The Dream Before the Dark ✓

16 | Behind Closed Doors

A WHOLE WEEK PASSED during which Jen managed to think surprisingly little about Robert Caruso. He was coming up less and less in conversations with her friends. The beginning of March brought warmer weather in its wake, allowing her to finally pull her old bicycle out and ride it to work without sliding on black ice or enduring wind so cold it made her teeth chatter. Work was easier now that she'd had two months to learn all the ins and outs of the job and settle into her routine, and she started to believe that things were finally shifting to a normal, predictable state.

Naturally, the universe had to remind her that she was wrong.

Jen was usually one of the first people to arrive at St. Catherine's in the mornings – she had to get there slightly before the teachers – but on this particular Monday, she happened to show up even earlier than usual. It never hurt to have a few extra minutes to enjoy the silence before the teenagers raided the building, and since the only other people around were probably Nora and Elliot – both of whom were likely locked in their offices with their heads already buried in work for the day – she decided to slip into the teachers' lounge and see if they had any tea or coffee or hot chocolate packets.

Her miscalculation was assuming that no one else would be roaming the halls. She walked down them idly, not paying enough attention to her immediate surroundings until she was turning a blind corner where two of the halls intersected and very ungracefully slamming into Robert.

Or, to be more precise, his coffee cup, the contents of which proceeded to spill all down the front of her light blouse.

The hot, sticky liquid oozed through her shirt, gluing the fabric to her skin and abruptly filling her nose with its overwhelmingly strong scent. A look of pure horror had already made its way to his face by the time her brain had time to process what just happened.

The only two coherent thoughts that came to her were oh my God, what am I supposed to wear now?! and at least I wore a nude bra, or else it would all be on display right now.

Her face was burning with warmth, but his looked even worse. His cheeks – his whole face, really – had flamed redder than she'd ever seen it.

He tried to speak, which resulted in a lot of stumbling over words, but he eventually managed to splutter something out. "I...God, Jen, I'm so sorry, what can I...I think I have a shirt in my room?"

It had not occurred to her that she could be more mortified than she already was, but the sensation doubled over. She most definitely could not wear one of his shirts, she thought indignantly—someone was bound to notice! But what other options did she have? There wasn't quite enough time to go home...

She opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came out. It wasn't exactly like she had a lot of time to mull her choices over, either. Her shirt was soaked and ruined and she had to get out of the middle of the hallway before other teachers started showing up and saw her, so she found herself giving the tiniest nod of affirmation and rushing off with Robert.

Jen had to practically jog to keep up with his pace as they hurried to his classroom, which she hadn't actually been inside of before. Were it not for the current, tragic circumstances, she would have taken her time glancing around at all the posters and art he had hanging on the walls. But as it was, she kind of wanted to curl up under the desk and simply die there.

Her shirt felt disgustingly soggy, yet she couldn't stop herself from crossing her arms over her torso as if she could conceal the mess. She was nervously pacing as he scoured through his belongings.

"Why do you even have spare clothes at school?" she asked a bit too sharply, wishing that he could hurry up and find what he was looking for.

His head popped up from behind the desk, where he'd been kneeling down and searching through some sort of box. "In case something happens..." She didn't think it was possible, but he sounded even more embarrassed than before. "Like...if I spill coffee on myself, for instance."