Page 27 of Love Takes Home

“Ginny, we were in the same place we were last summer. Right here,” Quinn offers.

“You never called.”

“We weren’t sure you wanted us to,” Nicole says.

“How can you think that?”

“You didn’t call us, either,” Linda points out.

“I didn’t think you’d talk to me. I kind of felt like he got everyone when I left.”

“He didn’t get us, promise.” Quinn smiles. “But you also know how it is sometimes for teacher friends. Summer hits and we all do our own thing for a few weeks before it’s already time to think about the next school year.”

“Does that mean if any of us ever quit our jobs, we won’t be friends anymore?” Paula asks, looking like she wants to cry.

“Are you thinking about leaving?” I reply.

“No!”

“I might be,” I confess.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s really fucking hard when all the parents look at you like you’re some horrible person and then all the kids look at you like they don’t have to listen because it’syou. And of course, the moms who told me to my face this week that they don’t want me anywhere near their child because of what I did.”

“What you did? You ended a personal relationship!” Linda smacks the table.

“No. I left him. I walked away from him. And that makes me a horrible person.”

“Why did you walk away?” Paula asks, having missed the earlier conversation.

The alcohol has started to settle nicely in my stomach, giving me that comfortably numb feeling in my limbs. This is why I’m not a big drinker. It doesn’t take much.

“Did you know that you’re the first person to really ask me that? Wait, second. Joker asked while we were out of town. He took me away from the church.”

“Joker helped you get away? Why him?” Linda wants to know.

“My dad asked him to.”

“Now that man is a dreamboat. Broody and hot,” Quinn adds.

“Keep going,” Paula encourages.

“I was standing there in a dress I hated, with hair and makeup I hated. I didn’t look like me. I didn’t feel like me. And I realized if I walked down that aisle and said yes, that was going to be my life. Doing only things he liked. Wearing only what he would let me. And what would happen if I did something that he didn’t like? What would he do to me? And everyone acted like it was more of a funeral than a wedding. When my dad told me I could walk away, it was the push I finally needed.”

“Wait a minute,” Linda stops me. “He had done something already, hadn’t he?”

I looked down at the table, running my finger across the wood

“Should we take your non-answer as an answer?”

“He pushed me a couple of times, alright? Slapped me. But it was totally my fault,” I hurriedly add.

“How is it your fault?” Linda demands.

“I did something wrong.”

“Nothing that you do warrants a hand on your body that you didn’t ask to be there. Ever.”

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