Chapter 15

Monday, July 29th, 2013

Ms. Carrington stepped back as if I’d slapped her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” I said. “I’ll give you a chance to retract those statements, or I’ll sue you for slander. You’re spreading false, harmful claims about me, in public, in front of my boss and my colleagues.”

“Well, I-” she stammered.

“One.”

“I didn’t mean any-”

“Two.”

“I retract those statements,” she said in a huff. “I just wanted to make Mrs. Mitchell make sure she knew what sort of person she had hired. I was doing my duty as a concerned parent and community member.”

“And what sort of person am I, Ms. Carrington? You should probably choose your words very carefully.”

“You left your last school because-”

“Because I was falsely accused of having a relationship with one of my students. An eighteen-year-old student, not that it really matters. It’s something that I was cleared of within about forty-eight hours of the initial claim. Still long enough for all sorts of half-truths and rumors to spread all over social media, though. I left my old job—a job I loved, a job I was good at—because it was clear that things could never be the same for me there. Mrs. Mitchell knows everything that happened and welcomed me here. I have letters from my former school, school district, union, and a half-dozen other people, all the documentation you could possibly want. There is absolutely zero truth to anything you’re trying to smear me with. I moved five hundred miles away from all of that so I could try to get a fresh start. But apparently it wasn’t far enough.”

“Ms. Carrington, I think it’s past time you left,” Mrs. Mitchell said. The bitch just nodded and let Mrs. Mitchell escort her out.

I sighed, dragging both of my hands down my face before rubbing my temples to clear the headache I could already feel coming on. When I turned around to look at the ladies with me I found them all just staring silently, their faces still wearing shocked expressions.

Tori was the first one to break the silence. “Ryan ... why didn’t you tell me what had happened to you?” She crashed into me with a hug.

“I would have, eventually. I just ... I think you can understand why I don’t like to talk about it. It almost ruined my life. It’s why Amanda and I broke up. I don’t like to even think about it.”

Melissa joined our hug. “I’m sorry, Ryan. That sounds awful.” The other ladies expressed their sympathies as well.

“Thanks. Can we not do this right now, though?” I asked, noticing that more teachers were coming back from the lunch break and giving us some odd looks. The girls let me go and we all made our way back to our seats, with Nicole and Maria joining us in our row this time. Emma conceded the seat next to mine to Tori. I appreciated her concern, but I really didn’t need or want that sort of attention.

The rest of the afternoon passed by in a haze. I hardly paid any attention to everything that was discussed in the meetings—my brain was feeling too jumbled to process much of anything. How exactly had Ms. Carrington found out about what had happened? Who had she talked to? Whoever it was, either they weren’t close enough to the situation to know anything about the actual resolution, or they were a vindictive piece of shit who for whatever reason didn’t believe everything was kosher. In the end I figured it didn’t matter too much. I knew the truth, Mrs. Mitchell knew the truth, and anyone who cared enough about me to be worth a second thought knew the truth. It was a good thing that there were printouts of all the important stuff so I could look over it later when I was in a better headspace.

Tori definitely noticed my mood. As we were wrapping up for the day, she pulled me off to the side of the room. “Hey, why don’t you come over and hang out at our apartment for a bit? Just relax, have some drinks. I’m sure M will be happy to cook something up. It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know, Tor,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m really not in the mood for being around people right now.”

“Which is exactly why you need to be around people right now. I can tell that you’re a bit messed up about what happened earlier. It will be good to be around people who care about you. I know you. If you go back to your apartment alone you’ll just end up stewing in this all night. It won’t make anything better.”

She wasn’t wrong, but my first instinct was still to resist. Eventually her puppy dog eyes won out over my reluctance. “Sure, that sounds like a good idea. Thanks, Tor.”

“Of course, Ry-guy. I’ll see you there in a bit then.”

I considered swinging by my apartment to change first, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. When I got to Tori and Melissa’s apartment I just took off my belt and work shirt and tossed them into the back seat, leaving me in my slacks and a t-shirt.

