Chapter 9

Friday, July 26th, 2013

“So, you’ll never guess who I talked to yesterday,” Paul said after finishing a set.

“You’re probably right, considering the fact that as far as I know we have zero common acquaintances.”

“We have at least one.”

“Who?”

“The Ice Queen.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t exactly call her an acquaintance. Neither of us even know her name, unless it’s ‘The Ice Queen’, which I somehow doubt.” I didn’t feel the need to share my own nickname for her, Miss Triple G.

“Fair enough. Anyways, she came by while I was working out yesterday, by myself, since you ditched me.” He gave me a grin to make sure I knew he was being sarcastic. “She seemed concerned that she might have scared you off, but don’t worry, I assured her that you’d be here today.”

Very interesting. “And what did she have to say to that?”

“She just said ‘Oh, good’ and then walked off. I think you made an impression on her.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right. She probably just still felt bad about chewing me out the other day.”

“We’ll see. Maybe this will be a good story for me to tell when I’m the best man at your wedding.”

“Sorry Paul, you’re cool and my only male friend down here at the moment, but you being the best man at my wedding has an even lower chance of happening than the chance of that wedding being to Miss Triple G.”

“Who?”

Shit. “Uh, nothing. That’s just the nickname I use for her in my head.”

“Triple G? What’s it mean?”

“It stands for ... uh...” I stammered, suddenly feeling very embarrassed, “Glorious Goddess of Glutes.”

Paul threw back his head and laughed. “Oh man, that’s great. And now I have an even better story to tell at your wedding.”

“I swear to god I will murder you if you mention that to anyone.”

“Don’t worry, I’m just yanking your chain. I might have a hard time holding back my laugh if she comes over here today though.”

It turned out that she didn’t come over. In fact, she didn’t show up at the gym at all. Maybe she just didn’t work out on Fridays. Maybe she was out of town for some reason, like I was yesterday. Or maybe she was avoiding me? Why am I obsessing over this?

Whatever the reason, I didn’t see Miss Triple G at the gym. Paul and I finished up our workout, showered, changed, and then left to go grab some breakfast burritos before he had to go to work.

“Hey man, I know it’s last minute, but we’re hosting a little neighborhood barbecue at our house tonight. You want to come join us? You could meet Jackie and everyone else. There’s even a couple single women in the neighborhood who might stop by.”

I shook my head and then swallowed the bite of burrito I’d been chewing. “Sorry, that sounds great, but I have a work thing tonight and then I’m having a couple people over to my apartment for a late dinner. Maybe another time.”

“All good, just wanted to extend the invite. Jackie has been asking about my new workout buddy. I’ll let you know the next time we’ve got something going on though, and try to give you more than a few hours notice.”

“Sounds good to me. It would be nice to meet the woman who’s been able to put up with you for almost twenty years. She must be a saint.”

“Fuck you too, dude.”

Even after my workout, I was still feeling keyed up. I wasn’t going to survive the day if I couldn’t find something to distract me from thinking about Riley. What a fucked up surprise that had been. I was optimistic about my chances of avoiding her tonight, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do that forever. We’d have to talk eventually. I tried to tell myself that I would be able to just ignore the elephant in the room every time we had to interact and just do the professional bare minimum, but I knew that wasn’t realistic. She wanted to explain herself, and deep down I knew I still wanted some closure on things now that it was a possibility. I had been able to start getting over it when I accepted I was never going to see her again, but now that I knew she was going to be one room over for eight hours every day I wouldn’t just be able to let it go forever without finding out what exactly had happened between us.

My first step towards keeping myself busy was to make another run to the grocery store and get everything I would need to make dinner for Tori and Melissa tonight. I wanted to impress them, especially after the fantastic dinner Melissa had made for me the other day, but I also needed something where I could do most of the prep in advance since I wouldn’t be getting home from Meet the Teacher until after seven.

My solution was to make a hefty Thai-inspired salad with chicken and a spicy peanut dressing. Everything could be prepped in advance. I got home and went to work, chopping the cabbage, cilantro, and green onions, grated the carrots, and crushing the peanuts for the salad. Then I fixed up the dressing. The local grocery store didn’t have any Thai chilis so I had to settle for jalapeños, but it worked. The combination of the spice of the chilis with the sweetness of the peanut butter was one of my favorite things ever. In all honestly, this salad was just an excuse for me to eat this peanut dressing. Then I cooked and shredded the chicken, adding just a little bit of the peanut dressing to the chicken as well. There was more than enough meat for the salad to satisfy me, so I was sure the ladies wouldn’t feel like I’d skimped out on feeding them a full meal.

