Teacher

by Fiona Cole

He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and his question pierced my chest. The first tear fell, and I swiped it away. I’d have rather had him come in and tell me he didn’t feel the same over this.

  “I care about you, Hanna. But I told you, I don’t do love. I can’t, and I’m not someone to lean on. I wanted to help, but I’m not the man who can make it all better.”

  “I’m not asking you to make it better, Daniel. I’m asking you to be honest.”

  “I am,” he snapped, his eyes flashing back to mine. “Do you think this is easy? Do you think I want to hurt you? After everything you’ve been through, what you’re still going through.”

  “Is that what this is about? I’m too damaged for you?”

  “No, dammit.” This time both hands dragged through his hair. “Hanna, I—I don’t think I can…”

  “What? Be with the girl who’s damaged goods? The girl you think needs to talk about her feelings so she can get better? News flash, Daniel. I did all that.”

  “Yet, you still carry all this around.”

  “I’m allowed to,” I practically growled.

  “If you would just talk to someone.”

  “I tried to talk to you. You were helping me. Am I too much?”

  He paled at my outburst and blinked a few times like he was lost until he shook his head, brushing off whatever had caused him to freeze. “No. I—I care about you.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  Daniel squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. “Dammit, Sabrina—”

  The name barely left his mouth before he cut off all words, his eyes flying open wide.

  Ringing pierced my ears, and everything blurred on the edges as my chances at happiness crashed and burned at my feet.

  His mouth flopped open like a fish as he searched for an excuse. But none of it mattered.

  He’d called me Sabrina.

  He’d called me by another woman’s name.

  The only woman he’d ever loved.

  What the fuck did that mean? Was I some cheap replacement? Was I a fill in for him to pretend? So many questions bombarded me from left and right, and all I could squeeze out of my depressed lungs was, “What?”

  “Hanna. Shit.” He held his hands out, pleading. “It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, unwilling to hear anymore. Every doubt bombarded me. The way he looked scared when I told him I loved him hit me hard in the chest. The way he let me walk away after confessing how much he meant to me, bubbled up, breaking free.

  “Is that what this was? A way to relive the time you spent with your precious Sabrina? Did you want to save me like you wished you could have saved her? Did you replay your favorite moments with me in her place? Did you fuck me and think of her?” My voice cracked on the last question.

  “Dammit, Hanna. No.” He dragged his hands through his hair and tugged before letting them fall to his sides. “It wasn’t like that. I’m upset and not thinking. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I’m so sorry.”

  His blue eyes pleaded with me to understand, but I couldn’t. All I could hear was her name. All I could think was that he used me to replace her. That all he ever wanted was her and never me.

  “Well, maybe you should go think somewhere else. Not around me.”

  “Hanna, please.”

  “Get out,” I breathed, unable to shout like I wanted to.

  The room froze, and I held my breath, waiting for him to make his move. Part of me wanted him to come across the desk, pull me into his arms, and demand I hear him. To tell me it was always me and that I had it all wrong.

  But that didn’t happen. A moment passed before he growled and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  The loud bang reverberated through my bones and shook the last bit of strength from my body.

  I sunk into my seat and dropped my head to my hands, letting the tears finally break free.

  Would I ever not be the stupid sister who made stupid mistakes. Was I doomed to fall into the wrong hands each time?

  I trusted Daniel. I found comfort with him.

  If I couldn’t trust my feelings on who to be safe with, then was I doomed to be alone forever? Was all of this for nothing? All of the learning how to flirt, to touch, to kiss, to make love?

  I broke all over again, terrified of never feeling the safety in someone’s arms.

  No, not someone’s arms. Daniel’s arms.

  I didn’t want anyone but him.

  And it killed me that he hadn’t wanted anyone but her.

  26

  Daniel

  “Bowling?” Jackson asked, face scrunched in confusion. “Really?”

  I held my hands up. “Don’t blame me. This is all Kent.”

