Ever After Drake (21 page)

I go back to being nothing.

I’m given my mother’s
ashes in an urn. Dick tries to talk to me about having a memorial.
All I can think is
who will come?
People from Mom’s work?

Maybe someday. But not now.

Somewhere around four days after the
accident, my phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize. And like
every other call, I let it go to voicemail. But for some reason, I
actually listen to this one.

It’s the private school. They’re
impressed with me and my interview. They’d like to discuss the
possibility of offering me the position.

Well how about that?

The water’s freezing. I’m not sure if
it started out that way or if I’ve just been in here so long the
hot water has run out.

I sit on the floor of the shower, my
arms wrapped around my knees. The water splashes off them into my
face, leaving tiny droplets clinging to my forehead, my hair, my
eyelashes. I blink slow. Feel water drip off my chin and nose. They
open again, staring at the water that streams down onto
me.

Can a person drown themselves in the
slower? If you just put your face in the stream and breathe in.
Could it fill your lungs, stop your breath, and release you from
this painful world?

I have no plans to do this. But I
wonder.

I don’t have the strength to get up
out of the stream.

The temperature of the bathroom
suddenly changes. The shower curtain ruffles and the hooks it hangs
from clink as they’re pushed back. The water is shut off

Someone crouches down and it takes my
eyes a long while to focus on the face before me.

Drake stares at me. Is he scared? Mad?
Concerned? Indifferent? My brain is too frozen to analyze
him.

My fingers are too numb to feel the
warmth of his when they wrap around my hands and pull me to my
feet. My limbs are stiff and cold and complain at being used after
being frozen into place for so long. My vision fades in and out of
focus.

Something warm is wrapped around my
naked, dripping body. Drake runs his hands up and down me, drying
me off. He takes another towel and pats at my hair.

I finally stare at him as he dries me
off. I’m pretty unconcerned about the fact that he’s found me naked
on the floor of my shower. I’m just trying to process the fact that
he’s here. It feels like an eternity since I saw him
Saturday.

“
Come on,” he says quietly
as he leads me out of the bathroom. He guides me to my bed, sitting
me on the edge. He digs through my drawers for a minute before
coming up with an oversized shirt. He slides it over my head and I
find the strength to put my arms through the holes. Drake takes the
wet towel from my bed and hangs it up in the bathroom.

“
I’m going to make you
something to eat, okay?” he says, crouching down in front of me. My
eyes see him, but he doesn’t seem real. Maybe I’m dreaming. Or more
likely, hallucinating, since all my visions while I sleep lately
are nightmares.

“
I’m not hungry.” My voice
is a wreck.

“
I’m making you something
anyway.”

And then he’s gone.

I lie down on my bed, pulling the
covers over me. Something smells good. My stomach gives the
smallest of growls.

Sometime later, Drake appears next to
me again, a plate in his hand. “Here,” he says, offering a hand to
me and pulling me back into a sitting position. He sits next to me
on the bed and holds out the plate.

There’s a pile of steaming scrambled
eggs, a slice of toast. In his other hand he holds a glass of
orange juice.

“
Eat,” Drake says. It’s
not a question and I don’t think I have a choice.

My throat feels dry and unused as I
start choking the eggs down. But as more food goes into my system,
the hungrier I get.

“
I missed school Monday,”
Drake says. His voice is flat. It’s been missing any signs of life
for so long now. “But I went in on Tuesday, just for first period.
I talked to Principal Riker. Told him what happened. Why neither of
us would be in. He understands, but he’s not happy about the lack
of communication. I told him to fuck off.”

The word is so unexpected from Drake,
I actually laugh, sending a small spray of orange juice on my wall.
I look over at Drake and find a small smile on his face
too.

“
I thought he was going to
fire me right then,” he says, his expression growing serious again.
“Thankfully I did it in front of a few other teachers. Mr. Scott
stuck up for us pretty hard.”

My eyes go back to the plate in my
lap. A small twinge of gratitude forms in my heart toward Duncan.
Not for my own sake. But for Drake’s.

“
How did everything fall
apart so fast?” I breathe.

Drake’s fingers brush across my cheek
and I press it into his palm. For the first time in days, a spark
of life ignites in my chest.

“
I guess we just had no
idea of what reality was before,” he says. “Guess we needed a harsh
education.”

I squeeze my eyes closed and feel
everything in me sag in on myself. The plate in my lap slips to the
floor with a loud clatter.

Tears start falling from my eyes
despite the fact that I didn’t think I had any more left in me.
Drake wraps his arms around me and holds me tight to his
side.

“
I spent so much time
resenting her,” I confess. “But it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t
know how to do it any better. And she…she was going to try harder.
She was going to be there for him!”

“
Shh,” Drake coos, running
a hand over my damp hair. “Just take a deep breath.”

“
They’re both dead,” I
say, pressing my face into Drake’s chest. “
Both
my parents are dead now and I
never knew the one, and the other was becoming a stranger. And I’ll
never get that back. I can never fix that.”

“
I’m so sorry,” Drake says
and I can hear the emotion in his voice. He holds me tight, swaying
us side to side ever so slowly.

I lay on the bed and Drake pulls me up
into his arms. He rests his cheek on my head, his hands firmly on
my back. I don’t remember doing it, but I wrap a leg around his,
holding him tight to me.

“
Are we broken?” I whisper
as it grows dark and the hour stretches late.

