Did he ever regret letting her go? Had he once loved her? What would she think of me if she knew how I felt about him?
That one scared me the most. Christian was my student, and every day I hated myself even more for doing anything that threatened his stability and happiness. I was supposed to make his life better, and I was very close to turning it upside down.
Clearing my throat, I looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly four fifteen. Where the hell was Tyler?
I smiled, trying to keep the mood going.
“You look like you’re having wonderful weather there,” I noted, seeing the white curtains blowing in the breeze coming through the open windows behind her.
“Oh, it’s hot but beautiful,” she clarified. “There’s so much land to explore. I invited Christian to spend the holidays here, but he hasn’t answered me yet.”
She shot him a hinting smirk, and he sighed, shaking his head.
“I don’t know,” I teased. “Teenagers are hard. You might have to sweeten the deal. Ensure him he’ll have Wi-Fi.”
She laughed and turned her eyes to Christian. “We’ll have Wi-Fi.”
He tried to hide the smile, but I could see it.
I wasn’t sure if Tyler wanted Christian home for Christmas, but a trip to Africa would be a wonderful experience for him.
I glanced at the clock again and picked up my phone. “I’ll give Mr. Marek another call,” I told her. “If he’s running late, we may have to start without him.”
I dialed Tyler’s cell, knowing he would answer if he saw it was me. I called rarely, so he would know it was important.
“Hey, I’m on my way to a meeting. Can I —”
“Mr. Marek,” I cut him off, putting on my teacher hat. “I’m here with Christian and his mother on Skype. Would you like us to wait for you?”
“Wait for me?” he shot out.
I gritted my teeth and smiled, keeping my voice even for Christian and his mom. “Christian’s conference,” I reminded him.
“Shit!” he bellowed. “Goddamn it!”
I let my eyes fall closed, hearing Christian laugh under his breath and shake his head. He’d heard that.
Tyler’s heavy breaths poured into the phone. “I’m only a few blocks away,” he gritted out. “I’ll be there in five.”
And he hung up, leaving me there feeling like an idiot.
I set my phone down. “He’s on his way,” I assured her. “But I think we can go ahead and start by looking at Christian’s first-trimester test scores.”
Over the next few minutes, I covered Christian’s rough start at the beginning of the year, assuring his mother that I had every confidence it had to do with his transition from moving homes and starting high school. He’d caught up and continued to excel now, moving beyond several of the students in class.
Tyler blew into the room, and I stopped talking, taking in his appearance. He looked like a wolf that had lost its prey.
Some of his hair fell over his forehead, and his tie was wrinkled and hanging loose around his neck. The weight of a mountain rested on his shoulders, and I turned away, refocusing on the documents in front of me instead of worrying about him.
He took the seat next to Christian and glanced at me on his son’s other side.
“Excuse me,” he apologized.
And then he turned, nodding to Christian’s mother. “Brynne.”
“Tyler,” she replied curtly.
Christian sat quietly, his eyes downcast.
“Mr. Marek, we already went over Christian’s test scores and discussed some of his homework,” I told him, handing him the documents. “You can take those home and review them in your spare time.”
I looked to Christian’s mother, careful not to make eye contact with Tyler, too afraid I would give something away.
I continued. “Christian will be given the opportunity to choose some of his assignments now,” I informed them. “It’s a technique I like to use for students I feel have earned the privilege. For unit projects and some daily assignments, he’ll be able to choose from a selection, which will all be worth the same percentage of points, providing he puts in the same excellent effort,” I explained, hearing a phone vibrate and seeing Tyler take it out and look at it.
My irritation grew, but thankfully, he put the phone down, ignoring it.
“Sounds wonderful,” Brynne agreed. “Christian, would you like that?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, sounds fine.” And then he looked at me. “When do I take the test for the AP class?” he asked, seeming more interested in it than he’d been at Sucré. After some time to let it absorb, he must have grown more interested.
“Thank you for reminding me,” I burst out, taking out the permission form. “I’ll schedule you for —”
But Tyler’s phone buzzed again, interrupting my chain of thought, and I dropped the paper to the table, shooting Tyler a stern look.
“Mr. Marek, would you please turn off your phone?” I chided, not really asking.
He shoved it into his breast pocket, and I didn’t care that he looked the worse for wear. He could be present for this.
“Excuse me,” he apologized again.
Christian snorted, and I continued, explaining the class and that Christian was doing well in several subjects and might qualify for more than one advanced course. Then Tyler signed the permission slip, authorizing us to test his son, and I wrapped up any last questions they had. Tyler didn’t have any, because his head was clearly somewhere else today.
“Thank you, Ms. Reed, for joining us from so far away.” I smiled at her and tapped my folders on the table, making sure they were stacked neatly.
“Yeah, with the time difference, she still managed to be here,” Christian jabbed, shooting his father a cold look. “I’ll wait in the car.”
And he walked out.
“Tyler,” Brynne said flatly, “we’ll talk later.”
And she clicked off, no happier with Tyler Marek than their son.
I stood up and dropped the folders onto my desk, letting my anger show now that we were alone.
“You have secretaries,” I pointed out. “A calendar of appointments and meetings on your phone.” I turned around, seeing him stand and straighten his tie. “How could you forget?”
Out of all the things to be present for at school… It’s not like his presence here was required often. He couldn’t make this a priority?
“It was a simple mistake,” he explained. “There’s too much going on. I’m running around everywhere, and my head is crammed full with a million things. I’m doing the best I can.”
“For you?” I threw back. “Or for Christian?”
TWENTY-ONE
TYLER
My father’s words of advice were a constant refrain in my mind lately: You can do a couple things and succeed, or you can try to do fifteen things and fail at all of them.
I jetted down the stairs of the school, feeling my cell vibrate from my inside breast pocket and ignoring it.
Damn phone calls all day. The fucking loggers in Honduras were in the middle of a battle with the environmental activists over clear-cutting, which shouldn’t have had anything to do with me other than it was my equipment they were using to cut down the trees. Now Jay was in a fit over the guilt by association.
After that I’d been forced to a waste time having lunch with the mayor just to maintain the connection, and then I’d gotten stuck on call after call all afternoon. That was, until all hell broke loose down at the docks, when my shipment of buckets for the dozers and loaders making their way up the Mississippi for the final assembly at the factory in Minnesota turned out to be several tons of coal that wasn’t mine.
Everything that could go wrong was going wrong lately, and I didn’t know what the hell to do. My head was almost never on work anymore, and I kept dropping the ball. When I wasn’t worrying about Christian, I was thinking about Easton and when I could see her.