Then I remembered that I had a recipe for a Thai dinner roll that Amanda’s sister-in-law Dara had made for us when we visited last year. I had loved the rolls and asked her to send me the recipe. I pulled up the email on my phone and checked to make sure I had the ingredients handy. I had enough time to make the rolls, but I didn’t want to run to the store again. Thankfully I had everything I needed.

I was hit with another wave of melancholy as I realized that I’d probably never see or talk to Dara, or Amanda’s brother Matt, ever again. Matt was six years older than Amanda and had married Dara just a few months after Amanda and I started dating. Going to their wedding had been our first trip together and an early introduction to her whole family. A family that I had been closer to than my own for the last several years. I didn’t want to go home and see my parents for the holidays, so I always went with Amanda to see her family. I had thought of them as my own family, and it was just now really hitting me that when I had broken up with Amanda I was also breaking things off with everyone else too.

I threw myself into making the dough for the rolls as a way to distract from those depressing thoughts. I didn’t have a stand-mixer—Amanda had gotten ours in the breakup, since it had been a gift from her parents a couple Christmases ago—so I had to spend several minutes kneading the dough by hand. Then I had to transfer it to a covered bowl to let it rise for a while.

While the dough did its thing, I spent the next hour or so doing some more catch-up on lesson planning for the school year. Ugh, another reason why I need to talk to Riley. It truly was not going to be possible to avoid her forever. At least I could put it off until we started our work week on Monday. When I finished that I went back to the dough and rolled it out before cutting it into pieces and setting them out onto a baking sheet to rise some more. I’d finish cooking them when I got back from Meet the Teacher. That way they’d be hot and fresh and my apartment would smell like freshly baked bread, which was always a plus.

I went to grab some lunch and then somehow found myself walking around a pet store. Apparently I really was feeling lonely in my apartment. There were a few extremely adorable puppies, but in the end I knew it was a bad idea. I just didn’t have enough time to take care of a dog, let alone deal with training a puppy.

Having guests over was a good excuse to make sure my apartment was fully unpacked and cleaned, so that killed another couple hours. I wanted to avoid looking like a completely hopeless bachelor. The walls were still a bit bare, but I didn’t have many options to fix that today. Frames are expensive, and just tossing up bare posters on wall was exactly the sort of thing that shouted “hopeless bachelor living space.” Just one more reminder for me that I was no longer living with Amanda. She had a definite flair for interior design and the apartment we shared together had looked great.

I flopped down onto the couch with a sigh. The months since our breakup had given me some emotional distance, and all of the chaos of moving and finding a new job had been a good distraction, but I found myself really missing Amanda today. I’m not sure exactly why, but I was feeling the weight of her absence in my life like I hadn’t in weeks. She had been a major part of my life—perhaps even the biggest part of my life—for over six years, nearly a quarter of my time on this earth. I’d spent more time being with her than with anyone else besides my parents, and maybe Kevin, but gun to my head I’d bet on Amanda winning that. She had been an integral part of who I was. How much of who I am today is because of her? Most of my favorite TV shows were things that she had picked for us to watch. My music collection was full of artists and bands she had introduced me to. Almost all of my favorite memories from college were tied up with her. Hell, it had been a struggle to find any good pictures of me for my profile on the dating app that didn’t have her in them. I was overcome with a powerful urge to text her and let her know that I was thinking about her, that I was missing her, but I knew that was a terrible idea. We had broken up for a reason. Fuck, why couldn’t she just have trusted me?

Instead of texting Amanda, I sublimated that desire into sending a group message to my crew up north. Happy Friday. Hope it’s still possible to have a good time up there without me. Miss you guys.

Over the next several minutes I received replies back from most of the group. Not the same without you! from Marco and We need you back for trivia night from his girlfriend Aubrey. Kevin sent I miss our cuddle time at the same time his (soon-to-be) fiancée Sara sent Kevin misses his cuddle time with you, he’s too clingy with me now. Nate asked when I was coming back, and Will made it clear that he was not going to pick up the slack on cuddle time with Kevin. I had argued with myself many times over whether or not this move was the right choice to make. Leaving this group of friends had been by far the biggest item in the Cons column of my Pros/Cons list. I knew I wasn’t losing them as friends, but the distance meant that things would be different.

My phone rang. Sara was calling, which was a bit odd. I picked up, “Hey Sara, don’t you have a job to be doing or something?”

