“Abbygail.”
I wish someone would have told me he was back.
“Ms. Evens, unless you intend on playing hangman in detention this afternoon, I suggest that you do not walk out in the middle of class. I’m not going to ask you to step back inside the classroom again.”
I wiped the tears and snorted at his attempted joke. Little did he know that his playfulness would end the moment I spun around to face him. I exhaled loudly and after a good minute of silence, I turned around.
When I did, his eyes went directly to the bump he didn’t know he’d put there.
Oliver
What. The. Fuck.
My eyes traveled the length of her body for the umpteenth time and then back up to meet her stare. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A mixture of anger and misunderstanding bubbled inside me, and that’s when I noticed the lump of worry go down her throat as she swallowed.
Pregnant? She’s fucking pregnant?
It was one thing to see her, another to find out that she had found a way to her happiness and managed to move on…but this?
The entire group watched our silent encounter. In fact, it was so quiet inside the classroom that we could hear the buzzing sounds coming from the electricity going through the neon lights.
“Morning class.” Abby coughed out, breaking the silence. “Sorry I’m late.”
Oh hell no…
The jealousy flowing through my bloodstream was beyond believable, and by the look Abbygail had on her face, as she proceeded to walk away from the door and towards me sitting on the teacher’s desk, she knew that I was going to say something.
“We need to talk,” I growled when she was close enough.
She ignored me and stepped a few feet away from my reach. “So, how did yesterday’s math exam go?”
“Tough.” Some girl in the back answered.
I was unable to take my eyes away from Abby’s swollen stomach. I could barely pay attention to what was going on. In fact, all I could do to maintain my calm and not explode was to focus on the ringing sound inside my ears.
How? How the hell can this even be possible?
“Yeah. Mr. Carter tends to not make it easy, does he? But you have less than a month left guys. Study hard and make the most of your classes. You got this okay?”
“How was your doctor’s appointment today, Ms. Evens? Is the baby still okay?”
“Yes, Cory, the baby is doing fine. Thank you for asking.”
“Oh, Ms. E. I wanted to ask you: Do you know Oliver?” Jake asked. His name had been the only one I managed to remember, and it was only because he reminded me of me when I was his age. “Mr. Fontaine told us he used to come to school here before.”
“Uh…no,” she replied, trying to avoid my gaze.
What?
I cocked an eyebrow.
“Okay, fine,” she grumbled. “I know him…sort of.”
I squinted, narrowing my eyes at her, and crossed my arms over my chest. By the way she was frowning back at me, I realized that the recognition would be the extent of her acknowledging our relationship. Well…for the time being at least.
Alright Abbygail…game on.
Chapter 7
Oliver
“Okay guys.” Abby coughed out and scratched her throat. She’d been chatting with her students about their classes for a good five minutes, and noticed the time. Every now and then she would glance towards me with a nervous and worried expression on her face. The fact that I was still able to torture her with my silence was my only comfort. “If we want to have enough time to do that visualisation game we talked about, we need to get to work. Take out a pen and sheet of paper, and drop the rest of your stuff under your desk.”
“So I’m not going to teach the class?” I challenged, while the rest of the class took the words ‘drop the rest of your stuff under your desk’ to its most literal sense possible. At that moment, my twenty-three-year-old self, had a newfound respect for the patience of high school teachers.
“Have you paid attention to anything I’ve just said?” she scolded.
Oh, I’ve been paying attention to a whole lot of things, but your words…not as much.
“I guess not.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and pursed her lips. “Well, let me make it simple and clear for you then. Unless you’ve had the opportunity of reading my current lesson plan in the mere twenty-five minutes you’ve been here, I doubt you’d be able to teach my class, Mr. Langton.”
“Shall I give it a try?”
“See that free desk and chair over there by the window?” she retorted. “It’s yours. Take it.”
I struggled to keep my mouth shut, but since the concert of books hitting the floor was pushing to an end, the silence had taken over the classroom and all eyes were back on Abby and me bickering at each other. I walked over to my newly assigned spot and took a seat on top of the desk. Abby was fuming, but I just defied her with my blank stare. Finally realizing that she’d met her match, she dropped whatever she wanted to say and addressed her class.
“Okay, so last week we went over your expectations on what will happen after school is over. This week, I want us to talk about your memories. I want to see what makes them so special, but I especially want hear your thoughts on what kind of roles you think they play when it comes to your future.”
She walked over to the door to shut the lights off. After the last whooping sounds got lost into the obscurity, Abby started a recording from her computer.
“In life we all have moments. Some of them may be good, others not as enjoyable. Why? What makes these moments turn into memories? How do we learn from them? This is what we are going to find out today. We are taking a moment to press pause on our busy lives and reflect on what makes us happy.