  I knew I was. I wanted to stay home and wallow in my misery, and he wouldn’t leave me be. He never left me be. I both hated and loved him for it.

  “That’s big talk for a man carrying his own bowling shoes and ball in the bag,” Kent deadpanned, pointing to my bag.

  “The shoes they give never fit,” I grumbled.

  Truth was, Kent and I loved bowling. We’d even joined a bowling league for the past ten years.

  Jackson shook his head and passed a pair of shoes to his husband, Jake. “You guys are nerds.”

  “Nerds who own a sexy club,” Jake added.

  “It’s all about balance,” Kent joked.

  We snagged a pitcher of beer and headed to our lane.

  “Why are we doing this again?” Jackson asked, once his shoes were on.

  Kent leaned back in the plastic chair, his ankle crossed over his knee, and took a long pull from his beer, eyeing me the whole time. When he finally pulled his drink away, I already knew I was going to want to punch him. “This guy has been pissy all week, so I figured drinking and chucking a ball down to crush pins may cheer him up.”

  “I’m not pissy.” I was beyond pissy.

  “If you pout any more, you’re going to give that baby crying over there a run for its money.”

  I didn’t even bother responding. Instead, I held up my middle finger and decided I’d try even harder to crush his ass. Maybe it would give me something to take my mind off of how badly I’d screwed up.

  On my first turn, I got a strike. When Kent only knocked down eight, I couldn’t even find it in me to gloat.

  This trend continued for the first game, adding a lot of trash talking. However, by the time we reached the second game, Kent and I had teamed up to make fun of Jackson, who had thrown more gutter balls than I thought possible. Even that didn’t take my mind off of how much I was hurting. I needed to get out of here. Maybe if I drank enough, I’d at least be numb.

  “Are you trying?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he growled. “I’m sorry I spent my life getting laid and not being a nerd in a bowling alley on the weekends.”

  “Do you want us to get the bumpers,” Kent joked.

  When Jake laughed, Jackson turned to him with an incredulous stare.

  He held up his hands in surrender but couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. “Note to self, don’t let Jackson teach our kids bowling.”

  “Kids?” I asked.

  Jake and Jackson had been together for a few years now. Married for one and the picture-perfect couple for marital bliss. I’d known Jackson since he was a twenty-year-old kid performing at Voyeur. Over the years, he’d become like a son to me, or at least a nephew. He’d struggled, and I’d wanted to help as much as I could. I cared for him like I cared for Olivia. I didn’t have any kids, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have people I loved and cared for.

  The thought of Jake and Jackson with kids made me feel like a proud father, seeing how far he’d come. But I couldn’t ignore the pang it created, that echoed through my chest like a whisper that told me something was missing with me.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’ve looked into the process of adopting. Just looked.”

  “I tried to ask Carina to be
our surrogate, but Ian shot us down pretty quick,” Jackson said.

  “You didn’t?” Kent laughed.

  “He sure did,” Jake muttered before taking another drink.

  “Holy shit. You’ve got balls, Jackson,” Kent said, wiping his eyes.

  “Big ones,” he returned with a wink.

  Jake rolled his eyes but laughed before turning to me. “Hey, D. How was your trip with Hanna?”

  “Good,” I answered on autopilot. Despite the shitshow of the last couple of weeks, I smiled, remembering how happy we’d been that week.

  I love you.

  A wave of adrenaline washed over me like it had the first time.

  “Good god. Look at that smile,” Kent said.

  Kent had been harassing me all week about my sour mood, and I knew bowling and beer was supposed to loosen me up so I’d finally talk to him, but with three sets of eyes on me, the last thing I wanted to do was talk.

  “We’re just friends.” The denial unnaturally rolled off my tongue, but I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Bullshit,” Kent shouted. “I know you, and that’s a load of bullshit.”

  Get out.

  It actually wasn’t a load of bullshit. I wasn’t sure we were anything but a mistake right then. The hurt that had colored her tone when she told me to leave was one I’d never forget.

