The Wicked

Hayden surprises me by leaving me alone for the entire weekend, and by Monday morning, I feel so bitter and angry that it’s a challenge to get up and get ready for work. I know I’ll have to see him, pretend like nothing is wrong because of the circumstances of our situation, and that makes everything that much worse. If he’s done with me, he needs to be a man and say it.

He doesn’t get to just ghost me, leaving me wondering what the fuck he’s been up to for the last two days.

I’m feeling more anxious than ever by the time I’m walking into my classroom at 7 a.m., a small part of me hoping Hayden beat me here to apologize. I’m disappointed to find only Barbara in the room, behind her desk, flipping through a stack of essays.

“I think half of these papers were written by toddlers,” she complains by way of greeting, and I chuckle as I sit down behind my desk.

“Nothing good so far?” I question, logging into my computer.

She slaps a handful of papers on the top of her desk. “One of these papers claims the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1976.”

I laugh, turning around in my chair to look at her. “You’re kidding.”

She shakes her head, her wrinkled face morphing with disgust as she pushes her chair back and stands up. “I’m going to get a coffee before they come and ruin my day, would you set up the lesson for today while I’m gone?”

“Sure thing.” I turn back to my computer, opening our shared calendar that lays out the lesson plan. Before she can leave, the door opens and pulls our attention. Hayden walks in, dressed in all black, with his hair a mess and black circles under his eyes. I bite onto my tongue to hold in the sigh that’s simmering in my chest.

“Mr. Monroe,” Barbara says, stepping up to him. “Something I can help you with?”

He shakes his head and holds some papers toward her that he has clutched in his hand. “I just wanted to turn in my paper. Sorry, it’s late.”

She sighs, stepping around him. “Just put it on my desk. Try to be on time next time.”

He gives a small nod, even as she’s pushing the door open and leaving, not paying him any attention, then he walks over to her desk to put the papers down. When the classroom door has clicked closed again, leaving us alone, he walks to my desk and stands behind the computer to look at me directly.

“I’m sorry about Friday.”

I suck my teeth. “Are you also sorry about disappearing all weekend?”

He taps his fingers on the top of my desk. “Yes.”

Looking up at him, I study his tired face, and find sadness behind his faded eyes. “Where were you?”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

I bite my top lip, my gaze not leaving his, feeling anger burning a hole in my gut. Taking a breath through my nose, I spend one more heartbeat just looking at him before I turn my attention to my computer screen. “See you in third period.”

“P…” he says, laying his hands flat on the surface of my desk. “Forgive me.”

“I can’t forgive you without the whole story. Since you’re not going to tell me what the fuck happened over the weekend, I have no reason to accept your fake ass apology.”

His hands curl into fists, and I finally give him my attention again. I blink a few times, and he takes a deep breath in. “You wanna know where I was? I was snorting so much coke, I didn’t remember you even existed. That’s where I was. Does that make you happy?”

My chest tightens at his admission, but I don’t show him my concern. Instead, I click my tongue. “Oh, yeah. I’m delighted.”

He takes a step back, his arms hanging at his sides. “Whatever.”

I wave a hand toward the door. “Go on, run away, little rich boy. It’s what you’re good at.”

He huffs a bitter laugh. “Fuck you.”

I laugh right back, looking at my computer screen so I don’t have to watch him walk out. When the door slams behind him, I let out a shaky breath and feel my eyes fill with tears. It hurts. Loving Hayden Monroe fucking hurts. Everything about him is sharp like a razor blade, and I’m not used to bleeding when he comes near me. When things are good, they’re perfect. But one tiny issue and we both detonate like bombs that spiral around and destroy all the goodness that our love has come to be. Maybe we’re both just too new to real love – but it shouldn’t be this fucking painful.

I manage to collect myself by the time Barbara walks back in, but then I remember that she had asked me to prepare the class for the day. Jumping from my seat, I head for the white board to start writing facts about the Supreme Court.

She sits, and I focus.

It’s going to be a long fucking day.

I get a text from my mom during first period, giving me an update on my dad. There’s nothing new, he’s still dying – the cancer hasn’t spread more this week, but it’s still terminal. His doctors are saying he has a few months left, and he’s stopped all chemo and radiation because he wants to enjoy the last chunk of his life with us.

It feels as if he’s giving up, though, like he’s throwing in the towel. It’s hard to accept. I know that he knows best, since he has the mind that he does, and he knows when medicine stops being an option, but it still fucking sucks.

