Page 97 of Sex Ed

My bottom lip starts to wobble and the air sticks in my throat. I am his best friend. ‘Ed, I am so sorry. I messed up. I just didn’t want to see you hurt.’

‘Just shamed and embarrassed instead,’ he says, anger in his voice, and a pained expression like I’ve totally betrayed him. I reach out to touch him, but he shakes me off, taking another swig of wine.

‘I am not the bad guy here. You’re angry but don’t take this out on me,’ I warn him. But the problem is, I am here. In this room. Not Caitlin, not Tommy, the emotions are swirling around, and I am in the firing line.

‘But you’re Mia…’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘I trusted you with all of this. From the start. I let you into this secret that I hung on to for so long. So to get this far and for you to let me down like this… It’s almost worse than what Caitlin has done.’

I stand there for a moment to let that sink in, to let the barb of his words penetrate before I start to cry, properly. Because for all the things I adore about this man, I never knew he could be cruel like this. Not to me, at least. ‘I’ve let you down? Me? I have to go,’ I say, grabbing my things.

‘Good,’ he mumbles through gritted teeth.

‘You can seriously fuck off,’ I tell him, seething.

‘No, you can!’ he yells. ‘I’m glad they suspended you.’

I swivel on the spot. ‘Really? You’re happy my career is on the line? You shit. You know what?’ Tell him. Tell him that despite it all, you might be in love with him. That you hate that you’ve hurt him. That you want to be with him, despite everything. I glare at him. ‘I hope you and your stupid cat are happy together because you don’t deserve me. I’m done here!’ I yell.

Nigel looks over at me from the windowsill. Seriously, Mia? How have I got dragged into this? And with that I leave. The anger makes me want to scream. I stamp my feet, slamming his door and kicking it as I go. Do I grab a box of muffins with me as I leave? Well, yeah, I do that too.

ED

‘Oh my god, Mr Rogers – this slaps! It’s better than McDonald’s, man!’ one of the boys says as he sits down at his desk, puffer coat still on in May, three muffins in his hand.

‘You’re very welcome. Please use the napkins otherwise I’ll get into trouble with the cleaning people.’

‘It even says good luck on the napkins!’ a girl hollers.

Well, if I’m going to theme things I go all out. I sit there at my desk, slightly spaced out, bereft, lost. Like I’ve just woken up from a coma. I didn’t sleep last night. Seeing Tommy at Caitlin’s was like a punch to the guts but knowing that Mia knew all the time and didn’t tell me was the knockout shot that left me seeing stars. If I didn’t feel like the butt of the joke before, being a twenty-eight-year-old virgin, I certainly feel that now. I hear a group of kids laughing at the back of the classroom and paranoia shoots through me, wondering if everyone knows what a complete loser I am.

Last night, I just sat on my sofa, staring at a television show about wedding dresses because I didn’t even have the energy to change the channel. Four hours of wedding dress shows. Sweetheart necklines are everyone’s friend, did you know that? And at 5 a.m., I got up and grilled a fair bit of bacon for these kids. I did the work of a small army of caterers, hoping it would take my mind off things. It didn’t. But look at all these kids now. Even if they don’t ace this paper then I at least did something else right.

‘Mr Rogers, this is bussin’…’ a boy tells me from the back of the room. I hope that’s good. The boy is Jerome Dixon and I’ll be frank, even at sixteen, this kid is cooler than me, to the point where I’m a little intimidated by him.

‘Thank you, Jerome,’ I tell him, watching him read the tags on the bottles.

‘Independent variable, that’s when…’ he says, covering his eyes, ‘…youmake the change to explore its effects.’ He snaps his fingers in the air to get the answer right.

I am pleasantly surprised and give him a round of applause. That’s two marks right there.

‘Sir, you going to prom this year?’ he asks me with a mouthful of bacon.

‘I am. I’m chaperoning.’

‘Have you been on the prom website page and put down two songs you want played?’ asks a girl. This girl is called Olivia Seaman and I suspect she’s part of the prom committee who for the past two weeks, when they should have been revising, have been trying to wrangle the budget so they can get a foam machine.

‘I haven’t.’

‘What songs would you choose, Sir?’ asks Jerome.

‘Well, that is an impossible question,’ I say, thinking back to my Spotify most played lists and a certain person who pored over the songs and laughed. Think cool, Ed. ‘Maybe something by The Weeknd.’

Did I say his name right? Is he The Weeknd? Mr Weeknd? Or just Weeknd. I see Jerome nodding. I may be cool, just a little bit cool.

‘I’ll make sure we get that on,’ Olivia adds, writing something down in a notebook. I better go and research those songs again. They are strange beasts, my Year 11 kids: all on the verge of something great when they walk out of this school in a month’s time, flirting with adulthood, pretending they don’t care. I don’t suppose I am their favourite teacher or that any of them will remember me in a few years’ time but I’m glad they don’t hate me. My class of 2019 – they didn’t care much for biology. One of them actually drew a picture of me in their books and told me Biology ‘sucked serious balls.’ I’m glad I’ve progressed past that year.

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