“It’s Friday, I took off a bit early. Kev and I are flying up to Seattle in a bit to visit my sister for the weekend.”

“Wow, taking him to meet some family, huh? That’s big.”

“It’s just my sister, but yeah, I figure it’s time they met. Don’t tell Kev, but I’m sort of planning on keeping him around for a while.”

“My lips are sealed,” I said with a smile, knowing that Kevin was thinking the exact same thing about her. “So what’s up?”

“I needed to ask you about your feelings on something.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, so ... I guess that Amanda heard from Aubrey that you had moved, and she asked her if everyone would be cool with her hanging out with the group again.”

I blew out a long breath. “Well, shit. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. She’s friends with you guys too. I appreciated her staying away to give me some space, but she shouldn’t have to lose her friends over our breakup. It was between us, and it’s not like I hate her or anything. She didn’t cheat. We just...” I struggled to find the right words. “We just weren’t right for each other, not as husband and wife, at least.”

“Are you sure it’s fine? I like Amanda, but I’m Team Ryan all the way.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I appreciate you saying that, but there doesn’t need to be a Team Ryan or a Team Amanda here. We’re all friends. Hopefully I can get back to a point where I can be friendly with her again, too, but I just need some distance. Both literal and figurative.”

“Are you doing okay? Kev told me he talked to you the other day and he made it seem like you were moving on pretty well, but you sound a bit down.”

“I’m doing fine, for the most part, but I’ll be honest, today has been a bit rough. I almost texted Amanda, but I sent that message to you guys instead.”

“That was the right choice. No need for you to do any backsliding. I hear you finally made use of that dating app I made you install?”

“I did, yeah, and that story got even crazier last night from what I told Kevin the other day.”

“Oh really? Something you feel like sharing?”

“Did Kevin tell you about the girl I met on the app last Friday?”

“He did, and he told me that she ghosted you. Bitch must be nuts, where does she think she’s going to find a better guy than Ryan Dillon?”

“Ha, thanks Sara. Anyways, it turns out she’s a teacher at the same school I’ll be working at this year.”

“Holy shit! Really? Did someone tell you or did you run into her?”

“I ran into her last night at our Meet the Teacher night. And even worse, she’s literally my partner teacher. We’re supposed to work together on all sorts of stuff this year.”

“Wow. That’s quite the small world coincidence. How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t even know anymore. I was pissed when I saw her and left before I said something I’d regret. Really didn’t want to blow up at her in front of a bunch of students and their parents. She got my number from the principal and left me a voicemail saying she wanted to talk and I told her I wasn’t interested, but I know I’m going to have to eventually. I need some time to get my thoughts in order though.”

“I know I wouldn’t be able to handle not knowing what was up if I had the chance. You need to be careful though. Work drama is no bueno.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be tough. I wish I could talk to the other teachers I know about it and get some advice, but I really don’t need anyone else to know that we slept together.”

“Definitely not. Well, I need to get going so I can pick Kev up from work and head to the airport, but it was good talking to you, Ryan. I’ll tell Audrey she can let Amanda know we’re cool with her hanging out with the group again, but never forget, I’m Team Ryan all the way.”

“Thanks, Sara. Give Kevin some cuddles for me, and have fun with your sister.”

“I will. Good luck with your work drama. See ya.”

After the call with Sara I made a call to the number I had for Elijah Young’s family, since he was the only one still not signed up for a slot at Meet the Teacher tonight. No one answered, so I left a message. Then it was time to get ready to leave. I took a quick shower and changed before heading out and grabbing a Double-Double from In-N-Out on my way to the school.

I ran into Tori and Melissa in the parking lot. Tori bounced over and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, while Melissa maintained a more professional distance. She still was wary of letting anyone at the school know about our relationship, though I still wasn’t sure exactly that relationship was. I did catch a number of teachers giving Tori a look when she kissed me, so Melissa wasn’t worried for nothing. “Hi, Ryan! I’m so excited about dinner tonight. Can’t wait to see what you have planned for us.”

“I’m excited as well, hope you’ll enjoy it even half as much as I enjoyed Melissa’s cooking the other day.”

The petite blonde blushed and smiled. “I’m sure it will be great. Hopefully you don’t have any more difficult parents tonight. Did you cool off alright from your encounter with Ms. Carrington?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I’ll definitely take any tips Tori can give me on how to handle her, though.”

Tori laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you out, but I really think that bitch just needs to get some. Maybe you can replace that stick up her ass with your dick.”

“Tori!” Melissa gasped. “We’re in the parking lot!”