  I dragged my hand through my hair and tugged at the strands. “It’s…complicated.”

  “Daniel is in a complicated relationship,” Jackson said incredulously. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “And with Hanna. That’s Erik’s little sister, right?” Jake asked.

  Jackson whistled. “I don’t know him well, but he looks like a scary motherfucker.”

  “So, are you dating?” Jake asked.

  “Or just fucking? Because you don’t even fuck women more than a few times,” Jackson added.

  “How serious are things?”

  “How long has it been going on?”

  “Does she know you care about her?”

  “Oh my god, did you talk about feelings with her?”

  “Does she care about you?”

  “Does Erik know?”

  “Does Ian know? He’s like a surrogate big brother.”

  They volleyed questions back and forth, and I did my best to field them, but each one added more and more weight to my chest.

  Through it all, Kent remained silent, studying my every reaction. When Kent stopped joking, things were serious. The way he watched me let me know maybe I wasn’t hiding my growing anxiety as well as I hoped.

  The interrogation continued for another thirty minutes until they finally gave up and headed home. The sigh of relief was short-lived because as soon as my ball was back in my bag, Kent laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I knew he was waiting for me to meet his eyes, but I couldn’t. Then I’d be forced to acknowledge the lie. “I’m going to head home. Thanks for bowling.”

  I bolted before he could stop me. Instead of another night staring at the blank TV, I headed to Voyeur.

  “Hey, Daniel,” a soft voice cooed behind me. I barely turned my head to watch her perch on the stool next to me, but I saw the black hair and recognized the husky tone. Cassandra. We’d hooked up a few times on and off if we were at Voyeur at the same time, but I’d been pretty absent over the last months, hiding away in my office, thinking of Hanna. “You look like you could use some company.”

  My body wanted to curl into itself, not at all able to think about touching anyone other than Hanna. Not that Hanna would ever let me touch her again. Maybe I should take Cassandra up on her offer. Go ahead and move on to one-night-stands and nothingness.

  “No,” Kent’s deep voice answered for me, leaving no room for argument. I cringed, knowing my relief at avoiding him at the bowling alley had all been false hope. I should have known he’d come for me.

  Cassandra shrugged and left, only to be replaced by Kent. He made himself comfortable on the stool and signaled for a drink. I groaned, knowing my feeling bad for myself in silence was coming to a screeching halt.

  He was kind enough to at least wait until he had a drink before laying into me. “What has you looking like a sad fucking sap?”

  “Fuck off,” I grumbled. I wanted to talk even less now than I had earlier.

  “Calm down, pissy panties.”

  “Fuck. Off,” I repeated.

  “Okay,” he said like he was talking to a child. “I’ll finish my drink while you calm down and tell me what happened.”

  My head dropped between my shoulders with a heavy exhale. Unable to look up and meet his dark gaze I knew was currently penetrating the side of my skull, I muttered toward the bar top. “She told me she loved me.”

  One second. Two. Three. Four.

  “And?”

  And? Fucking and?

  What the hell did he mean, and?

  My head shot up, and I glared. He was supposed to know me better than anyone. He knew I didn’t do love, and yet, here he sat, asking me and. “And, I fucking froze.”

  The confusion marring his face slowly softened in understanding, and I hated it because under the understanding was concern, worry, and maybe even pity. The pity had me pulling my shoulders back and clenching my jaw.

  “D…”

  “Don’t fucking look at me like that, Alexander. Don’t fucking pity me like I’m some poor baby that needs to be handled with kid gloves.”

  “I’m not pitying you, asshole. I’m trying to understand how I missed something from twenty years ago has such a tight hold on you still.”

  “The last person that said they loved me killed herself. It’s not exactly something you let go of. It stays with you like a mark you can’t ever get rid of. It had a big enough impact that I never wanted to be in the same position again.”

  “Hanna isn’t Sabrina,” he said softly.

