Another High School Romance

three

"Wow." Abigail commented when I came in that afternoon, still fuming over my lunchtime exchange. "Was it that bad?" She asked as I stepped out of my shoes. 

"No, it actually went really great." I grumbled. "It was the fucking football coach. Ugh!" I ran a hand through my hair. "He's such an asshole."

"Whoa, take a breath Tay." Abigail put her book down. "What'd this guy do to piss you off so much?"

"I told him I'd recognized his name." I sighed, falling onto the couch next to her. "He's Travis Kelce, the old Chiefs player. He got cut from the team after an injury last year and he got so mad at me for bringing it up even though I hadn't meant it that way. He fucking googled me and managed to find out I'd done that one album when I was a kid. He printed out an article and came in to yell at me for being insensitive about the fact his dream had been taken away from him because he thought I'd chosen to walk away from mine." I was ranting, but I was still mad. He'd pissed me off and then hadn't given me a chance to take a proper shot back. I'd tried to apologize and he'd thrown untrue facts back in my face. "God he's such a fucking..."

"Whoa, calm down." Abigail laughed, resting a hand on my arm so I looked at her. "Sounds like he's just still sensitive about it. And yeah you didn't know, but you probably pissed him off too. It's probably a touchy subject."

"Yeah well I don't see why he had to throw something that happened almost fourteen years ago in my face without knowing the damn facts" I muttered, seeing her point but refusing to stop being angry at him. Just because I might be a little wrong, didn't mean I was going to stop beings stubborn about it.

"What'd you say this guy was? The football coach?" Abigail asked, and I nodded. "Well, if he works in the sports department and you teach English, it sounds like it'd be pretty easy to avoid him. Just leave him to his business and get on with your job. This sounds like more trouble than it's worth. You don't need any more drama in your life." I nodded, resting my head down, a little subdued by her rational approach. That's always how it was with us. I was the hot headed one, and she cooled me off.

I took Abigail's advice from that day forwards and stayed away from Travis pretty easily. He seemed to be trying to stay away from me too, which worked just damn fine. I just got on with my job, and it was incredible teaching again. I'd never admit it, but my year thirteens were my favorite class, the highlight of each morning. They were the easiest to teach and I made fast friends with some of the students. They were such a casual class, easy to get along with. By the end of the week, I was in a routine, and I was doing well.

"Morning Taylor!" Chris waved at me as he stopped in my classroom doorway on Monday morning. "How was your weekend?"

"Hey." I smiled, leaning forwards on my desk as he came over. "Pretty quiet, still just catching myself up on everything. You?" 

"I went to visit my sister and her kids for their birthday party, she's got twin boys and they just turned four."

"Aw cute, you got pictures?" I asked, and he nodded, taking out his phone to show me. "Oh they look just like you!" I murmured as he flicked through a couple photos. "That's so cute."

"Yeah, they're good kids." Chris nodded as he slipped his phone away. He leaned against my desk, folding his arms. "So, how much of town have you seen yet? You said you've only been living here a few weeks right?"

"Yeah." I nodded tentatively, unsure where he was going with this. "Not an awful lot, I've just kind of been too busy getting settled and figuring things out to explore town. It wasn't really high on my priority list." I laughed nervously, not loving the way he was looking at me. 

"Well there's this really great Italian place that just opened up, it's supposed to be really good..."

"Miss Swift?" There was a tentative tap on the door and Chris cut himself off. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt." I recognized one of my year eleven students standing in the doorway - Elsie - looking a little frightened at being told off for intruding.

"No, you're okay. Come in." I was glad for the interruption. I really didn't want him to ask me out. He was a great guy and normally I might like him, but I was still getting my life back and wasn't interested in any kind of dating at the moment. "I'll catch up with you later." I forced a smile at Chris as I stood up, indirectly asking him to leave. He smiled and nodded, moving out of the room as Elsie came over. "Hi honey." I smiled at her, so damn thankful for whatever she was here for. "What can I do for you?"

"Well..." Elsie shifted uncomfortably, twisting her hands together. "I was just wondering if you knew where the school keeps the pads." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The bathrooms are out and..." She gestured to herself. "I didn't want to ask the male teachers."

"Oh of course. Hold on." I leaned down and dug in the very back of my bottom drawer before taking out three pads and handing them to her. "I figured I'd keep a bunch in here, so use those. I'll go get someone to stock up the bathrooms."

"Thank you." Elsie flushed red.

"Hey." I urged so she looked at me. "It's nothing to be embarrassed about, it's totally normal. You let me know if you need anything else okay honey?"

Elsie nodded, smiling gratefully as she hurried off to the bathroom. I left the classroom, going off in search of someone who might know where all the things for the bathrooms were. Ruth was most helpful when I asked her; telling me that the caretaker was mowing lawns at the moment and wouldn't be available, so I asked if I could do it myself and she pointed me in the right direction. I went down to the gym and P.E offices, down past all the doors to the cupboard that Ruth had told me to look for.

When I opened it, I searched around for a light switch before finding one and flicking it. It did nothing, so I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and turned on the torch so I could see. The cupboard wasn't that big so I found the packets of pads quickly; stacked above my head on a shelf I couldn't quite reach. Frowning to myself, I stretched up on my toes, trying to grab the edge of one in the hopes I could give it a pull and catch them.

"What are you doing?"

"God!" I jumped, my hand knocking the packets so that three fell from the shelf, falling down around me. I managed to catch one, the other two falling to the ground. One of them hit me on the way down and I sighed, bending down to pick up the two packets before grabbing my phone where I'd dropped it and turning the torch off. "What do you want?" I asked when I straightened up and met Travis' gaze.

"Hey, you're in my office space." He motioned to the door just down the hall with his name on it and I sighed, already annoyed. I didn't feel like this today, but my snappy side reared its head in response before I could stop myself. Mom always used to say I was too hot-headed for my own good, and years in the real world had proved her right. 

"Oh grow up we're not little kids drawing boundary lines." I rolled my eyes, stepping out of the cupboard and nudging it shut with my hip. "The girls bathroom was out of pads." I explained myself, even though I didn't have to.

"You know we have a caretaker for that."

"He's busy." I shot back. "And unlike you, I know I can do things myself without being handed everything on a silver platter." I was assuming - I knew next to nothing about him - but he pissed me off and I took the first shot I could grasp at. Travis raised his eyebrows as one of the packets slipped out of my grasp and I flushed red, ducking to pick it back up.

"Need help with that?" He asked like he was amused by me. "No wonder you walked away from your guitar with those clumsy hands."

"You don't know shit about me." I glared at him, hating that he was bringing this up again. Was it really all he had on me? He wasn't very original. 

"I know you're a bitch."

"Yeah?" I fumed. "Did you know I had to walk away from developing my career because my Mom had cancer? That I had to choose between being the next big thing or taking care of my sick mother because my Dad left her and my brother left town to go with him because he didn't want to stay with us? Did you know I was sixteen taking care of my Mom and trying to work to make enough money to keep us in our home when I thought she was dying and just wanted her to be okay? Do you know how fucking scary something like that is when you're just a kid and everything depends on you?"

Tears pricking in my eyes, I shoved past him and stalked out before he could see me cry. What an asshole. That's exactly why I wanted to stay away from him. He was an insensitive asshole who assumed I was a bitch because I'd made one comment that I hadn't known would hurt him. I'd tried to apologize, and he'd thrown my past in my face not once but twice. 

I'd stay far away from him from now on.