“Oops.” Tori giggled. “Anyways, I’ve got your back. I handled her last year and you’ll be fine. She’s mostly bark.”

“Thanks, ladies. I need to head in, but I’ll see you at my apartment afterwards. I should be out of here by seven.”

“Sounds good, see you later, Ryan.”

I managed to make it to my classroom without running into Riley. The first student at 5:00 was Angie Sanchez. She came in with her mother and older brother, who looked to be around thirteen or fourteen. Her mother barely spoke English, and my Spanish was lackluster, so the brother served as a translator half the time. Angie was an artist and happily showed me her notebook full of drawings. In the twenty minutes since coming in the door she had sketched out a very impressive picture of herself wearing a cowboy hat. The girl was good. I handed her a Deputy badge and she left with a smile on her face.

At 5:20 I had Santiago Aguilar and his parents. He went by Santi and was big into skateboarding. Santi sported more than a few scrapes on his arms and one on his chin. His father, also Santiago, talked to me for a few minutes about football and invited me to join him and his buddies at a local bar on Sundays to watch Raiders games. He didn’t mind that I was a Chargers fan, though he said some of his friends might give me a hard time about it. I told him I was still getting settled in and wasn’t sure what my weekends would look like, but I appreciated the offer.

Next up was Manuel Garcia. He gave me a solid handshake and said “You can call me Manny.” His mother smirked behind him. She was a single mother and Manny took his role as man of the family very seriously. Manny wanted to be a vet when he grew up. They had four dogs and he told me proudly that he had a job as the neighborhood’s designated dog-walker/dog-sitter. I told him that I had been looking at some puppies this morning but decided I wasn’t in a good situation to be getting one right now. He nodded and gave me a serious look. “You’re right. Dogs are a big responsibility.” Manny seemed like a great kid.

6:00 was time for Inez Green. Inez was big into computers and said she had spent the summer at a few different computer camps and programmed a game all by herself. She got her Deputy badge and I told her that I knew who to go to if I had any problems with my computer during the year.

No one had signed up for the 6:20 slot, so I slipped out to make a quick visit to the restroom. When I returned to my class I found a young black boy and a girl I assumed was his older sister, given that she absolutely did not look old enough to have a ten year-old son. She was eighteen, at most, but very tall, nearly six foot. “I’m sorry, I didn’t have an appointment at this time so I took a quick break. Are you Elijah Carter?”

Elijah nodded. “Yes, sir.”

I smiled and reached out to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, Elijah. I’m Mr. Dillon. Do you go by Elijah, or maybe Eli?”

“Elijah is fine, sir.” Serious kid.

I looked to the older girl and reached out to shake her hand as well. “And you are?”

“I’m Elijah’s sister, Delilah, but I go by Dee.”

“Nice to meet you as well, Dee. Are your parents here?”

“No sir, it’s just us and our dad. He had to work. I saw your voicemail on our answering machine so I brought Elijah after I got home from volleyball practice.”

“Volleyball, huh? You’ve certainly got the height for it. Do you play for Eastwood?”

“No, sir. We live on the opposite side of town, I go to Twin Valley.”

“Very nice. What about you, Elijah. Do you play any sports?”

“Football and baseball, sir.”

“That’s great. I played football too. What position do you play?”

“Quarterback, sir.”

“What a coincidence, I played quarterback. Maybe I could help you out a bit.”

Elijah looked excited for the first time since I met him, but he glanced over at his sister. She smiled and gave him a nod. “That would be great, sir. I’d really appreciate it. My dad taught he a lot but he’s been really busy with work lately.”

“Maybe we can throw the ball around during recess and figure something out.”

Elijah seemed excited and talked a mile a minute to his sister as they walked out the door. It was good to see that he wasn’t so serious all the time.

Elisa Alexander was my last appointment at 6:40. Her mother had an infant in a stroller with them as well. Elisa was a budding scientist and wanted to be a chemist when she grew up, just like her dad. She proudly told me that she had won the school’s science fair last year and had an even better project already planned out for this year but it was a surprise, and I told her that I couldn’t wait to see it.

The Alexanders left a couple minutes before seven. I took a few minutes to check my email and write down some notes from the evening about the students and their families before leaving and locking the classroom behind me. I gave a quick glance over to Riley’s classroom to see a family walking in and I could hear her greet them from inside. I hated how even just the sound of her voice caused me tension. How the fuck did this girl mess me up so badly and so quickly? I beat a hasty retreat from the school and made it back to my apartment just before seven-thirty.