Page 5 of The CEO's Revenge

“You might be onto something there, Stacey.”

“What else could it be?” Dayton, another teacher, looked at her over my head as he plopped himself on the arm of the chair I was sitting in. Automatically I leaned forward out of his reach while pretending to reach down and massage my feet. Dayton had this annoying habit of encroaching on other people’s personal space. At first, I took it personally, but then I realized that was just the way he was with everyone.

“I just hope they will settle down soon before I lose it completely,” I said as I stood and stretched. I could feel the kinks in my back straighten out a bit and the relief was heavenly.

“Want a back massage? I’m really good,” Stacey offered.

“Thanks, but that would put me to sleep for a week. I need to wake up,” I said, as I slipped my shoes back on and made a beeline for the pantry to find myself a snack. I came back with a bag of chips and went to stand by the window overlooking the parking lot.

I thought about when I started teaching at Dunrobin Middle School. I’d been fresh out of college and getting this job had been the only bright spark in my life. In fact, that summer had been the worst one of my life and one I wished I could wipe away forever from my memories. But now and then old images, three dimensional, moving, complete with color, sounds, and smells, encroached into the peace of my mind.

Almost as if I had conjured them, I felt them begin to come up before me. That terrible birthday… me standing by the ocean, the feel of the wind in my hair as I flung my beautiful pearl necklace into the relentless waves. The glint of the milky beads as they disappeared from view. He gave that necklace to me. I remembered again, how divinely sublime and vast the sky had seemed, and how small, fragile, and broken I’d felt then.

I pushed the painful recollection away forcefully. I was no longer that girl. She was long dead.

As a matter of fact, my twenty-fifth birthday was only a month away. The past four years had been good to me and I supposed I could say I had accomplished quite a lot in that time.

A year after getting the job, I started an online course to complete my Masters in education. I enjoy learning and got that under my belt in two years.

I glanced at my watch. Lunch would end in ten minutes, but I always liked to be there before my class returned. I went to the coffee machine and got myself a coffee before heading back to the classroom. I straightened a couple of desks that had been moved out of place in their owners’ hurry to escape.

As I pushed Simon’s desk back into place, I wondered what it would be like to have a child. As soon as the thought came, I pushed it aside impatiently. To have a child there would need to be a partner. And a partner was definitely not in the books. Of that I was one hundred percent sure. My heart would not be open to being hurt in that fashion ever again. Going to the sperm bank was too clinical for me. Maybe later, much later in life, I would consider adoption. For now, the subject was closed.

I sat at my desk and looked around the room at the teaching aids which had seen better days.

It was no secret that Dunrobin was no elite school. As a school in the poorest part of the state we suffered from a lack of funding and provision. How wonderful it would be if the fundraiser I was working on was a success and we were able to replace all the ancient computers in our classrooms.

I pulled out the notepad I used to keep track of my thoughts. The fundraiser was actually my idea. It popped into my head last autumn. I approached the principal and he had agreed to allow me to plan and execute my idea. I pulled my team together quickly and we worked hard for many months to solicit assistance from the business community.

In just a few weeks Dunrobin would be having its first ever ‘Spring Fair’ in its history. It had been an amazing experience and I was very proud of our progress. Our next committee meeting was next Monday and hopefully we would all be able to report success on all our various tasks to date.

The bell rang for the end of lunch and I put the notepad away and went to stand by the door. As my students poured into the room, my heart swelled with great affection for each little child.

I prayed and hoped our school got the funds we needed.

2

SAVANNAH

My weekend was satisfying. I spent almost all of it painting my apartment.

By Sunday evening I stood back proudly to survey my handiwork. I had gone with a mostly monochromatic theme throughout. Various shades of peach and cream were present in all the rooms, with a pop of color on an accent wall. My living quarters were small; one bedroom with en-suite bathroom, a square kitchen, and a living area that also served as a dining space. It was what I had called home since my college days and it still suited my needs just fine.

My mother didn’t think so. In her words, ‘it was cozy… for now’.

With a dreamy gleam in her eye, she would refer to a time in the near future when God would send her a son-in-law and grandchildren, and I would need to house them for her in suitable lodgings. Whenever that discussion came up, I did not burst her bubble by telling her I had no intention of being in any sort of relationship ever again.

Four years ago, when the pain was so fresh it felt like a knife in my heart, I would vehemently and bitterly insist that I was through with men and relationships forever. She was very gentle but firm and stated that was only the pain talking. I was young and would soon be out and about on the dating scene once more. She believed since I was an attractive and sensible woman the suitors would soon be pounding down my door.

I didn’t argue, but I knew my mind was made up against anything of the sort.

As a child, I’d watched my parents, the love they had for each other, and had dreamed of having a love like theirs. Even as my father lay dying from terminal cancer, their love for each other shone out of their eyes. And afterwards even though she was only forty-one my mother declared my father was the only man for her and she would never again remarry.

I wanted a love like that. And for a brief moment, I thought I had it. But in a blink of an eye it had all fallen apart.

I looked around the apartment. Once he had walked these rooms barefoot and shirtless. An image flashed into my head. Him, leaning against the kitchen doorway, biting into an apple as he watched me make a cup of bitter tea for him. I shook my head to dislodge the bright image of him and frowned. It had taken me a long time to wipe away every trace of him in my space and this paint job was to be the final task. There was to be not even a reminder of the soft blues he had helped me put on the walls so long ago. Or the things our paint-splattered bodies did on the canvass covered floors afterwards.

My eyes darkened. Why was I having all these flashbacks and memories suddenly? It was not any special season. My birthday was weeks away. His was in the fall. We had met in winter. So why all these memories in the middle of March? Why all the thoughts of that devil Max Blackstone who not only shattered my soul, but also ruined me for any other man?

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