Beauty, respect, confidence, excitement, friendship, success, happiness, fun, light, family, love…hardship, heartbreak, pain, loss, defeat…
Close your eyes and settle your head down comfortably because today you and I we are going to take a journey.”
Every student did as they were told and got lost to the sound of the music.
“What defines a good memory? What makes you happy?
Good moments can be spent alone, as a team, with a friend or a family member. For some, it could be with a complete stranger or someone we care deeply for. For others, it can be shared with a person you love or share the same interest with… I want you to think about the times where you were happiest the most. A time in your life where you felt like everything was perfect. The time where you felt complete.”
I thought about school, I thought about football. I thought about my parents and how much I missed them. I thought about my family vacations and my life in Carrington. I thought about my old friends, the fair, the skate park, the willow tree. And in every one of those memories, the one person that was always there was Abby.
“All these moments you’ve thought about, they brought you joy and happiness. I want you to focus on the memories that you cherish the most. The ones you’d give anything to go back to.”
I barely had any chance to think when the loud sound of the woman’s voice screamed ‘Stop!’ We all jumped, except Abby, who evidently was hiding her proud smirk.
“Hold on to that thought for a second, because as of right now, you’re dying and I’m the one taking your life. In good faith though, I will be granting you the possibility to relive any thirty seconds of your life. Grab your pencil and write down what the last seconds of your life will be.”
Just like the rest of the class, I followed the instructions and a few minutes later the entire class dropped their pencils with a huge sigh of relief.
“Okay…” a girl in the back row interrupted, “I’m just going to say this straight up. This game is stupid and a total waste of my time. Clearly I’m never going to have a chance to relive my memory so please tell me, Ms. Evens, what was the point to this most insightful game?”
Abby smiled as if the student
’s arrogant behavior was exactly the type of reaction she was looking for. “Everything we go through in life piles up over one another. We live our experiences, enjoying them, learning from them, and as we place these memories in the small compartments of our brains, we build on the knowledge they give us. Kind of like those wooden blocks we used to play with when we were younger. The more important and solid they are, the better the foundation. Each good or bad moment makes us react in a certain way, and with them we learn…about us, about life, or about others. But once in a while some blocks are harder to fit in a particular spot, and other times some of them just aren’t the right size and make our castle rocky. Does that mean we need to give up on building our castle?”
They all shook their heads.
“These life experiences you have, they are your blocks. So right now, at this very moment, you are building your foundation. Your memories make you who you are. Building on them will help you be the person you one day wish to be. We spend so much time fighting through life that too often we forget to enjoy the positive aspects of it. We remember the hardship and pain rather than relishing in the love and joy. This is why we are doing this visualisation game today. I want you to understand that for one person one simple smile can make a difference.”
She paused on her lesson and asked everyone that was willing, to share what they had on their sheet of paper. After a good laugh, Abby carried on with her lesson.
“Here is the thing; unfortunately, sometimes your implications in another’s life might not be all that positive. Sometimes we can become a nuisance. You can say or do things that hurt, un-stabilizing someone’s castle.”
She remained silent for a moment, giving them a chance to think about the message she was trying to pass along, but the way she looked at me was telling me that whatever she was talking about, came from her personal experience.
“So to answer your question Millie, the purpose of the exercise wasn’t for you to live those thirty seconds all over again. The objective was for you to learn what we as people build on. Its purpose is for you to realize what kind of impact you each have in one another’s lives on a daily basis. Whether it’s in the way you interact, your reaction, the judgements… but sometimes, the fact that once in a while you take a moment to listen and care, can make a huge difference for that one single person that needed to talk.”
“Whatever…like you would know,” Millie muttered.
I couldn’t understand why Abby tolerated her lack of respect, but decided that it was better if I didn’t get involved.
“So guy,” Millie said, watching me with a funny smirk. “What’s your memory?”
“Who me?” I asked surprised.
“Yeah you.”
“My memory was the moment I kissed my best friend in the girl’s locker room, in this very school.”
“Awww, that’s so romantic; I think I could puke.”
I chuckled and looked at Abby. She was staring at me speechless, and the five seconds of silence seemed to last a lifetime. It was cute to see her process the entire thing in her head until she realized that I was talking about her.
“So…of all the things that happened in your life, you choose the one time you kissed a girl in high school?” Abby asked me.
“I thought there weren’t any wrong answers?”
“There aren’t.”
“Then what’s your issue with my memory?”
“Nothing. I just––I don’t know. It seems odd, that’s all. I mean you must have had a thousand things happen to you in your life, why choose the one where you kissed a girl at a high school homecoming dance.”
I smiled, so happy I had finally found a way to get her to admit that we knew each other. “You know…of all the lessons you could have given today, I find it weird that you’re talking about memories. But on the other hand, I’m glad you are because it allows me to have my take on the discussion.” I crossed arms over my chest and took another second to look at her. I felt her unease as she nervously watched me, torturing her with my angry eyes. “Have you ever felt a memory, Abbygail?”
