Page 18 of Whiskey & Honey
To say that I slept last night would be a lie. I don’t know what possessed me to text Ben after he left my apartment. So stupid. I lay awake all night wondering if there was a way I could claim momentary insanity. Or drunkenness. Something, really anything, to give me an excuse for being flirty and reaching out unnecessarily.
I glance at the clock and am not surprised it’s just a little after sunrise. I drag myself out of bed and go straight to my dresser and grab my running bra and shorts. I need to run this feeling out of me and, hopefully, run out this attraction I have to my best friend’s brother.
A quick stop by the bathroom before I put my sneakers on shows the signs of just how little sleep I had last night. I strap my phone onto my arm and grab my earbuds. I take off at a slow pace and contemplate the position I’ve put myself in. I’ve had a crush on Bentley Sullivan most of my life. A completely one-sided crush. The day he left for college was a sad and empowering day. I no longer had to watch him fawn all over Claire and wish I was the pretty, popular, kind, smart, funny girl he was holding hands with in the halls or on the Sullivans’ couch.
I cannot believe how easily I can find my way back to that place of insecurity and self-doubt. This only confirms what my mother has said to me since I was a little girl: no matter how far and fast you run, the past always catches up. Of course, my mother was talking about men and her poor choices when it came to said men. Regardless of her intent, this saying holds true to my opinions of myself, and how no matter how hard I have worked, they manage to reappear from time to time.
I pick up the pace as I start making my way out of my neighborhood and toward the edge of town. I pass Peabody Elementary and smile. With only about two weeks until the new school year starts, I cannot wait to get back into a routine and meet my new students. I’ve finally found my stride in timing with the music on my run playlist and find all of the tension leaving my body. With each breath a piece of the tension falls away and I breathe a little easier.
An hour after leaving my apartment I find myself under the warm spray of the shower. I have a clearer head and am committed to moving past this kiss nonsense and the little butterflies in my tummy response I had to hanging out with Ben last night. I need to focus on the upcoming school year and nothing else.
I finish getting myself ready and shoot a text off to Ashton that I’m heading to my classroom to start preparing it for the new year. She doesn’t respond, and when I look at the clock I realize that’s because she’s probably still asleep. It is, after all, when most people that have day jobs are only getting up to start their day.
After a few hours in the classroom I stop to take a look around. I really love every moment I have in this room. Watching little minds come alive as they start discovering that education is an honor and a privilege. Of course, teaching the kids of some of the people I grew up with is sometimes less of an honor. I look over the list of my incoming students with notes and see that once again the Karma Gods are plotting against me.
Fantastic. I throw myself in my chair and lean back rubbing my temples. Felicity Remington hyphen Thorne. Note the hyphen for future reference and need for her to have the longest name in the universe. I knew this day would come but I pretended that somehow the little spawn of the she-devil would be a genius and skip kindergarten and go straight into first grade. No such luck.
A glorious cup of goodness lands on my desk and startles me out of my chair.
“Hey, sister from another mister.”
“Ashton, you scared the shit out of me!”
“Oh you must really need this if you’re cussing in the classroom.”
“Whatever,” I say as I reach for the cup of coffee and sit back down in my chair.
“Whatcha got there, doll face? Your class list? Gimme,” she demands, holding out her hand. I hand the list to her and watch as she looks it over and her eyes land on little Thorne in My Side.
“Ah, Felicity. God she’s such a bitch. I bet her little kid is rotten, too. Your year is about to suck.”
“Wow, thanks, Ash. I have another few weeks until I have to deal with this, let’s not discuss it. What are you even doing here?”
“I was bored. Stupid Ben is stomping around the house grunting and mumbling some sort of mantra or some shit. I don’t know. He was bugging me. I wanted to go look at apartments again and figured you could stand getting out of here.”
Here we go again. “I’ll go with you, but you know I’m not moving in with you, right? We’ve talked about this.”
She rolls her eyes at me like she’s one of my students and hops off the desk she had perched herself on.
“Whatevs. Come on.”
My turn to roll my eyes and pull myself up from my chair. Ashton grabs my hand and starts dragging me for the door as I manage to snag my purse off the counter before closing the door.
“Okay, geez. I may need my arm, ya know. What’s your hurry anyway?”
“What? Oh, sorry. No hurry I just want to get out of this building. You know it creeps me out.”
I laugh. One of Ash’s odd phobias is small children. She hates helping me with anything that has to do with my kids.
“You are so strange sometimes,” I reply as we walk out of the building and toward her car.
“Fear of small children is a real phobia; you shouldn’t mock me. That has to be some sort of law or something.”
“Pretty sure it isn’t but fine, I’ll stop for now,” I concede as I buckle myself into the car and prepare for another afternoon of Ashton loving every apartment she can’t afford and me reminding her of her budget. We play this game every other weekend and, while it drives me nuts half the time, it makes her feel like living with her parents isn’t forever.
Four hours, six apartments, and half a pizza later I’m finally home and on my couch. As expected it was six “I love this place! It’s perfect!” from Ashton and six “budget buster” replies from me. I love my best friend, I really do, but her idea of a budget versus what the rest of the world considers a budget is vastly different.
The long day I’ve had hits me like a ton of bricks and I look over at the television that is a blank dark screen. The remote is just out of arm’s reach and I have to talk myself into grabbing it. I flip on a marathon of Dateline and snuggle into my comfy fuzzy blanket and close my eyes.