Breaking the Rules: The Honeybees, book 1 (18 page)

Well, there was nothing to do but start over. I’d have to find another way of making new friends, some other exercise to do to get healthy. A
new
new hobby. Another goal.
 

But it was so much harder this time around. There was no hint of excitement in turning my life upside down like there had been with Matt. That had been hard, but I had seen the possibilities of what could happen, the life I could have—an actually perfect life, unlike the one I’d been fooling myself into thinking I was leading when in fact there were growing cracks in the shiny exterior. No, this time the thought of starting over brought only pain. I’d thought I’d found my happiness, my hobby, my partner.
 

At the thought of Devin, I cringed. I missed him for sure, but there was just no way I could allow that uncertainty, that spontaneity, back into my life. If he had toppled my careful planning once, he could do it again. He and Taco, they were quite the team. Living, breathing hurricanes, those two.
 

If Taco were here now, what would he be doing?
I wondered without meaning to. He’d probably have been snuggled up at my feet, pretending not to eye the cookie but secretly waiting for his moment to pounce. If I’d gotten up to use the bathroom, if I’d turned my back for a split second, that cookie would’ve disappeared into his belly.
 

I smiled to myself at the thought of the naughty dog, then felt a wave of pain. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t allow him back into my life.
 

And what would Devin be doing if he were here?
He’d be comforting me, offering to make the tea for me. He’d probably want to make some crazy kind, I decided, or would add the fresh herbs from my windowsill into the tea.

He was such a goofball, always doing things just a little bit different from everyone else. I missed him so bad it hurt like a big gaping wound in my chest—like a broken leg. But I just couldn’t be around him, for my own good.
 

And how could he be so irresponsible? Taco had escaped from Devin once because he’d wiggled out of his collar. It was the whole reason I’d found him. But to let it happen again? And when it was so important?
 

No, I thought. Devin was negligent and irresponsible. Fun as he may be, I just didn’t need someone like him in my life. I’d been right that very first time we’d talked about Taco—I’d been right that he was a bad dog owner.

For now, I decided, I just had to get through the rest of the school year. And I’d do it by eating right, exercising with my arms however I could, getting a full eight hours of sleep each night, and returning to the normalcy I hadn’t had with Devin around. I’d do whatever it took to feel grounded and stable. I’d move on with my life once and for all.
 

Determined, I stood up, then almost fell over right away in pain. I still wasn’t used to having a broken leg, and I’d forgotten that even simple tasks like standing up weren’t as easy as they used to be. I grabbed the crutches and positioned them under my arms, then picked up the mug to take it to the sink.
 

Every little thing involved so many steps!
Why
did this have to happen?! Why did everything have to be taken away from me? In frustration, I let out a guttural scream in the empty apartment, and my fists clenched reflexively. As they did, the mug slid out of my grasp. I started to dive for it, but the crutches anchored my arms in place, and pain shot through armpit as the top of the crutch dug into my skin and muscle.
 

The mug crashed to the floor, and, almost in slow motion, I watched it shatter into dozens of pieces around me.
 

Suddenly shaky, it was all I could do to hobble over to the armchair before collapsing onto it, my breath coming in ragged gasps. And then I was sobbing and shaking, not holding anything back, mourning my loss of mobility, mourning the marathon, mourning losing Taco, mourning how I’d appear to all of my old classmates at the reunion, but most of all mourning losing the man who made me feel more alive than anyone I’d ever met.
 

By Wednesday, I was getting much more comfortable with the crutches—which was a good thing, because it was the day of the museum field trip. Ms. Mayfield had offered to go in my place, but I assured her that I was capable of herding my class around the space, at least with help from the parents who had volunteered to chaperone. Secretly, though, I hoped it was true. I was also grateful for the distraction from thinking about everything that my mind had been mulling over nonstop for the past two days.

“Ms. Burleigh, what happened?” my students had asked, wide-eyed, when I’d shown up to school on Tuesday.
 

“I fell,” I told them simply, and they accepted the explanation with a naiveté that I appreciated. By Wednesday, it was old news.
 

