But I’m better now, and she still treats me like I’m a wilting flower. I want to move past last year. I want a fresh start, but it’s hard when your mom won’t let you forget. I don’t know how to tell her these things without hurting her feelings. How do you tell your mom that you’re suffocating in her presence? I can’t.
I stop in front of my door. Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down before entering my classroom. I want to start today with a fresh new mindset. No more fixating on my mom’s emotional responses.
As I’m digging through my bag to find my lanyard with my teacher’s ID and classroom key, something catches my eye. There’s a pink gift bag sitting on the floor next to my door. A neon-green sticky note is stuck to the front of it with my name written in a masculine scrawl. I hurry to unlock my door so I can dump my bags on my desk and come back for it.
I pick up the bag, wondering who it’s from. Is there some kind of “secret sister” gift exchange going on that I wasn’t aware of? I really hope not, because whoever I’m assigned to won’t be getting anything due to low funds and not even knowing about it in the first place.
I rip the poorly stuffed tissue paper out of the bag, and my eyes immediately start to prickle. The soft, hot-pink sweater I pull out of the bag is perfect. It’s even better than the one that got ruined. It feels like butter against my cheek. I can’t believe Colby—the man I’ve spent the past month bashing and tormenting—actually went out and bought me a new sweater. An even better sweater than the previous one. I know he said he would, but I didn’t think he was all that serious about it. He must have gone straight to the store after dropping me off at home yesterday morning. This is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. Oh my gosh. I will not cry over a sweater!
Would it be weird to go put it on right now? I look down at my outfit, and unfortunately, it would not look good with the maroon skirt I’m wearing today. But you better believe tomorrow’s outfit will be styled around this beautiful pink creation.
I don’t deserve this. Not one little bit. I’ve been so hard on him without even giving him a real chance to show that he’s changed since those immature, angsty days of high school. I know I’m not the same person I was back then, so there is a chance that he’s a good man, after all.
At lunch time, I walk into the teacher’s lounge with a pep in my step. Colby is already sitting at his usual table in the corner, eating his boring steamed vegetables, quinoa, and grilled chicken while scrolling on his phone.
I set my lunch down on the table and sit down directly beside him. The other teachers in the room all stare at us. A few lean over to whisper something in another’s ear. I don’t know what that’s about, but I decide to ignore it and eat my lunch in peace.
“I see you’re feeling better,” Colby says with a crooked grin on his face that makes me melt a little. He’s too handsome for his own good. Does he even know what he does to hearts with that face?
“Yep. All better!” I say. I place my elbows on the table and cradle my chin in my hands. “So, Colbster, you’ll never guess what I found outside my classroom this morning.”
His face turns the slightest bit red, and he looks away for a moment to hide it. Before, I would have said it was impossible, but he just got ten times cuter. Embarrassed Colby is one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen, which is a really weird thing to acknowledge to myself.
“Hmm, I don’t know. Give me a clue,” he says.
“Well, it’s pink and soft, and it was definitely wrapped by someone who didn’t know what to do with tissue paper.” His grin turns into a full-blown smile that takes my breath away.
“Pink and soft, you say? That does sound familiar, but I wouldn’t know about the wrapping. I am awesome at wrapping gifts,” he jokes. I lean over and bump his shoulder with mine, earning a laugh from him. I freeze in place and soak up the sound.
I glance around the room after realizing how quiet everyone has become. Almost every eye in the room is on us, but as soon as they notice me looking, they all snap back to their food. Is everyone waiting for me and Colby to start arguing, or what? I know us being nice to each other is a rare sight, but I hadn’t realized it was shocking enough to put a stop to all other conversations. We’ve given the teacher’s lounge a couple shows over the past few weeks, but their intense interest in us today is bizarre to say the least. Something else has to be going on here.
“No, but really, thank you. I love it,” I say, focusing back on Colby and trying to ignore the curious stares of everyone else.
His eyes soften when he says, “I’m glad.”
We eat our lunches together, mostly in companionable silence, but I manage to get Colby to talk a little, mostly about some of our more ridiculous feuds from middle school and high school. There are plenty to choose from, like when we were choosing books to read for a project from a list in tenth-grade English and he purposely chose the book he overheard me say I wanted. I know there’s no way he wanted to do his project on Sense and Sensibility. He did it just to spite me, and our English teacher went on and on about how impressed she was that a boy would choose Jane Austen. And I got stuck with Ernest Hemingway and his alcoholic ways. It was awful.
Just one month ago, talking about that story would have made my blood boil, but sitting next to Colby today, I find myself laughing about it and how silly we were.
When Colby’s done with his lunch long before me, he doesn’t immediately get up to leave like he typically would. He waits until I’m done, and we leave the lounge together.
All heads in the room turn to watch us. Colby leans down close to my ear and asks, “Why is everyone gawking at us?” And isn’t that the million-dollar question.