Her jaw tensed.
“Because I have. And let me tell you what happens when you do.” I took another step to close in the distance between us. “When you feel a memory, you don’t just remember it. You feel it. It feels so real that you can almost touch it. And when you do, you savor everything about it.”
Not bothering with the rest of the class that was watching us, my eyes bored into hers. Regardless of the pain I knew she was feeling, I needed her to hear what was on my mind because I had held onto what I had to say for far too long.
“I remember her beauty, the warmth of her skin, the smell of her hair, the sweet bubble gum taste of her lips, the flutters in my heart…everything about that kiss is imprinted in my head, and it will stay there as long as I want to cherish it.” I advanced one more step. “Trust me when I tell you that I have absolutely no intention of forgetting about it. Ever. That girl wasn’t just a girl. She was the girl. Every day, I feel every single detail about that moment, because everything I felt when I kissed her, is what I’ve been wanting to feel with her for the rest of my life.”
She was trying to frown at me, but what I saw were the silent tears building up into her clear blue eyes.
“So yes, Abs, if I had to die right now, that kiss, that moment I shared with you, that look in your eye that I now know was you trying to tell me that you were also in love with me, is the only thing I would want to experience again.”
She regarded me with bewilderment and the bell announcing the end of the class went off. None of the students said a word. They all left in silence while Abby and I glared at each other. It was the last student shutting the door that brought our staring competition to an end.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she finally replied, wiping the unshed tears
“Did what? Tell you how I felt?”
“You were completely unprofessional,” she snapped.
“Do you think I care? Because trust me, I don’t”
“Well I do,” she shouted back. “These are my students.”
“They were your students. They’re mine now because you have very apparent health issues. Which brings me to ask, how far along are you?”
A light knock at the door interrupted us and we both turned to see Tyler standing in the middle of the doorway.
“Oliver?” he asked, surprised to see me.
“Hey, Ty.”
He looked at Abby and then at me. I stuck my hands in my pockets to show him that we were busy. I wanted him to leave.
“Um.” He frowned at me. “Listen, I know I’m probably interrupting a very important conversation, but––” he looked back at Abby. “We need to go or we’ll be late.”
“Yeah,” she replied taking a step away from me. “Do you mind waiting for me in the car? I’ll be out in a sec.”
“Yep. Talk to you later, Ol.”
“Mmmm-hum,” I replied as Tyler shut the door.
“How long have you been back?” Abby asked once Tyler had left.
“A while.”
“How long, Oliver?”
“A month, Abby. Not that you’d care.”
She cocked her head to the side and studied me. Something in the way she looked at me felt like she was about to lash out, but instead she just responded with a sarcastic smirk. “You’re right, Oliver, I don’t. I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“We’re not done talking.”
“On the contrary, Ol, we are.”
“I asked you a question––”
“My lesson plans are on my office desk. You can ask Mr. James, the janitor, to unlock it for you. If you have any questions about the project, Dylan’s number is in my planner. He’s my boss, so he can basically answer anything you need.”
She picked up her laptop and her bag. “See you around, Oliver.”
After she walked out, I noticed that she had left her lesson plan on the teacher’s desk. I picked it u
p and went through the pages, skimming through it fairly quickly until my attention stopped on the last page. The entire lesson plan was computerized except the last line where I saw her delicate handwriting.
The moment Oliver stepped back into my life for the first time in six years, because it was the first time since he’d left me that breathing wasn’t painful. And the best part of that second when our eyes met, was that one single look was all it took for me to realize that nothing between us had changed.
Chapter 8
Abbygail
The highway traffic on our way to Ottawa was pretty dense, and as Tyler and I sat in complete silence, I could still picture the hurt in Oliver’s eyes once he saw that I was pregnant.
“Did you know he was in town?” I finally asked Tyler as we rolled into the busy parking lot. His quietness was killing me. Oliver’s presence had rattled something inside him, but he wouldn’t admit to it. Even though we both knew that our relationship would never go further than friendship, we’d been spending a lot of time together. In fact, ever since I came back from B.C. and found out that I was pregnant, he and Stephan were extremely protective of me.
“If I did, don’t you think I would have told you?”
I shrugged. I truly had no idea what to believe.
“I was just as baffled by his presence as you must have been,” Tyler retorted.
A month…he’s been back for a month and not only had he not bothered telling me, but he hasn’t told anyone else either? I wonder if Mom knows.
He watched me from the corner of his eyes. “Do I need to remind you that I was totally against you keeping your pregnancy a secret in the first place?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything! He’s a dad, Abbygail. Had I known he was back, I would’ve stuck you both in a room until you finally talked. Plus, it’s about time you two start admitting your true feelings to one another.”
Transcending Regrets (No Regrets book 3) Page 5