With lots of help from the parent drivers, I got the kids to the museum right on time. “Are you excited?” I asked Angelina as we all shuffled through the door to meet our guide, the kids holding the hand of their assigned buddy.
 

She nodded solemnly, but I saw her eyes sparkle as she stared around her at the art on the walls. “It could be your work here someday,” I told her.

The guide came out to greet us. “I’m Miss Martha,” she told the group, and explained the museum rules: no touching the art, stay with the group, no yelling. I zoned out a little as I looked around me, thinking of the art gallery I’d visited with Rachel. I’d have to text her, I decided, to make sure she was coming to the reunion. It had been so good to reconnect with the Honeybees, all of them, and I couldn’t imagine the reunion without any one of us.
 

Martha led the group around the museum, explaining in the simplest possible terms what the artists were trying to accomplish. She was good, I thought, asking the kids what they thought and how the pieces made them feel, asking them to identify the main colors—though some, I noticed, like Brandon, were much more absorbed in their own shoelaces than in anything going on around them.
 

Oh well. They couldn’t all appreciate it. At least Angelina was hanging on Miss Martha’s every word, nodding along and staying carefully behind the tape lines on the floor as she examined the pieces. I was so proud of her. She was so much more mature than her five years.

We shuffled into the next room, the sound of tiny feet and whispered voices punctuated by the
thump
of my rubber-tipped crutches.
 

“Now, what do you all notice about this piece?” Miss Martha asked, standing in front of a large paper collage.
 

“It’s a sun!” a tiny voice said.
 

“That’s right,” she said. “It’s made to look like a sunset—here’s the sun, the land, and all the pretty colors in the sky. Does everyone see that?”

“Yes,” the group chorused.
 

“What else do you notice?” she asked. “What’s it made of?”

The class shuffled. A few kids shrugged. Brandon and his friend Jeff made gun noises at each other. The kids were starting to get antsy, and I just hoped they’d stay on track long enough to finish the tour.
 

“It’s made of paper,” came Angelina’s voice from the crowd.
 

“That’s right!” Miss Martha said, and I beamed at the back of Angelina’s head. “This is called a collage. It’s a bunch of different pieces of paper, all cut up and glued together to make a sun. I want you all to take a close look at this collage and see if you can see the individual pieces of paper it’s made from. Just be careful,” she warned. “Don’t get too close, and remember: no touching. This piece is very, very delicate.”

The students shuffled forward toward the artwork as the parents rushed to buddy them back up in an attempt to organize the mass of children. I watched as they glanced at the piece and shuffled away. When it was Angelina’s turn, she went up to the art and examined it carefully, looking closely at all the different colors it was made from.
 

In the back of the room, Brandon and Jeff were getting rowdier, and I went over to touch them on the shoulders. “Boys,” I said. “Not in the museum, okay? Have you gone to look at the art yet?”

Jeff looked up at me wordlessly, but Brandon kept going. “Pow, pow, you’re dead!” he said, aiming his imaginary gun at Jeff’s head.

“Brandon!” I said sharply.

“Pow!” he said again, even louder this time, and ran full speed at Jeff.
 

Jeff screamed.
“Stop!”
he yelled at the top of his lungs.
 

Everyone in the room turned to look—and, no doubt, people in other rooms had heard it too. My eyes darted to Miss Martha, hoping she wasn’t confirming any suspicions she may have had about letting a bunch of five-year-olds spend time in the museum.
 

But then, with horror, I saw something even worse. Angelina, still standing very close to study the sunset art, had turned quickly when Jeff had screamed, and had lost her balance. “No!” I said, but it was too late. As I watched, helpless, my careful, perfect protege toppled backward and, struggling to right herself, punched a hole right through the middle of the setting sun.
 

Half an hour later, the parent chaperones had taken all the kids back to school—everyone but Angelina, who was still at the museum with me. We sat on a bench together, waiting for the director of the museum to get out of a meeting and talk to us. I felt like I was a child who had gotten sent to the principal’s office, except this was so much worse.

Angelina had burst into tears before she’d even had a chance to stand up and extract her arm from the artwork. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she’d wailed.
 

