Point of Retreat (5 page)

I don’t want to think about it, so I close my eyes and try to put the thought out of my mind. I guess she sees the nausea building behind my expression, because she apologizes.

“Sorry. This is why we’re vegetarian.”

“Thanks, Sherry,” I say, hoping she’s finished. She’s not.

“I started a load of laundry over at Layken’s house. If you want, I’ll wash some of yours too.” She doesn’t wait for me to respond. She walks down the hallway and starts gathering clothes, then takes them into the laundry room. I hear the washer start, followed by noise in the kitchen. She’s cleaning. This woman I don’t know is cleaning my house. I’m too tired to object. I’m even too tired to be pleased about it.

“Will?” She walks back through the living room. I open my eyes, but barely. “I’ll be back in an hour to put the clothes in the dryer. I’ll bring some minestrone, too.”

I just nod. Or, at least I
think
I nod.

***

It hasn’t been an hour yet, but whatever Sherry gave me already has me feeling a little better. Caulder manages to make it to his room and passes out on his bed. I walk to the kitchen and make myself a glass of sprite when the front door opens. It’s Lake. She looks as rough as I do, but still beautiful.

“Hey, Babe.” She shuffles into the kitchen and wraps her arms around me. She’s in her pajamas and house shoes. It’s not the darth vader ones, but still just as sexy.

“How’s Caulder feeling?” she says.

“Better, I guess. Whatever Sherry gave us worked.”

“Yeah, it did.” She rests her head against my chest and takes a deep breath. “I wish we had enough couches in one house, so we could all be sick together.”

We’ve brought up the subject of living together before. It makes economic sense; our bills would be cut in half. She’s only nineteen, though…and she seems to like having her alone time. The thought of taking such a huge leap makes us both a little apprehensive, so we agreed to wait on that step until we’re certain about it.

“I wish we did too,” I say. I naturally lean in to kiss her, but she shakes her head and backs her face away from mine.

“Nuh-uh,” she says. “We’re not kissing for at least twenty-four more hours.”

I laugh and kiss her on top of her head instead.

“I guess I’ll go back now. I just wanted to check on you.” She avoids my face and kisses me on the arm instead.

“You two are so cute!” Sherry says. She walks through the dining room and places a container of soup in the fridge, then turns and heads into the laundry room. I never even heard her open the front door…much less knock.

“Thanks for the medicine, Sherry. It really helped,” Lake says.

“No problem,” Sherry says. “That concoction can knock the shit out of anything. You two let me know if you need more.”

Lake looks at me and rolls her eyes. “See you, Babe. Love you.”

“Love you, too. Let me know when Kel feels better, we’ll come over tonight.”

Lake leaves and I take a seat at the table and slowly sip my drink. I still don’t trust ingesting anything at this point.

Sherry pulls out the chair across the table from me and takes a seat. “So, what’s your story?” she asks.

I’m not sure what story she’s referring to, so I raise my eyebrows at her as I take another sip and wait for her to elaborate.

“With the two of you. And Kel and Caulder. It’s a little strange from a mother’s point of view. I’ve got an eleven year old daughter who seems to enjoy spending time with all you guys, I feel it’s my duty as a mom to know your story. You and Lake are both practically children, raising children.”

She’s very blunt. However, the way she says it comes off as appropriate, somehow. She’s easy to like. I see now why Kiersten is the way she is.

I set my sprite down on the table in front of me and wipe the condensation off the glass with my thumbs. “My parents died three years ago.” I continue to stare at the glass in front of me, avoiding her gaze. I don’t want to see the pity in her eyes. “Lake’s father died over a year ago…her mother passed away in September. So…here we are, raising our brothers.”

Sherry leans back into her chair and folds her arms across her chest. “I’ll be damned.”

I just nod and give her a half smile. At least she didn’t say how sorry she was for us. I hate pity more than anything.

“How long have the two of you been dating?”

“Officially? Since December eighteenth, a little over a year ago.”

“What about
unofficially
?” she says.

I shift in my seat. Why did I even specify
officially
?

“December eighteenth, a little over a year ago,” I say again and smile. I’m not getting any more detailed than that. “What’s
your
story, Sherry?”

She laughs and stands up. “Will, has anyone ever told you it’s rude to be nosey?” She makes her way to the front door. “Let me know if you need anything. You know where we live.”

***

We spend the entire day Sunday watching movies and being sore. We're all still a little queasy, so we skip the junk food. Monday it's back to reality. I drop Kel and Caulder off at their school and head to the College. Three of my four classes are in the same building; one of the benefits of being in grad school. Once your course of study is set, all the classes are similar and are usually taught in the same area. The first of my four classes, however, is halfway across campus. It’s a graduate level elective called
Death and Dying
. I thought it would be interesting, being as though I’m more than experienced in the subject. I also didn’t have a choice. There wasn’t another graduate elective during the eight o’clock block that I could take, so I’m stuck with this one if I want all my credits to count. When I walk in, students are sporadically seated around the room. It’s one of the auditorium style rooms set up with tables that hold two seats each. I walk up the stairs and take a seat in the back of the room. It’s different, being the student now rather than the teacher. I got so used to being at the head of the classroom. The role reversal has taken some getting used to.

The class fills up fairly quickly. It’s the first day of the semester, so it will probably be the only day people actually show up early. That’s usually how it is…the newness wears off by day two. It’s rare for a professor to have everyone on their entire roll show up the same day after day two.

I throw my stuff on the table and take a seat. My phone vibrates inside my pocket so I take it out and slide my finger across the screen. It’s a text from Lake.

