Page 32 of Breaking Rules
That was something positive, at least.
Besides, it wasn’t as if I’d be having sex with Keli. She’d stay in a perfectly acceptable guest room next to Evanne, and it would make Evanne happy. That was all that mattered.
I’d figure out things with Lumen later.
Twenty
Lumen
The second time it happened,I had to admit that it wasn’t my imagination. They were talking about me.
When I hadn’t gotten a call or a visit from Principal McKenna or the police, I’d hoped that meant Harvey had decided not to make an issue of what’d happened. He’d probably been embarrassed, but since Alec had been the one who’d thrown the punch, Harvey might have decided that it’d be in his best interest to let it go. He had, after all, been the one to tell me just how important Alec McCrae was to the school.
Still, I’d been nervous when I’d gotten up this morning. Even if Harvey didn’t go to any authorities about what’d happened, that didn’t mean he’d leave me alone. Some people might’ve been intimidated by Alec’s threat, and I didn’t doubt Harvey would leave me alone any time Alec was around, but I’d known men like Cornelius Harvey my whole life, and I didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d go after me even harder as vengeance for his humiliation.
My plan was to make sure I wasn’t alone with him and avoid the situation altogether. I didn’t like the idea of having to essentially hide from him, but my options were fairly limited, and this offered the best solution, no matter how much it sucked. The entire time I was on the bus, I was making mental lists. Lists about the things I could do in the office when I had free time, the teachers who I could make excuses to walk with, the parents I could count on to drop off their kids early or pick them up late.
The moment I walked into the building, however, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Standing at the door of Mr. Yu’s fifth-grade classroom was junior high science teacher Mrs. Rogers, both of them looking guilty as they glanced at me. I didn’t have to ask what they’d been talking about. It was written all over their faces. The disapproval. The suspicion.
Someone had been talking about me, and my gut said it was Vice Principal Harvey.
I didn’t yet know if he’d been talking about what had happened with Alec or if he was simply running his mouth about the sort of woman I was. Maybe laying the groundwork for discrediting me if I accused him of anything. Maybe just wanting to be a bastard because I’d turned him down and arrogant assholes like him rarely took rejection well. Maybe there was a third reason I wasn’t seeing yet.
No matter what his reasoning was, it was going to give me more than a headache.
“Morning,” I said with a tight smile. They muttered the same in return but couldn’t meet my eyes. I pretended I didn’t care. It wasn’t like we’d been on our way to being friends or anything like that.
“He told Principal McKenna that he tripped over a rock that’d fallen out of a flowerbed.”
Adrian Lyons was the high school chemistry teacher here, and I was fairly certain that he’d taught Adam and Eve. He insisted that all the teachers call him by his first name, and despite his age, he was as sharp as they came. If anyone could see through Harvey’s lies, it’d be him.
“If you ask me, that’s a load of crap. Landed on his face and on his butt at the same time, apparently.” Adrian didn’t even bother trying to keep his voice down.
I liked him.
“What do you think happened?” Siobhan asked. She looked at me and then her eyes slid away.
She’d heard something too. Great.
“I think he was hitting the bottle before the meeting and fell down more than once,” Adrian said. “He always smells like that nasty mouth wash. What’s it called? Listerine?”
“Do you think Principal McKenna suspects that too?” Siobhan asked.
I passed by before I could hear Adrian’s response. Each step closer to the office I got, the more my stomach twisted and clenched. When I finally passed Alice, I wondered if I should have called in sick. I’d probably throw up at some point in the near future so it wouldn’t have totally been a lie. At least she didn’t look at me strangely. That could, however, have been because she was on the phone. Still, I’d take it.
Then, as I picked up my mail, I heard Alice say something that made me feel like I’d gotten a firing squad reprieve.
“No, Vice Principal Harvey is out today with a back injury. After he goes to the doctor today, he’ll have a better idea of when he should be back in. He just stopped in to get his mail this morning.”
I closed my eyes. It was only one day, but it would at least get me a better idea of what everyone else thought. Once school was out, I’d start trying to figure out what to do next.
* * *
Despite knowingthat Harvey had taken the day off, I spent the next several hours with nerves stretched tight enough to snap. Every time I stepped out of my classroom or my door opened, I found myself tensing, waiting for Principal McKenna to show up and inform me that I’d been fired. By the time the kids were getting antsy for the final bell to ring, I was exhausted and watching the clock as intently as they were.
“All right,” I said, calling the students’ attention from their worksheets. “Pass your worksheets forward, and you may talk quietly until the bell rings.”
I walked along the first row, picking up the papers as I went. Today was Evanne’s day to sit in the front, and hers was the last desk I got to. Because of how full I’d kept the day’s schedule, I hadn’t had much time to have a conversation with her about what she’d seen or heard Saturday evening. Honestly, I’d been afraid of what she might say, but as I took her row’s papers from her, I told myself to stop being a jerk and talk to the kid.