Tori answered the door with a drink in hand. “Here, this is for you.” She handed me the glass, which was filled nearly to the brim with ice and dark liquid.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Just drink it.” Shrugging, I did as she said. It was a whiskey cocktail made with a soda I didn’t recognize and some ... lime? Maybe one other ingredient, but I couldn’t tell. It was good, though.

“That’s nice. What’s in it?”

“Secret recipe. Come on, have a seat.”

I followed her over to the couch. “Where’s Melissa?”

“In her room on the phone with her mom. She shouldn’t be much longer.”

As if on cue, Melissa emerged from her room. “Hey, Ryan. Glad you could come over. I was planning on making some stir fry, if that’s cool with you?”

“Sounds great, thanks.”

She grabbed a drink of her own and then joined us on the couch. We sat together drinking in silence, a silence which grew more and more awkward with every passing minute. I knew the girls wanted to talk more about what had happened with Ms. Carrington, and by extension what had happened at my old school, but they were afraid to bring it up for fear of upsetting me.

Finally I decided it was up to me to break the ice. “You can ask me about it. It’s fine.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Ryan. It’s really none of our business,” Melissa said.

“I told you, it’s fine. It just caught me off guard this afternoon.”

“You said it’s what led to your breakup with your fiancée, uh, what was her name again?” Tori asked.

“Amanda. Yeah, it did. It was more the straw that broke the camel’s back, if anything. Honestly it’s probably a good thing that it happened when it did. I have a feeling that something like this was going to cause problems for us eventually, and it’s better it happened before we were married than after.”

“What was her issue?”

“Amanda always had problems with insecurity, even before I met her. She’d been bullied in high school for the usual things. She was smarter than everyone around her and she was a bit of a late bloomer. Obviously I was attracted to her, but she didn’t really start getting any confidence in her looks until college.” I took another sip of my drink.

“Early on in our relationship we ended up back at a party with some people she knew from high school. One of the girls who had been rough on her back then made it clear that she thought I should have been out of Amanda’s league and that I’d have a better night with her. I told the girl off, but it was clear the shot hit Amanda right where she was most vulnerable, and those kinds of thoughts just stuck around. I did my best to always reassure her that I never wanted anyone else, but she still had that lingering fear. As our relationship continued I hoped that she would get over it, but she never did. I thought that when I proposed she’d know it was for real, but apparently even that wasn’t enough. In hindsight, it was a bit like a married couple thinking that having a kid would somehow fix the problems in their marriage when usually it just makes things worse.”

“So this ... allegation, it ... what? Pushed her over the edge?” Melissa asked.

“When I got home that day and told Amanda what had happened, I was really upset about how easily the administration seemed to believe that I could have done something like that. I needed to come home to my fiancée and have her back me up, but instead those doubts started eating at her again. I probably overreacted, but we got into a fight when I called her out for not immediately believing me. Eventually we worked it out and I thought we were through it.”

“But you weren’t.”

I sighed and nodded. “But we weren’t. So, this is where things got messy. It turns out that the reason the school was taking the allegations so seriously was because someone had turned in a diary. One of my students had a serious crush on me and had been ... uh ... writing erotic fantasies about the two of us being together.” Tori and Melissa both laughed and then looked guilty for laughing. “It’s fine. The situation is a bit ridiculous, I know. If it wasn’t me then I’d probably laugh about it too. Anyways, the people who turned in the fictional diary to the school also took pictures of some pages and started spreading it on social media, which is where Amanda found it. Seeing a bunch of diary entries that supposedly chronicled the sexual relationship I had with this eighteen-year-old girl just smashed any progress we had made. She kept reading and reading and when she couldn’t get hold of me on the phone, she came home and blew up before leaving to go stay at her parents’ house. Once things got cleared with the school, I went to talk to her and told her that I didn’t think I could handle our relationship if she could never trust me about something that big.”

