Page 39 of Tusk & Puck
“I know it’s hard. I will tell him. I promise I will. I just need you to keep it a secret a little bit longer. Just a little bit.”
“But I thought keeping secrets was bad,” she says. “Didn’t you say most people who keep secrets know they’re doing something bad and just don’t want to admit it?”
That does sound like something I’d say. Darn it, why do kids always have to pay attention?
Talking about secrets makes me think of whoever it is who’s been leaving me little presents and notes. For a little, I almost expected Jaromir to fess up that it was him, but he hasn’t, which means it has to be someone else. Maybe that’s part of why I’m so hesitant. It’s a little bit intoxicating to have options, to know that I could stay with Jaromir or hope for my secret admirer to make himself known.
Is that shallow? Maybe a little bit. Okay, maybe it’s a lot shallow. Everyone’s shallow sometimes though.
“You’re right,” I admit. “But please, let me be the one to tell him. I’ll do it soon, I promise.”
She nods solemnly. “Okay. But soon.”
She gets up to get her stuff. As she does, Ryan walks in, triumphantly wielding the blue worksheet. “I’ve got it! It was behind my desk!”
I think about it more as I finish getting the kids ready and taking them to school. At the end of the day, what I’m afraid of more than anything else is having to decide what this fling I’m having with Jaromir really means. Is it just a fun little thing I’m doing until we both get tired of it, or does it mean something?
It’s scary partly because I’m not sure what I think, and partly because I’m not sure what Jaromir thinks. What if I decide that I want to take our relationship seriously and he doesn’t? It’s yet another way that things getting out will mean I’m not in control.
Maybe a worse one, because I can deal with random people gossiping about me. I don’t know how I’d deal with Jaromir deciding I never really meant that much to him.Maybe that should be my answer right there.
I’m still thinking in circles like that when I open the door to my office and gasp.
The whole place has been completely trashed. Everything I’ve put up on the wall has been torn down and stomped on. My desk has been swept onto the floor and all the drawers that weren’t locked have been pulled open and emptied. Even the chairs have been hurled into the corner, and one of them has a leg broken off.
This wasn’t one of the kids, I realize, as I look around it. It would have taken an adult’s strength to break things like this. An adult’s anger.
Could it be?
That’s when I see it. There’s a note on the desk, scrawled with a red pen. I already know what it’s going to say before I read it. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.
You were supposed to be MINE!
Mine is underlined three times. There’s no question in my mind. This is my secret admirer. And there’s no question about what’s got him mad, either. He knows about me and Jaromir.
How many other people know? Could it be just him? But no, I don’t see how that’s possible. He would have had to see us, and I don’t think anyone did. What if it’s the whole school? What if my secret is already out?
So all that carefulness, all that caution, all of it goes totally out the window. The only result of my trying to hide the secret is that I didn’t get to be the one who told people about it. Now, my former secret admirer has gone psycho, and I have no idea how Jaromir or the kids are going to react to this.
I’m scared. Everything I was afraid of happening is happening, and now, somehow, I’m gonna have to deal with it.
21
JAROMIR
Irub my hand over the back of my neck. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand someone who thinks like this guy. If you like a girl, you need to tell her yourself. What kind of childish schoolyard nonsense is it to act out like a violent maniac instead?
“Where do you want these?” I ask Melody, holding a stack of tan-colored folders.
“Over there.” She sighs. She’s kneeling over shattered pieces of glass, looking like she’s barely keeping herself together. “I’ll have to put them back in alphabetical order and make sure none of the files got shuffled into the wrong folder. Don’t look at them, by the way, that would be a regulatory violation. That’s a headache I can’t handle right now on top of everything else.”
I squat down next to Melody and put my hands on her shoulders. “Hey. Why don’t you work on that while I take care of this?” I gesture at the broken glass, shattered clay planter and dying spider plant, and the piles of medical supplies on the floor.
Melody looks at me with tired eyes and nods. I help her stand up and sit down at her desk, where I’ve gathered every piece of paper and student file from around the clinic. I also fetch her a mug of coffee before getting to work with a broom.
The clinic is dead silent, save the sound of sweeping and paper gently moving. Then, as I pick up large pieces of the broken planter, I hear a soft choking sound. Melody’s eyes are red and swollen. She’s barely holding back tears that obviously need to fall.
“How did this happen?” she asks me. “We were being so careful. I thought for sure no one would know about us.”