  She wasn’t, but I was still me, and there lay the biggest crux of it all. I looked away, unable to admit what really haunted me, instead staring at my thumbs sliding up and down the condensation of my glass. “What if it’s not the girl. What if it’s me? Sabrina killed herself because I couldn’t love her back. Not the way she needed. I cared for her, but it wasn’t enough. What if I’m not enough, and that’s the final straw for them?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Kent growled, leaning in close. “Sabrina killed herself because she had mental health issues she refused to get help for.”

  “Maybe if I could have at least said it. She’d have stuck around long enough for me to help her. Maybe I could have eventually loved her and helped her.”

  “No. Love doesn’t fix sickness. It can’t cure cancer, so how do you expect it to heal a mind?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t.

  “God, is this what you’ve carried around? I knew you blamed yourself, but shit, D.”

  “Of course, I blamed myself. She blamed me. She wrote a fucking note making sure I knew it.”

  “Daniel, I don’t know if you’re trying to remember her as some perfect person or remember your relationship as something great because you’re trying to preserve her memory or what, but you’re wrong. She was toxic. I didn’t know her before college, but whenever I saw her with you, she took and took from you. She’d scream at you all the time and demand you drop everything for her, and when you didn’t, she always acted out to make sure you came running. She put it on you because it was easier to blame you when she didn’t want to look at herself. You tried to get her help, and she didn’t want it. You did everything you could, but this wasn’t some angel of a woman who adored you that you couldn’t love back. She tore you down so you would stay with her because you took care of her when she didn’t want to take care of herself. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t love her. Hell, I know more than anyone, you can’t choose who you love and that it’s okay.”

  I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but Kent was right. Hearing him re
tell the past, let other memories flood in. I remembered the times I’d begged her to talk to someone because I saw her crumbling, and I hadn’t known how to hold her together. I remembered caring for her and holding on as tight as I could, but the further we got from high school the harder she thrashed through life and left me with cuts and bruises, the less she wanted to stand on her own and clung to me, wanting me to fall with her.

  She hadn’t been the same girl I’d met in high school, and I knew a lot of it had nothing to do with me. But she’d left a note letting everyone who read it know that she couldn’t go on without me and that weighed on me—it skewed my vision. You didn’t remember the worst of the dead. You remembered the good times—the best of them. Apparently, I’d slapped on rose-colored glasses of my relationship with Sabrina, of the girl I used to know, and I’d let her down. She’d been perfect in my eyes, and I’d let her down.

  We’d been happy, and I’d lost it, and I never wanted to feel that pain again, so I shut it off.

  “Is this why you don’t date?”

  “I date,” I muttered.

  “Once or twice. Mostly just for sex. If someone wanted more, you moved on.”

  “It’s not like you dated.”

  “I didn’t date because I didn’t want to be tied down until Olivia.” I cringed at the reminder he was with my niece. “But you were always different—more settled. I wanted to travel and explore. Food, women, experiences, everything, and I couldn’t do that with a partner. But you, you liked staying put. You like stability. I was shocked I somehow became the first of us to settle down.”

  “It’s not like that. I didn’t want to settle down either,” I tried to defend, but he gave me a look to let me know he didn’t believe me.

  “You’re scared.”

  “I’m not fucking scared.”

  “Okay,” he said, sarcasm dripping from the simple word.

  “Fuck you.”

  Kent laughed, knowing there was no heat behind my words. “It’s okay, man,” he said, slapping my back. “Sabrina fucked you up. It’s traumatizing, and I get it. But Hanna isn’t Sabrina. Not even close.”

  I finished the last of my beer and spun the empty glass a few times. Hanna most definitely wasn’t Sabrina. Hanna was strong. She faced more demons than anyone I knew. Somehow, I’d lost sight of that. I’d seen her struggling the littlest bit, and my past reared its head. The panic Sabrina left me with latched on to my present, and I reacted. I reacted wrong. I pushed more than I should have. I reacted to her as if she wasn’t the woman I’d come to know as strong and independent. I’d forgotten that she took control of her life and could stand tall all on her own.