Laura wobbled under the weight of her load as she made her way across the quad. She should have worn different shoes, ones with not so high of a heel. Or perhaps waited until the morning to relocate and gotten one of the seniors to help haul her belongings. At this late hour there was only a scattering of students still wandering around, and their attention was solely focused on their smartphone screens.
Not that she had much, she conceded. One box of assorted files and folders and textbooks. Only what she'd considered as essential after cleaning out her desk and its adjacent bookcase, ruthlessly ridding herself of any excess junk weighing her down.
"It's a metaphor, Hazel Grace," she mumbled one of her students' favorite quotes under her breath.
Richard deserved no less than the trash can, after all.
"I need a transfer," she'd said to Elosha.
Elosha had shook her head, refusing to budge. "What sort of example are you setting the teenage girls?" the older woman had argued. "The man gets to keep his life, his wife, his position, when things go sour. But the woman involved has to move away? Justification in laying the blame firmly at the feet of the female?"
It had been Elosha's suggestion, however, to change staffrooms. Teachers spent less time in them than in years gone by, but she still needed somewhere to charge her devices, eat her lunch in peace, and so forth.
"There's a spare desk in Adama's room, block G."
She'd been backed into a corner. There was no way she could confess to Elosha the apprehension she always felt in Adama's presence. One personal issue with a fellow teacher could be tolerated, but two?
Not that Bill Adama had ever behaved inappropriately. In fact, he'd always acted and spoken politely toward her during their few brief exchanges. And indeed, his reputation and popularity among other staff and students was stuff of legend.
So now, the cardboard box wedged against her hip, her laptop bag hooked over one shoulder, and her purse on the other, she again told herself she had imagined that hint of judgmental scorn in the history teacher's expression whenever she happened to be in his general vicinity.
Suddenly someone was unhooking the laptop from her shoulder. Looking up, she soon saw it wasn't with criminal intent, but the man of her musing coming to her aid. He took her entire load, including her purse, which he hitched over his own shoulder nonchalantly. Without a word, she fell into step beside him the rest of the distance to the staffroom they would be sharing.
"I've given you space," he murmured, pushing open the door with his boot when they arrived. She immediately noticed he'd left it unlocked, but before she could confront him about this situation her attention was captured by its contents.
Books. Hundreds of books. The room had three bookcases, each containing so many books they spilled out onto the carpet around the bottom shelves. There were neat piles of books on the four corners of his desk. Chaotic piles of books were scattered around the rest of the floor.
She twisted her neck, scanning the titles and quickly establishing that they were mostly works of fiction, with only the odd educational tome in the mix.
While she was still taking in the scene, he was dropping her belongings onto her desk. He'd obviously not lied about clearing it off. It was the only bare surface in the entire room.
Then, he hovered in front of the desk, his hands clasped together in front of his body as if waiting. For what, she had no idea.
"Thank you," she eventually said, abruptly wondering what excuse Elosha had given him for her intrusion and just how much he knew about her affair with Richard.
She frowned, disturbed by the notion of him being too acquainted with the facts. Again, she got the sense he would judge her poorly.
"It will take you a lifetime to plow through all these," she said, hoping to change the subject even though neither of them had actually raised it out loud. She waved her hands around to indicate the books.
"That's the idea," he rasped. "I don't want it to end." He raised his gaze and held hers. Using the excuse of testing out her swivel chair's height, she looked away first.
She was forced to again meet his too-blue eyes when he made an unexpected announcement. "Dark Day," he said.
She hesitated. "Edward Prima?"
When he nodded, she shook her head, a wordless confession that she'd never got around to reading it.
He spun around and at the second bookcase, ran his fingers along the spines of the books in one of the upper shelves before gently tugging out an edition of the classic. He did this with such efficiency that she supposed there must be some semblance of order to the books after all.
"Consider it a welcoming gift," he said as he placed it upon her desk in front of her. "Never lend books," he added.
She surprised herself by smiling brightly at this comment. "You give me hope that we can both be professional enough to make their new working relationship manageable."
Instead of calling her out on her blabbering, he returned her smile and simply replied, "Never give up hope."
The End