But since the initial meltdown, she’d been still and silent, looking afraid.
 

“Hey,” I said, and squeezed her hand. “It’ll be okay, all right? You’ll get through this.”

She looked up at me with damp, wide eyes. “What are they going to do?” she asked.
 

“I don’t know,” I told her. This was a new situation for me too. Would they call her parents, like Ms. Mayfield would’ve done if this really were the principal’s office? Would they make them pay for the piece? How much was a sunset collage worth, anyway?

Angelina looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, then back up at me. In a tiny voice, she asked, “Will they send me to jail?”

“Oh, no!” I assured her, startled. “No, nothing like that! Don’t worry.” Poor girl. I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and protect her from the world. I hoped her parents wouldn’t be too mad.

The museum director’s office door opened then, and a couple of men in suits came out followed by the director, whom I’d met only over the phone. She was an elongated forty-something in a flowing, flowered dress, dark hair pulled back into a bun.

“Come on in,” she said. We sat down in the plush armchairs in front of her desk and introduced ourselves. I wasn’t sure where to lean my crutches, so I ended up laying them awkwardly over my lap.

“Now, Angelina,” the director, who had told us to call her Bobbi, said. “I understand that you damaged a piece of art today.” The five-year-old in me squirmed uncomfortably, but Angelina stayed still.
 

“Yes,” she said abashedly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know you didn’t,” the woman said. “Miss Martha told me that you were asking a lot of really good questions during her tour, and that you seemed very interested in the art. Is that true?”

Angelina nodded uncertainly. “I want to be an artist.”

“Well, I hope this experience won’t turn you off to art,” Bobbi said. “It must’ve been pretty scary to have that happen, wasn’t it?”

Angelina nodded again. I couldn’t believe how nice this woman was being. Hadn’t she been the one Ms. Mayfield had spoken with who was uncertain about inviting kindergarteners into the museum in the first place?

“It’s pretty serious to hurt a piece of art,” Bobbi continued. “But I know that it was an accident, and we can’t change what’s happened. I know you’ll be really careful in the future, right?”

More nodding.

“Good,” she said. “Angelina, everyone makes mistakes sometimes. The important thing is that we learn from our mistakes so that we don’t have to make the same mistakes over and over. Does that make sense?”

“If I hear a loud noise again at a museum, I won’t turn around fast to look because I could fall,” Angelina said.

“That’s right. You seem like a really good kid, so don’t beat yourself up too bad, okay? Everyone makes mistakes,” she repeated. Then she turned businesslike. “But I do need to get contact info for both of you so that we can submit the insurance claim.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief. Of course—insurance. Insurance would pay for this. I wrote down my info and Angelina dictated what of hers she remembered, and then we thanked Bobbi for her kindness and left.
 

Everyone makes mistakes
. Her words echoed in my mind. If Angelina, the most careful student I’d ever had, could accidentally fall into a work of art, then it was true—it really could happen to anyone. Maybe I needed to accept that I too would sometimes make mistakes.
 

Maybe
, a little voice in my head said,
I needed to accept that Devin would too.
 

But I quickly shoved that thought out of my mind.

When I got home that night, there were flowers waiting at my door, a huge bouquet of color. They were from Devin. I hated to admit that after the day I’d had, this was exactly what I needed.

A card tucked into the bouquet read, “Sophie, I’m so sorry about what happened. Hurting you was my worst nightmare come to life. I feel awful, and I don’t blame you a bit for not wanting to see me. I never expected Paco to chew through his leash and run to find us—I didn’t even think he could if he wanted to, but I should’ve known, and I feel terrible.”

Wait
, I thought. Taco had chewed through the leash? I’d assumed he’d wiggled out of his collar, like he had the day he’d run away from Devin so many months ago, the day I’d found him outside the library. The leash we’d used was made of sturdy rope, even sturdier than the one I’d bought from the animal shelter the first day I’d taken Taco home—I certainly never thought he could get through it. I’d just assumed Devin hadn’t made the collar tight enough. I’d assumed this was all his fault.