Tori reached out to rub my shoulder. “Wow, so you just broke up with her right then?” she asked.

“No, not quite. We tried going to a couples’ counselor a few times to see if anything could be salvaged, but it just made everything more clear to me. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else in the future. We called off the wedding, and that’s when I made the decision to move back down here.”

“That’s a lot, Ryan,” Tori said. “I’m so sorry.”

“You seem to be handling it pretty well, though,” Melissa added.

“I’m ... not. Not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I had this identity, this sense of self, that I’d been slowly constructing over years and years. From big things like ‘I’m a high school teacher,’ ‘I’m a football coach,’ and ‘I’m going to marry Amanda’ to little things like ‘I live in the Bay Area’ and ‘I have this friend group.’ I’d been working towards being this very specific person, and now he’s gone.”

“Your life may not look like you thought it would a few months ago, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still a great guy, Ryan,” Tori said, rubbing my back.

“I’m honestly not really sure that I am. Ever since that day I feel like I’ve been ... off. I’m running at this base level of anger and frustration that I’d never had before. My fuse is way shorter than it used to be, I’m more aggressive. I think I used to be pretty even-keeled but now I keep finding myself swinging through emotions way more than before. Hell, just look at my sex life. I’ve always been a relationships guy. Before the breakup, I’d slept with five women in my whole life, and just one for the past seven years. I haven’t even been down here for two weeks and I’ve just about doubled that. I could maybe explain falling back into things with Tori given our history, but everything else? That’s just ... that’s just not me. Or at least not who I thought I was.”

“I guess without knowing you before, it’s hard for me to see all of that,” Melissa said.

“And it’s been so long for us,” Tori said, “that I couldn’t really tell which changes were because of what happened to you, and which were just you changing over the years we were apart.”

“Have you thought about seeing a therapist about any of this stuff? Melissa asked. “It might help. I went for a little bit to help me work through some things after I broke up with Troy.”

“I’ve been in and out of therapy for years, ever since my parents kicked me out. It’s definitely worth it,” Tori said.

“I guess I just haven’t had the time to find anything since I’ve been down here. It’s probably not a bad idea, though.”

Things quieted down again after that. We finished our drinks and Tori grabbed refills for everyone. Melissa got up to go start making the dinner. I started to follow her so I could help but she shooed me back to the couch and told me to relax. By the time I finished my second drink I was feeling pretty good. Tori leaned against me, idly scratching my back as we sat together in silence. It was nice to have both her and Melissa go out of their way to support me right now. Just talking through my feelings about all the changes in my life the past few months helped clarify a lot for me. Maybe therapy would be a good idea. I was still confused about how exactly I should feel about everything between the three of us, but at the very least I knew that I had two good friends.

“Dinner’s ready!” Melissa called from the kitchen. I stood up from the couch and held out a hand to help Tori up, but our inebriated state meant we both almost ended up falling over, which led to us both laughing like idiots.

Over dinner I reminded Melissa about my plans to go see a baseball game tomorrow. “Game’s at seven. You still want to go?”

“Oh yeah, totally! You want to invite anyone else?”

“Sure,” I said, “if you can think of anyone who wants to go. I’ve got a guy I’ve been going to the gym with since I’ve been down here, maybe I’ll invite him.” I texted Paul an invite but didn’t receive a reply right away. Probably busy with his family. It would be nice to hang out with him a bit more outside of the gym if possible though. I was really missing having a good group of guys to hang out with regularly. Spending most of my time in San Diego with women had certainly been good for my sex life, but I still needed some good old male bonding.

After dinner my offer to help out with the dishes was denied once again. Once the girls finished cleaning up Melissa broke out a couple of board games for us to play. I won two rounds of Tsuro and Tori won one, but Melissa mopped the floor with us in Ticket to Ride. By the time we had finished it was getting pretty late.

“This was a lot of fun, thanks for having me over,” I said. “I should probably get going.”