I feel drained and depressed all through the first half of the day, and the inevitability of seeing Hayden is like a bomb sitting in the pit of my stomach just waiting to go off.

When the bell rings dismissing second period, my chest fills with anxiety. I busy myself cleaning up from class, resetting the lesson and preparing for the next group of students. I feel him before I see him, like a magnet pulling me into his orbit, and turn around to look at him.

He’s half asleep, walking slowly to his desk in the back of the room, and when he drops down in his seat, he meets my eyes with a pair of bloodshot ones.

He’s high.

I sigh, turning back to the whiteboard to finish up, and once the classroom is full and the bell is ringing overhead again, I move back to my desk and sit down.

I keep my eyes away from his, instead focusing on the front row of students while Barbara walks to the center of the room and starts her lesson.

I’m drained, exhausted, and worst of all… I’m sad.

I miss him – I miss being with him. It’s been two days and I’m hungry for his attention, desperate to get back to where we were, wanting nothing more than his hands on my body and his beautiful words filling my ears under the darkness of my blankets.

I zone out for most of the lecture. When Barbara wraps up the first half, she asks me to hand out our pop quiz for the day, and I want to cry. My legs have turned to jelly, and it’s a challenge to walk up and down the aisles to give each student a sheet of paper.

When I hand Hayden his test, he looks up at me through his bloodshot eyes and smiles. My stomach flips, and I feel my lips twitch like they want to return his smile. I keep moving, though, and once everyone has a pop quiz, I return to my desk.

The room is silent for the next twenty minutes. The only noise I can hear is the tick-tocking of the clock that hangs above the whiteboard, and it feels like someone is scraping their nails against my brain. I want to scream. I have so much locked inside my mind and body right now, it’s starting to suffocate me from the inside out. Anxiousness takes over, and a thin layer of sweat forms on my lower back.

The students deposit their quizzes on my desk as they finish one by one, and I busy myself by keeping my face turned to my computer screen, where I’m refreshing my email over and over for no reason.

When Hayden drops his quiz on my desk, my eyes move to catch his for a moment.

He looks so fucking sad, even as he smiles at me again, and I want to stand up and grab him. Wrap him in my arms so tight that he can’t breathe and tell him it’s okay, that I forgive him, that I love him.

He turns and walks back to his desk before I do, and I’m left feeling empty.

When everyone has turned in their quiz, Barbara makes her way back to the whiteboard and starts the second part of today’s lesson while I flip through and grade them.

I get lost in checking everyone’s answers, marking the wrong ones with a red pen, and then giving them their grade at the top. When I get to Hayden’s quiz, it’s blank except for three words.

I love you.

My eyes fill with tears, and I quickly blink them away so no one notices.

I grab a blank pop quiz and fill out the answers, writing Hayden’s name on the top and then adding it to the bottom of the stack. I take his blank one and fold it up into a small square, then slip it into my purse so no one can find it, then I keep grading quizzes.

By the time I finish up, Barbara is ending the lecture and heading back to her desk to ride out the last few minutes of class. Students talk, pull out their phones, or lie their heads on their desks, and five minutes later, the bell is releasing them to lunch.

Surprisingly, Barbara is the first one out the door, calling out a disgruntled goodbye over her shoulder and ending it with a sigh before the door slams behind her. That makes me laugh, even as students say goodbye to me and leave the room.

Once the class has emptied, I find Hayden still sitting at his desk, his eyes on me.

I look around one last time, even though I know everyone is gone, then I stand up and walk over to him. “What are you doing?”

“I love you,” he says, looking up at me.

“I read that somewhere.” I grin, and his lips twitch.

He grabs my hand, running his thumb along my palm. “Forgive me, P.”

I sigh, putting a hand on my forehead as I study him. “I can’t keep doing this back-and-forth shit, H. You’re giving me whiplash. You love me one minute and the next you’re telling me to fuck off. This is hard enough as it is, can’t we just be happy in the moments we do have together?”

He squeezes my hand. “Yeah.”

I lean down and kiss him, feeling a zap of adrenaline go through me, then pull away and stand up straight again. “Go to lunch, someone will come looking for you. We can talk more later.”

“Come over after school?” He stands, putting a hand on my jaw.

I nod, and he drops his hand, turning to grab his backpack. When he leaves this time, he looks like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. And I feel the same.