Mistletoe Kisses

Swallowing, I ask, “What about our lessons?”

“The lessons were bullshit,” he answers, yanking up his pants and tucking himself away with some effort. “You are painfully idealistic, but you’re also hardworking and intelligent, and the paper deserved an A, which is why I gave you one.”

His sudden honesty does much more to scare me than the mean things he said before. What if he really is done with me?

“Mr. McLaren, I—I don’t know what I did. Is it something your sister said? Can’t we just talk about this? I was really enjoying getting to know you, and it seemed like you were enjoying it, too. I don’t want to play games, clearly I’m not as good at them as you and I don’t know the rules, but can we just… can we just rewind a little bit here?”

Regret flashes across his features, but he tempers it quickly. “Not this time. I’m sorry.”

“Please,” I say, putting myself out there even more, despite how vulnerable I know it makes me. “I really like you.”

I wait for my words to have some impact on him, but he simply bends and grabs my clothing, then brings the pile over and drops it in a heap on the bed beside me.

“Good,” he says indifferently. “Then don’t get me fired.”

I stare up at him, my heart in my eyes, but he looks back at me coolly, like he doesn’t even have one.

My heart feels so heavy with disappointment and I can’t look at him any longer. Suddenly fueled with anger and betrayal, I untangle my bra and panties from the clothing heap and quickly begin dressing. I’ve had it with this, with him. I hate how my fingers tremble as I button my shirt back up, but I tell myself it’s the rage and not the heartache.

He warned me he might hurt me, but I didn’t think he meant like this.

“I was right before. You are an asshole.”

I don’t wait for him to respond. I gather all the things I brought with me, save my pride and my hopes of a relationship. He stomped those into the ground, and it’ll take a while before I’m able to recover them on my own, but I will.

Following me out so he can hit the garage door opener, he says, “I’m sorry it went this way.”

“No, you’re not,” I snap, pausing just before I get to my car so I can spin around and look at him. “You’ve got some nerve pushing me to take chances, calling me a coward, saying I am too fond of the comfort zone. I was willing to blow right past my comfort zones for you. I thought you were worth it.”

He bows his head just slightly, shoving his hands into his pockets, accepting my anger since he knows he’s earned it.

“You’re the coward,” I tell him, in case he hasn’t put it together. “You’re the one who’s too afraid to trust someone and take a chance and see if maybe it could be something great.”

“Maybe,” he offers evenly. Since he must think he’s allowed me to cling to far too much of my pride, he adds, “Or maybe I just don’t think you’re worth it.”

My heart plummets all over again, falling through empty places inside me that weren’t empty before I came here tonight. I swallow down the lump in my throat, looking at him with pure loathing. “I hate you.”

He inclines his head. “Good.”

I can scarcely breathe, and I have nothing left to say to him, so I throw open my car door and drop into the driver’s seat. Now that he’s hurt me so badly, all I want to do is leave. He’s lucky he opened the garage door already, because I don’t check. I turn the engine on, throw the car in reverse, and fly out of his driveway, wishing I’d never come here to begin with.

Chapter Ten

Callan

Fridays are typically the best day of the week, but with only one remaining week of school until winter break, there’s more to do on this particular Friday than usual. More assignments in need of grading and general end-of-year organization, but then there are also the extracurricular activities, and the unforeseeable events which could result in those of us who stay out of them… no longer being able to stay out of them.

I do not volunteer to oversee any myself, but there are plenty of clubs and organizations for fostering student involvement that other teachers get suckered into babysitting. Oak Grove has more of these programs than most public schools despite having fewer students enrolled, because Oak Grove knows that college admissions look for students who are able to juggle extracurriculars and still manage their coursework well enough to maintain good grades.

Given how carefully I’ve avoided being just such a sucker, when Miss Styles approaches me at lunch looking like death warmed over and tells me she has to go home so she needs me to cover her biweekly Community Outreach Club meeting, I answer with a resounding no.

“You have to,” she says hoarsely, twitching her red, irritated nose. “It’s your turn.”

It probably is my turn. I’m always somewhere near the bottom of the list, but the flu has hit the faculty pretty hard this year, so it’s feasible that they’ve made it all the way to me.

“I wouldn’t even know what to do,” I insist. “Community outreach isn’t my thing.”

“My student ambassador will fill you in. She’s pretty much running the club at this point; all you have to do is show up. A teacher just has to be there, and we can’t cancel the meeting, there’s too much going on this week in the lead-up to winter break.”