College at NU (also not a lie). Then back to high school, to teach. Awards. Honors. Regional competitions. And for what? What class did he teach?

  Acting.

  There was no brother. Not even an identical twin. This isn’t the fucking SyFy Channel. He had been Eric. Now he was Evan.

  Why? And why did he lie about it? What else had he lied about?

  Where does he go on his days off and why does he sit in his car for hours, talking to himself?

  Jesus, was this going to be some Silence of the Lambs shit? Did I really want to know what was eating Eric/Evan Wilke?

  Yes. Of course I did.

  #

  I want to talk, I texted him Monday. Can I come over?

  Yes. Should I pick you up?

  I’ll walk.

  I took my time. If following Hiyam felt like walking to my execution, this was like walking to my own funeral. When I stepped up to the coffin and peered inside, I was pretty sure I’d see the big bloody red thing currently throbbing in my chest.

  There was snow on my shoes when I stood at his door, trickling into the carpet, staining it like ink. I thought of Ilsa’s letter and the ink running in the rain.

  The man who opened the door had a scruffy beard, dark circles like camera lenses around his eyes, and the thousand-yard stare of a frightened little boy.

  Turn around, I thought. Run. This is going to hurt. There’s no point.

  I stepped inside.

  Signs of depression: dishes piled in a Jenga tower in the sink; dirty glasses on the coffee table next to the empty Old Forester; the fact that he was in pajamas at two P.M. and had some kind of echidna growing on his face.

  “You’re living like a slob, Eric,” I said.

  He didn’t flinch. His brow furrowed, his eyes tightening into that beautiful squint. I turned away.

  “I talked to Park,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “So
let’s hear it,” I said, walking around, poking at things, tickling the garland on the Christmas tree and making it shiver with a furry sound. “Let’s hear your sob story. Should I make popcorn?”

  “I want you to know something first,” he said. “I never—”

  “Stop.” I spun around, staring at him with my jaw set. “Don’t soften me up. Just tell me.”

  He walked toward me, palms up, pleading, so ridiculous and disheveled and heart-breaking in the cold afternoon light.

  “It’s not that simple, Maise. There’s so much—”

  “Let’s make it simple,” I said, crossing my arms. “Tell me why you lied about your name.”

  He opened his mouth, shook his head. Swallowed. Started to speak again and stopped. God, how do you ever plan to teach a speech class? I thought.

  “I didn’t lie,” he said at last. “I had it changed legally.”

  “Is that why you were in court that day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you change it?”

  He swallowed again. “There’s a situation I needed to separate myself from.”

  “Jesus. Stop talking in circles and just tell me—”

  “I had a relationship with a student,” he said.

  My arms unfolded of their own will. The ruby in my chest finally split. I stood there full of released light and blood and a hundred crimson shards.

  “It was two years ago,” he said. “It was completely over when I met you. But it ended badly, and the student had some—issues with me.”

  The student. The student.

  “A high school girl,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “How old?”

  He sighed, long and deep. His shoulders had a concave, defensive arc. “Seventeen when it started. Eighteen when it ended.”

  I didn’t really care about her age. I was trying to work up to the “issues.”

  “What happened?”

  He spoke to the floor. “She was infatuated with me. And I made a huge mistake in returning it. I kept telling myself it was just a crush, an emotional affair, that it would never go farther than that. But I was lying to myself. I let it get to the point where we could act on it, and we did. One time.”

  “And someone found out?” I said, amazed by my detachment.

  “No.”

  “So why—” My mouth fell open. It hit me as he said it.

  “She got pregnant.”

  “Oh my fucking god,” I said, my voice suddenly way too loud, way too big for this sad little scene. “Do you have a kid?”

  “No,” he said. “No, Maise.” He only managed to look at me in slivers of glances, like knife slashes.

  “What happened to it?”

  “She miscarried.”

  I was going to throw up. “Jesus fuck, Evan. Eric. Whoever you fucking are.”

  “I didn’t abandon her,” he said quickly. “She was eighteen when it happened and we talked it over and I told her I’d do whatever she wanted. I was ready to accept all consequences. Her parents, the school, the police, whatever. But she cut me off, and I thought that was it. I resigned. I moved away. And then she came after me. Her friends knew about it, and they tried to make my life hell. Like it wasn’t already.”

  I laughed, dry and hoarse and cruel. “So you changed your name and started over here, so you could do it all over again.”

  “No,” he said earnestly. “Don’t you understand? That’s why I was so careful with you. Why I kept asking your age.”

  “You didn’t care about my age,” I said, spitting the words. “You just cared about not coming inside me.”

  He lowered his face, his eyes closing as if he was in pain.

  “God,” I said. For an insane moment I wanted to tear down the Christmas tree, rip it to shreds. Destroy something beautiful, the way a child would. “I’m so fucking stupid. I thought we had an actual connection. I thought you saw me for who I really am. I’m so fucking gullible I actually convinced myself I was special.”

  “You are special,” he said softly.

  “No. I’m just young.” I put my hand on an ornament, metallic red, fragile and cool as ice, and squeezed and squeezed until it popped and the shards stabbed into my skin. “You know what? You are an amazing actor. I never once doubted you were this character you’re playing.”

  “I know this is a lot for you to process,” he said.