“It was our pleasure. You’re always welcome, Ryan,” Melissa said in reply.

Tori stood up from the table. “Before you go I wanted to show you something,” she said. “Come with me for a minute.”

I followed her to her room. As soon as we were inside she shut the door behind us, and the next thing I knew she was kissing me. “Tori what-”

“Sssh,” she said and then silenced me with another kiss. “Don’t think too much. Just let me do this for you.” She pushed me back onto her bed before getting on her knees. She removed my shoes and pulled down my pants, releasing my erection. Tori gave it a nice long lick before taking it in hand and starting to gently stroke me. While her hand kept working she lifted my shirt and kissed up along my abs before bringing her mouth back down to start sucking my cock. She wasn’t looking to bring me to completion, just get me nice and ready. Once she thought I was there Tori stood up and quickly removed her clothes before climbing aboard and lowering herself down onto me, her pussy welcoming my cock into its warm embrace. She rocked herself back and forth, rising and falling like the tide.

“I know you’re feeling all kinds of confused,” she panted, “about who you are, about what your life is supposed to be like now.” She stopped for a moment to catch her breath as a small orgasm rippled through her. “I wish I had the answers for you,” she continued. “But one thing I do know is that I think you’re incredible. I always have.”

She leaned down to kiss me. “Everything is going to be okay. You don’t need to feel guilty about being unsure right now. You’re allowed to just enjoy the ride,” she said with a smile, giving her movements a little extra emphasis. “I know I am.”

Her eyes closed as she sped her hips up, bringing us both closer to the edge. “Tori, I’m-”

“Let it go, Ryan.”

I did, releasing everything I had into her. Her own climax followed right after as she collapsed onto me, her mouth seeking out mine. We kissed for several minutes as we each came down from our respective highs.

“You’ll figure it out, Ryan. I know you will. But it doesn’t have to be today. You don’t have to be the person you thought you were going to be, the person you thought you were supposed to be. You can build something new, and whatever it is you choose to build, it’s going to be great, because that’s who you are. I know it.”

Tuesday, July 30th, 2013

I pulled up in front of Cece’s house at five fifty-five, unsure of whether or not she expected me to come knock on the door or just text her that I had arrived. I had an internal debate about the two options for about ten seconds before the front door opened and Cece bounced out of the house. She had her usual workout attire on—Lycra shorts and a sports bra, this time in navy blue. Her red hair was tied back into a ponytail. It should be no surprise, given the nickname I’d given her in my head, that I paid a lot of attention to her incredible ass, but she was just a good looking woman overall. She was in great shape, with a nice flat stomach and toned arms. When she hopped into my car she flashed me a smile.

“Good morning, Ryan. Thank you again so much for this, I really appreciate it,” she said.

“No problem at all. Ready to go?”

She finished buckling her seatbelt. “Ready when you are.”

The few minutes of driving to the gym weren’t a ton of time to get to know one another better, but it would still be nice to get a bit more comfortable with one another. Once I’d gotten past her shell she seemed like a sweet girl. It didn’t hurt that she was very attractive. I wasn’t sure how things would progress, but she might be someone I could try actually dating. It would be nice to have a romantic prospect who I wasn’t going to be working with. Assuming there was any interest on her end, of course. We didn’t get to do much more than exchange basic pleasantries before I was parking at the gym.

Paul met us in the parking lot. “Good morning! Cece, nice to see you bright and early.”

“I didn’t think the half hour would make a big difference, but I’m feeling it a bit,” she replied. “Hopefully I’ll get used to it soon.”

“I’m sure it won’t take too long.” As we walked inside, Paul turned to me. “Oh, sorry I didn’t respond to your text last night, Ryan. I’d love to join you for the game tonight. Did you already get tickets?”

“No, not yet. I was just going to see what was cheap and available after work.”

“Let me handle it then. I can usually get tickets through work, they have a block set aside for most weeknights. How many do you need?”