Finally found my phone. Hope you like your classes. I love you and I’ll see you tonight.

I begin to text her back when the professor starts calling roll. I finish the text and press the send button and put my phone back in my pocket.

“Will Cooper?” the professor says. I raise my hand and he looks up at me and nods, then marks his form.

He continues to call roll as I glance around the room to see if I recognize anyone. There were a couple of people I graduated High School with in my last semester elective. There usually aren’t many people I know in my classes since I’m a little ahead. Most of my high school classmates graduated college last May, and not many of them decided on Grad school. As my eyes make their way around the room, I notice a girl with blond hair in the front row turned completely around in her seat. When I meet her gaze, my heart sinks. She smiles and waves when she sees I’ve recognized her. She turns back around and gathers her things, then stands up and makes her way up the stairs.

No. She’s coming toward me. She’s about to sit with me.
Oh, god.

“Will! Oh my god, what are the chances? It’s been so long,” she says.

I do my best to smile at her. I don’t understand my reaction right now. I can’t tell if it’s anger, guilt, or what. “Hey, Vaughn.” I try to sound pleased to see her.

She takes the seat next to me and leans in and hugs me. “How are you?” she whispers. “How’s Caulder?”

“He’s good,” I say. “Growing up. He’ll be eleven in two months.”

“
Eleven
? Wow,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief.

We haven’t seen each other in almost three years. She knows we parted on bad terms, to put it mildly; yet, she’s acting like she’s genuinely excited to see me. I wish I could say the same.

“How’s Ethan?” I ask her. Ethan is her older brother. We were pretty good friends while Vaughn and I dated, but we haven’t spoken since the break-up.

“He’s good. He’s really good. He’s married now, they’ve got a baby on the way.”

“Good for him. Tell him I said so.”

“I will,” she says.

“Vaughn Gibson?” The professor calls.

She raises her hand. “Up here,” she says as he marks her on his roll. She brings her attention back to me. “What about you? You married?”

I shake my head.

“Me neither,” she smiles.

I don’t like this. I don’t like how she’s looking at me-I’ve seen that look from her before. We dated for over two years, I know her pretty well. And right now, her intentions aren’t good for me.

“I’m not married, but I am dating someone,” I clarify. I can see the slight shift in her expression, but she attempts to mask it with a smile.

“Good for you,” she says. “Is it serious?” She’s digging for hints.

“Very.”

We both face the front of the room when the professor starts explaining the semester requirements and going over the syllabus. The rest of the hour, we don’t speak much other than occasional questions from her regarding the class information. When the professor dismisses us, I quickly stand up.

“It’s really good seeing you, Will,” she says. “I’m excited about this class now. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

I smile at her without agreeing. She gives me another quick hug and turns away. I gather my things and head to my second class as I think of a way to break this to Lake.

Lake has never asked about my past relationships. She says there isn’t anything good that can come up from discussing it, so we never have. I’m not even sure she knows about Vaughn. She knows I had a pretty serious relationship in high school. She even knows I’ve had sex-we talked about that. I don’t know how she’ll take this. I’d hate to upset her, but I also don’t want to hide anything either.

But what would I be hiding? Is it really necessary to tell her who all the students are in the classes I’m in? We’ve never discussed it before, so why do I feel the need to now? If I tell her, it will just cause her to worry unnecessarily. If I don’t tell her, what harm is it doing? Lake’s not in my class, she’s not even in school the days I am. I’ve made it clear to Vaughn that I’m in a relationship…that should be good enough.

By the end of my last class, I’ve successfully convinced myself that Lake doesn’t need to know.

***

When I pull up to the elementary school, Kel and Caulder are seated outside on a bench, away from the rest of the students. Mrs. Brill is standing right behind them, waiting.

“Great,” I mumble to myself. I’ve heard the horror stories about her, but I’ve never actually had to deal with her. I kill the engine and get out; it’s obvious that’s what she’s expecting me to do.

“You must be Will,” she says as she extends her hand. “We’ve met before, just not officially I believe.”

“Good to meet you.” I glance to the boys who aren't making eye contact with me. When I look back at Mrs. Brill, she nods her head to the left, indicating she would like to talk to me out of their earshot.

“There was an incident with Kel last week in the cafeteria,” Mrs. Brill says as we walk down the sidewalk, away from the crowd. “I’m not sure what the relationship is between Kel and yourself, but I wasn’t able to get in touch with his sister.”

“We’re aware of what happened,” I say. “Layken misplaced her phone. Do I need to let her know to contact you?”

“No, that isn’t why I want to talk to you,” she says. “I just wanted to be sure both of you were aware of last week’s incident first, and that it was handled appropriately.”

“It was. We took care of it,” I say. I don’t know what she means by ‘handled appropriately,’ but I doubt she expects that their punishment was laughing about it at the dinner table. Oh, well.

“I wanted to talk to you about a different matter. There’s a new student here, she seems to have taken to Kel and Caulder. Kiersten?” She waits on me to acknowledge that I know who she’s referring to. I nod. “There was an incident today that involved her and a few of the other students,” she says.

I stop walking and turn toward her, suddenly becoming more vested in our conversation. If it has anything to do with how the three kids acted at the dinner table the other night, I want to know about it.

“She’s being picked on. Some of the other students find her personality doesn’t mesh well with their own, I guess. Kel and Caulder found out about a couple of the older boys saying some things to her, so they decided to take matters into their own hands.” She pauses and glances back at Kel and Caulder, who are still seated in the same positions.

“What’d they do?” I ask nervously.