  I laughed again. “It really is. Did you go see her? Is that why you were in Chicago?”

  “No.”

  “Why were you in Chicago? Where have you been going when you’re not with me?”

  His brow wrinkled.

  “Wesley saw you,” I said. “In your car. Talking to yourself.”

  “He was watching me?”

  “God, please. You don’t get to be offended right now.”

  “I was seeing my mother,” he said, not looking at my face. “Because you made me realize I didn’t want to carry this darkness around the rest of my life.” He shook his head, still not facing me. “And Wesley was watching, and reporting to you. That’s great. That’s really normal and healthy, Maise.”

  I ground the shards into my palm. “I didn’t fucking know. And you should talk about normal and healthy, Eric.”

  “I think we should take some time apart. To process all of this.”

  “You think I should take some time, while you sit here feeling sorry for yourself for seducing another student.”

  “I didn’t know you were in school.”

  I walked toward him, flinging blood-edged shards onto the carpet. “Isn’t that the first fucking thing you should’ve asked? ‘Hi, I’m a teacher and I knocked up a student. Are you in high school?’”

  He looked at me now, but his face was all self-pity. “You didn’t seem that young. When I talked to you, it was like talking to someone I’d known my whole life.”

  “Oh my god. Is that the same line you used on her?”

  “I didn’t use any fucking line on her,” he snapped. Good, I thought. Get mad. Show me you have actual emotions beyond regret that you got caught. “She came on to me, Maise. I’m not saying it wasn’t my fault, but it wasn’t equal. Not like us. She wanted someone to adore, and I let my ego get out of control. It was a mistake. You were never a mistake.”

  I didn’t want to hear any more of this. I wanted to go home.

  I started for the door and he didn’t lift a finger to stop me. Didn’t even speak. I stopped with my hand on the cold knob, breathing crazily hard.

  “There’s something I want you to know,” I said without turning around. “This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me. You, and all of this. You changed my life. Who I am. How I think and feel and see the world.” I breathed out through my teeth. “But to you I’m just another student you fucked. The one you didn’t knock up. I guess that’s why this was never going to work. We’re not equal.”

  I slammed his door behind me the way I’d wanted to in class. Somehow I made it down the stairs without falling or throwing myself down them, through the door without punching the glass out, to my room and my bed without harming myself or others, and then I felt something stinging my hand and looked down at the mess of red glitter and bloody splinters in my palm, and I finally started crying.

  #

  Black days. Days when I stayed up until four, five in the morning, slept till afternoon, got up only to exhaust myself enough to sleep again, dozing in and out until dawn. I did not want to be awake. Awake meant crying like a baby, a pathetic quivering puddle of saltwater and skin. Wesleypedia once told me that the heart and brain are 73% water. Even our bones are full of it. It made sense, then, why I couldn’t stop fucking crying. My body was made from this stuff. Hydrogen, the same thing stars burned to shine, smashing atoms together until they fused in a brilliant burst of light, the same thing it felt like my heart was doing to the water inside me.

  #

  On New Year’s Eve, Hiyam sent her driver to pick me up. In her bedroom, surrou
nded by peach satin and white wicker and the virginal flora of girl perfume, I sold her an 8-ball for two C’s. She said I was robbing her until I watched her do a line off a hand mirror, her eyes switching on like lightbulbs, bright and empty. Hollow glass.

  “Fuck me. Oh, fuck me.” She sat back, laughing. “God, O’Malley. Get me more.”

  I went home and slept through the turning of the year.

  On the first day of second semester, I stood outside Room 209 with Hiyam and a few other kids while the third period bell rang. The class was dark, the door locked. A note taped to it read:

  Film Studies has been discontinued. Please see your guidance counselor for course reassignment.

  Hiyam raised an eyebrow at me, smirking. In an alternate universe, I pushed her off the roof.

  After school, I went to his apartment. His car wasn’t in the lot. His name had been scraped off the mailbox. No Christmas lights on his balcony.

  He was gone.

  I walked home in a daze, so out of it I didn’t even notice what was sitting on the doormat until I accidentally kicked it.

  Louis, the sad little pony, looking at me dolefully with his too-human eyes.

  I picked him up and sank to my knees, hugging him to my chest.

  —10—

  January.

  Dull. Gray. Dead.

  I spent lunches in the library writing college application essays. Sometimes Britt would join me. Sometimes she would ask, timorously, about Mr. Wilke. She’d heard he’d gone to another school. She’d always thought he was so nice. I stared at her as if she was talking about a stranger.

  She was.

  Hiyam and I ended up in Art Appreciation together. When she asked if I wanted to hang out after school, I laughed in her face, loud and cold, and for a moment she actually looked hurt. Then she smiled and said, “You bitch,” in a way that was both scoffing and admiring.

  Every now and then I’d pass Wesley in the halls. He kept his head down, but he was too tall to hide. I looked at him and felt nothing. No hate, no regret. Just dull gray deadness.

  Hiyam kept pushing me for larger amounts of coke. I told her no. Gary had prepped me for this: if I ever got caught, I wanted to be charged with possession, not intent to deliver. Both were felonies, but possession for a first-time offender would likely result in probation. Anything more than an 8-ball would look like intent to deliver. Plus he didn’t trust me with that much powdered cash.