“
I think everyone gets
broken at some point.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

“
Kaylee.”

The voice whispers through black sleep
that is heavy and warm.

“
Kaylee, it’s time to get
up.”

My eyes slowly blink open. And there
is Drake’s face.

We’re both lying in my bed, side by
side, facing each other. He brings his fingers up, once again
brushing them over my cheek. A small, sleepy smile forms on my
face.

“
We need to get ready to
go to work,” he says, placing his entire palm on my cheek. It’s
warm, and completely comforting. “School starts in forty
minutes.”

“
I’m ready to go back.” I
say the words, not entirely sure they’re true.

“
You’re ready,” he
says.

I sit up in bed, grateful my lower
half is covered by the sheet since all I am wearing is the
oversized shirt. The apartment is grey, but the kind of grey that
is fighting to turn to light. Dawn taking over the
night.

Drake stands, his clothes wrinkled
from sleeping in them all night. “What can I help you with this
morning?”

“
Um,” I start. My brain
hasn’t been functional the past five days; it’s struggling to be so
again. “I’m going to get dressed. Maybe grab us something to
eat?”

“
Mmk,” he says with a nod.
“Then we can swing by my place and I can grab something fresh to
wear?”

“
Yeah,” I say with a nod.
I watch him head to the kitchen. Still a bit surprised to be coming
back into the real world, I pull myself out of bed and dig around
for something to wear. Then I change in the bathroom.

There isn’t much to eat, so when I
walk out of the bathroom dressed, Drake hands me a travel mug with
coffee and a protein bar. “We’ll go grocery shopping after
school?”

I nod and grab my briefcase with my
lesson plans and everything. Drake holds the door open for me and
then we walk downstairs.

We ride in his car, despite how
terrible it is. We stop at Drake’s apartment and I wait in the car
for five minutes while he runs up to get changed. He comes back
down, dressed in dark jeans, a green and white plaid shirt, and a
dark blue sweater.

Once again I’m amazed at how life can
continue on so normal for everyone else when my world has been
rocked by a nuclear bomb. Students mill about the parking lot
toward the school. The busses roll in. Teachers collect things from
their cars and head inside.

I watch them for a minute. Wishing I
could steal their normal-ness, and live in those small
moments.

“
You can do
this.”

I look over at Drake and see support
in his eyes. He places his hand over mine, giving it a firm
squeeze.

I open the door, and step out into the
parking lot.

I’m scared for this day. I honestly
don’t feel ready. I feel ready to walk about my apartment,
attempting to clean up after the out-of-her-mind Kaylee of the past
few days. I feel ready to cook myself lunch and to maybe flip
through the channels. I don’t feel ready to have to face over a
hundred students. I don’t feel ready to have to assign homework and
teach something of value.

But when are we truly ever ready for
anything in life?

I don’t say a word as we head for my
classroom. Drake walks with me. We work our way through the crowded
halls, and every once in a while, I feel his hand on the small of
my back. It’s a reminder that he’s here if I need him, and that he
knows I am strong enough to make it through this day.

At my door, he stops and I look back
at him.

“
I will see you during
break period, okay?” he says. His tone surprises me. It’s him
looking for confirmation, as if he’s afraid I’ll slip away into
nothing again, afraid I won’t be here when he comes to look for
me.

“
Okay.”

I turn and walk inside.

It takes me a minute to figure out
what is different about my class. Something feels off, something
has changed.

It’s my whiteboard. It’s lower. Low
enough I can nearly reach the entire board.

The hints of a smile pull on the
corner of my lips. Because I know exactly who did this.

I didn’t even stop this morning to
think if it was an A or a B day. Am I teaching Ancient World or
Word History this morning?

I’ve just set my stuff on the desk
when Lake walks through the door. His eyes fix on me and his
expression is serious and firm when he walks straight over to me
and wraps his arms around my shoulders.

He’s huge and I’m tiny, so my head
rests square in the middle of his chest and that is as high as it
can reach. But he holds tight and firm with sincerity I wasn’t sure
he was capable of until the other night.

“
Thanks, Lake,” I say,
trying to fight back the tears that want to well up
again.

“
I’m sorry about
everything that’s happened,” he says.

“
Thanks,” I repeat. The
warming bell rings and he finally lets go of me. He takes a step
back, and stares down at me, a good thirteen inches taller than me.
I can see it there in his face. He cares about me.

And I realize then that Lake feels
like a little brother. I feel protective of him. I don’t mind that
he teases me and that he’s seen me cry. I’m glad he’s
here.

My students seem surprised to see me
in class. But they’re on their very best behavior. They pay close
attention. They’re deathly quiet. I have to wonder if they know
what has happened. Do they know anything about Diana and Drake and
me and that complicated triangle? Do they know I’m an orphan
now?

No matter what they do know, I’m
grateful for their respect today.

____

Principal Riker comes to see me during
my break period. I can tell he’s angry. I can tell that if this
were under different circumstances, he would fire me. And he would
have every right to. But he knows the hell I’ve just gone through.
So all I get is a stern look and a talking to that he expects me to
be in class every day from now on.

When he leaves, Drake is waiting
outside my classroom door. He walks in and sits in the front row of
seats.

“
I need to make a quick
call,” I say.

He nods and I pull out my
phone.

It takes me a few minutes to get
through to the headmaster.

“
I’m honored by the offer,
but I’m going to have to decline,” I say, never looking away from
Drake. “Thank you.”