Page 55 of The Reunion

‘If you don’t like being a teacher, why—’

‘I love being a teacher,’ I interrupt, rounding on him, catching myself before I get too shouty. Not because I’m worried about my voice travelling, although, yeah, that too, but because Hayden probably doesn’t deserve me yelling at him again when he’s just being nice. ‘I love my job. I mean, yes, it’s draining, and some of the kids can be right little shits, and the pay could be a lot better for the hours I put in … but I love what I’m doing here. It’s what lifts me back up after I get rejected from a role, or if we have a lacklustre night in whatever local bit of theatre we’re putting on. And seeing the way those kids shine when we do the end-of-term play, or a concert? It’s like a drug. It’s such a high, it’s addictive.’

Hayden’s head tilts sideways and his glasses skew slightly. He looks like a puppy dog – the cute-as-a-button kind that makes me wonder how this man has any sex appeal at all, never mind enough of it to have two children. ‘But you seem very down on yourself about being a teacher. I assumed you must not like it.’

‘It’s not that, it’s … not what I was supposed to be doing, that’s all. Not to mention, it sounds extra pathetic for being at my own school. Literally like I never moved on at all. Like my whole life stalled when I was eighteen. But you—’ I bite my tongue, but ask it anyway, just … mildly rephrased, to try to sound a bit less rude or blunt. ‘Do you ever feel like that? You know, with …’

‘Not before tonight, I don’t think.’ Hayden starts walking and we fall into step beside each other. ‘I just accepted it for what it was. I’m – I thought I was happy with how my life turned out. Tonight, though, with the way everybody else reacted … Between us, B, it’s got me wondering if I settled and gave up too much of myself when I became a dad. I always threw myself wholeheartedly into things and maybe I did that a bit when Margot was born. They’ve got me thinking I should’ve done something different, somewhere along the way. For myself, I mean. With my career.’

‘But – you’re happy? Genuinely, really happy?’

He shrugs. His face is impassive. It makes me annoyed I didn’t pay more attention to him in school to read him better now; he always kept a lot to himself, and his only real tell was that look when he was thinking too hard, too much in his head about something. He doesn’t have that look on his face now.

We come to a stop back outside the caretaker’s office. Discordant strains of instruments tuning up belt from the hall.

‘And you?’ he asks me. ‘You’re not?’

‘I’m …’

Of course not. I hate my sucky, sucky life, that’s why I gloss over everything and present it so spectacularly online, show off the existence I’m not truly living. I hate that I’m stuck here, hate that my name isn’t up in lights, hate that it feels like my whole life is held together by duct tape and blind hope, and even that’s fading fast.

But I … do love my job. Mostly. Most of the time. Overall. I love it more than enough that I wouldn’t want to give it up, or try something else. I like that it’s one of the few parts of my life where I feel so wholly myself, as if it’s exactly where I’m meant to be.

The things I hate so desperately about my life are the same things I hold to so fast, and refuse to let go.

Who knew I had such a penchant for suffering?

I can’t quite form any of that into an answer, though, so I just say to Hayden, ‘Hold my phone, will you? I’ll need to check the labels to see which is the right key.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Steph

‘Most Likely to End Up Together’

Once upon a time, I used to fantasise about my life with Shaun. I had a secret Tumblr account where I’d save things like the songs I thought might work for our first dance because they felt special to ‘us’, or pictures of wedding décor, quotes from books about great loves, and gifsets of my favourite couples from romance movies. I used to collect fragments of the ways I loved him, the life I pictured us having together, so sure that it was forever.

It was silly and naive and …

Sat here on the steps at the back of the school, night drawing in around us, I miss it.

Now isn’t so different, I suppose. I have Pinterest boards where I save inspo of interior design or ideas for anniversary gifts. I have several more dedicated to wedding dresses, food, venues, playlists, gift bags, name tags, cakes – all bar the dress board are shared directly with Curtis, as well as my mum, aunties, some of his side of the family, and my bridal party. They’re organised, precise, but no less meaningful. We do have a wedding to arrange, after all.

But I don’t have anything quite like that old Tumblr account. I don’t think I’ve even got so much of a shoebox of keepsakes; the history of mine and Curtis’s relationship is scattered around our flat in the form of photos and vases and coffee-table books.

I miss the hope and reckless abandon of that blog. And I know, deep down, it’s not just the memories, but what they represent: such a strong, all-consuming kind of love.

Doesn’t it mean something, that I don’t have anything like that now?

Which is not, of course, to say that I don’t love Curtis; I do, very much. But remembering the sort of love I used to have – the first, great one – it makes me wonder if it’s … enough.

I don’t want to think like that. I don’t, because it’s an awful, painful, wretched thought to have, but it slinks into my mind and takes root, and I’m forced to confront it.

I thought I was all-in with Curtis – but I was all-in with Shaun, once, too.

Shaun is watching me closely; a deep crease has formed between his eyebrows, and the weight and intensity of that look should feel like too much – but it doesn’t. It just makes me think he already knows all of the thoughts spiralling through my head, and like it’s safe to confide in him.

My legs feel wobbly and when I take a seat on the top step in front of the doors, Shaun doesn’t hesitate to join me. I tuck my hands between my knees, but my whole body is already angled towards him. One of his hands rests flat on the ground just behind my back. Neither of us are touching, but I still feel so impossibly, dangerously close to him.

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