Page 51 of Surrender
Getting up, Colbie made her way down the hall and to her bedroom, where she’d left her cell phone. Picking it up, she scrolled to his contact, her thumb hovering over the green icon.
After getting out of her relationship with Will, she told herself that she would never do this again. She would never be the one calling trying to mend things when she was not at fault. However, Colbie knew that she was indeed partially responsible this time.
She would not take all the blame because he shouldn’t have said most of the things he had, but Dallis had made a valid point. So, that was the reason she found herself pushing the button.
The phone rang several times before going to voice mail. She didn’t bother leaving one and decided that he probably still needed time to cool off.
Placing her phone back down, Colbie decided that she wouldn’t think about it at the moment and would instead grade the homework that her students had turned in on Friday. She had been planning to put it off until tomorrow to spend time with Dallis, but it seemed her plans had changed.
Pouring herself a glass of wine because she always liked to grade her papers over the weekend with one and because she needed one right then, Colbie started going over the papers. However, she knew it would only keep her mind off the argument for so long.
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Colbie found herself looking at the door to her classroom again. She didn’t know how many times it had been, but she was sure it was far more than she should have. Her students were currently taking a test, and the room was quiet. Dallis had been skipping her class all week, and each time someone walked by, she couldn’t help but wonder if it would be him.
Shaking herself mentally, she focused on grading the tests from her last class. She only had a few more to get through, and then she would make sure the project she had planned to give them over Christmas break was in order.
She wasn’t one to give homework over breaks or long weekends. However, this time, she would assign them to watchSchindler’s Listand write a three-page paper about the message in the movie and how seeing it from a different stance or viewpoint impacted them.
She figured it wouldn’t take too long to complete, and it would help several of those who wanted or needed to pull their grade in her class up.
She was making sure it was all in order to give to her classes tomorrow before break started when a couple of her students came up to place their tests in the basket. There were about ten minutes left in class.
Colbie was satisfied with the assignment. So, she decided to start grading the tests that had been turned in.
When the bell rang, her students began to pack up their belongings, and those with their tests still began to come to the front to turn them in.
“Thank you, class. I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Colbie told her fourth period as they filed out of the classroom past her desk.
Once all her students had exited, Colbie closed her door and thought about calling Dallis to her classroom. She knew that he was at school because she’d seen him. He was simply skipping her class.
However, he’d made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to her when he didn’t respond to her text messages or answer her calls. The fact that he’d taken to skipping her class just solidified that, and calling him to her room would mean that she was forcing him to talk, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. So, for that reason, she put the idea out of her mind.
On top of that, she didn’t want to have the conversation they needed to with him at school, but Colbie knew they did eventually need to talk about it because leaving it to boil over would do neither of them any good.
If there was one thing she had learned from her parents while they were married, it was that you should always try to talk out disagreements and not leave them to marinate over time. Well, her father had always tried to do that; her mother had not always been receptive. They had let this situation marinate for five days and needed to talk about it. Colbie was more than sure that if they didn’t and allowed it to continue, they would ultimately end up breaking up, and she didn’t want that.
As many reservations as she’d had and as scared about what people would think as she had been, Colbie didn’t want to separate. Dallis was honestly the best man she had ever been with, and she could, without a doubt and no hesitation, call him a man.
Over the past several days that they hadn’t spoken, she had talked to Lawrence. Granted, he wasn’t always the best person to get advice from; he was the only one that knew of her situation and had gotten to meet Dallis.
Colbie knew that had she opened up about it to her brother and sister, they would support her as long as she wasn’t doing something illegal, and in her brother’s case, he would support her even if she was doing something illegal.
Lawrence had told her the same thing that her subconscious had said. He’d even pointed out that while it wasn’t exactly comparable, older celebrity women dated younger men all the time. They didn’t give a damn what the world had to say about it — pointing out Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore, Mariah Carey, Gabrielle Union, and the age-difference queen herself, Madonna.
Even though this wasn’t just about their ages, and she was his teacher as well, Colbie decided to put on her “Fuck It” crown and enjoy her relationship. Dallis had been right. Once she had thought about it, she realized he wasn’t asking her for much. He just wanted to tell his parents about them. To have the two people he cared about most and who cared about him most in the world know they were together.
Even though it was far sooner than graduation, he was nineteen and could ultimately make his own decision, regardless of his parents’ opinion. However, she knew it would be much easier for them if his parents accepted their relationship. If they didn’t, and Colbie ended up risking her job, she’d have no one to blame but herself. She’d decided to be with him, and she would take responsibility because she hadn’t been adamant enough, pushed enough when she told him they could wait, and she didn’t regret it.
All of this had been running through her mind since their fight, and now that she’d realized that people would always have something to say and others’ opinions didn’t matter, she couldn’t even sit down and talk to him. She was willing to swallow her pride and continue calling and texting him if it was what it took to finally get him to have a conversation with her because, as it stood, she’d only done so a couple of times.
She’d just solidified that decision when her classroom door was opened. Looking over, she found Mrs. Harding and Dallis standing there.
“Mrs. Harding, what can I do for you?” Colbie questioned.
“Well, Ms. Morris, in checking the attendance, I noticed that Mr. Banks was in his second and fourth periods but seemed to have missed third period the past several days. I thought both of you would prefer him doing his detention during lunch rather than having to stay late.” Mrs. Harding patted Dallis on the shoulder. “Take a seat, Mr. Banks, and I trust we won’t have you skipping any more classes.” With that, the other woman left, closing the door behind her.
Colbie’s attention shifted to Dallis once the door was closed, only to find him already looking at her. He looked bored, and she was not a fan of it. He had never looked at her that way, and she knew some of the blame lay with her, but the situation they were in was partially his fault, and she wouldn’t take all the responsibility for it.
