Page 50 of Closing the Distance

I’m so stunned, I can’t even speak.

As if she has no idea the way her condescending attitude has impacted me, she continues, “I’ll need you to prepare a statement for me to approve before you tell your students. I want to ensure we don’t get any angry parent phone calls.”

“Angry parents?”

She looks at me like it should be obvious and she’s disappointed it’s not. “Well, obviously, many will be uncomfortable with their child’s teacher having a child in this way.”

I look around the room for a second just to make sure I didn’t experience a time warp when I walked in here. Nope. It’s definitely not 1950.

It hits me then that I don’t have to sit here and take this. So, I don’t. I stand from the chair and move to the door without a backward glance.

“Lexi,” she calls behind me, “where are you going?”

I don’t turn back as I respond, “Back to my classroom. I have work to do, and I’m not wasting my entire planning period being treated this way.”

I walk out of the office and down the empty halls, but instead of going to my room, I head to Blaire’s. We have the same planning period, so I know she’ll be free.

She glances up when I open the door, and as soon as she sees my expression, her eyes darken and she stands from her desk. “What did she say to you?”

I shake my head and realize I’m trembling, like a low-level vibration going through my entire body.

Blaire comes over and moves me until I’m sitting in her chair while she perches on the edge of her desk. She hands me a spare water bottle she pulls out of the mini fridge on the floor against the wall.

“What happened?” she asks after I’ve taken a sip.

“She basically scolded me.” I recount the whole interaction, and by the time I’m done, Blaire’s rage-pacing back and forth in front of her desk.

“So, just to recap to make sure I’m understanding this correctly, she basically, in so many words, suggested you were a slut and your students and their parents would judge you.”

“She didn’t call me a slut.”

She shoots me a look. “Please, that holier-than-thou attitude? The comment about whether or not the dad was in the picture? I bet she’d eat her words faster than she could blink if she knew the dad was Tyler Russell. She practically tripped all over herself when those guys were here.”

“She wants me to prepare a statement.”

Blaire’s eyes bug out. “She what?” She seethes, and for a second I think she’s going to stomp down to the office and raise hell, but instead she sits in one of her student desks and puts her head in her hands. When she looks up at me, her shoulders have sagged. “Lexi, this is completely unacceptable. This is the twenty-first century for fuck’s sake.”

“I know.” I’m not shaking anymore, but a feeling of dread mixed with exhaustion pools in my stomach.

“What are you going to do?”

“Write the statement.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What can it hurt?”

She stands up as if she can’t sit still because she’s so enraged on my behalf. “Because it’s none of her damn business! It’s literally no one’s business but yours and Ty’s. They don’t have a right to an explanation. All they need to know is you’re pregnant and will be taking the rest of the year off once the baby comes. That’s it.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Maybe if I’d gotten pregnant with any other guy that might be true. But Ty is a public figure. The press will be all over this, and nothing will be private after that.”

Her face pales as if she hadn’t processed that. “Shit,” she mutters.

“Yep.”

“You should talk to the union rep. There’s no way what she said to you is appropriate. I can understand you wanting to write some kind of statement because of Ty’s job, but I don’t think she has the right to demand that of you. She wouldn’t ask that of anyone else.”

“I’m not going to get the union involved. At least not right now. I’ll write the statement and be done with it.”

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