To Tell
Cayden
I knew that I didn't have to tell Joe. I could have just pretended that I was really tired. Which was true, actually – I had fallen asleep for several hours. I could have not talked about it at all. I could have faked stupid when he asked me what was wrong. I could have gone on and pretended like I was okay; like nothing had ever happened. But he wasn't stupid. It's not really any of his business…
But I decided that I was through hiding my past from him. He'd been nothing but sweet to me, and he deserved the truth. So, I washed my face to get rid of the tear trails and I changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt before refixing my hair into a ponytail and opening my door. It took a surprising amount of courage to walk down those stairs and not rush back into my room and lock the door and bury myself under the covers.
Even though it was two in the morning, Joe was still up, staring at the computer screen, going through files. He looked up when I came in and said, "Hey. You okay?"
I sighed. "There are some things that you should know, if you want to date me. I mean, you are dating me…but if you want this to be serious."
He nodded and set the computer aside. "Go ahead."
I sat down on the lounge chair and sighed. "What did you find in the files?"
"The plan for Saudi Arabia," he said. "They're going to try to kidnap an American ambassador in March. I sent the info to Langley. I'm not sure what they'll do about it…maybe just not send the ambassador at all."
"Good," I nodded. "That's good."
He looked at me closely, concerned. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Just listen," I whispered. And I took a breath. And then another, trying to find my voice. "That class that I got a D in was AP World History. Well, actually, every class was AP at my school, but still…"
He gestured to the computer, confused. "But you just got all of those questions right."
"I know," I said. "I got a D that second semester on purpose. I was going to fail, but then I would have had to take summer classes and I didn't want the hassle. I was a senior and I needed to get graduation over with."
"Why would you get a bad grade on purpose?" he asked, confused.
"For the same reason that I quit the soccer team."
"You played soccer?" he asked, surprised.
I nodded and took a few moments to catch my breath and blink back tears. God, why was I so emotional about this?
Finally, I said, "Yes; I played soccer. I was good, actually. Right after high school, I was going to play for the National Team. They had begged me to join the team before, even when I was in high school, but I put it off. You asked what I did in high school if I wasn't the chess club president. Well, I was valedictorian and I played soccer. Both of which I forfeited."
"Why?" he asked.
"I had a teacher," I said. "His name was…" I choked up a little bit. "His name was Jack McBradden. He was my world history teacher my senior year and also my soccer coach from grades nine through twelve, up until I quit."
"What happened to him?"
I took a breath. "This is a long story, Joe."
He looked at his watch. "Well, we have…" Then, he looked up at me. "Two weeks. So get started."
I drew my knees up to my chest and sighed. "He was a new coach when I had first started the school as a freshman. He was young – only twenty-two – but he had gone through some really advanced courses to get his PhD in history and teach at our private school. And they got him to coach soccer because the other coach was getting on in years and, as it turns out, Jack McBradden had been a star soccer player. He could have played for the National Team if he had wanted to."
"So he was your favorite teacher?" he asked, listening carefully and keeping his eyes on me.
I nodded. "Yeah; he was everyone's favorite teacher. Hands down; there was no contest. He was funny when he taught, whereas most of the other teachers were monotone old people that didn't have lives apart from teaching. He was vibrant and his classes were the most sought after. Of course, I didn't get to get in any of his classes until I was a junior, when he taught a couple of classes of AP US History. In fact, I don't think that he had a planning period that year. Everyone wanted to be in his classes."
I took a breath before I could go on. "And it was the same story on the soccer field. We won every single game and a state championship that first year. The way that he coached was so smart… He could demo all of the moves and he really knew what he was talking about. He knew every player; he knew what needed to be done. Of course, we had those kinds of girls, too…"
"What kind?" he asked.
Shelby Carlton, Rachel Gladd, Emily Vance… "The girls that only got into soccer because of Coach."
"How do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean, they liked the way that he looked. They thought he was hot. Everyone did. You should have seen some of the notes that were passed around. Girls wanted to marry him, for Christ's sake. It was all any of the girls in the school could talk about. So, some girls signed up for soccer because they thought maybe that was the way to get him to fall for them. Of course, they got out pretty quickly because soccer was way harder than they had thought that it would be."
"So he was the kind of guy that girls fawned over?" he asked.
I gave him a small smile. "I bet you're used to that, huh?"
He chuckled. "Continue."
I took another breath. "Anyway, he was everybody's favorite everything. You could probably go back to that school and ask a student who the best teacher to ever walk those halls is and they would probably still tell you that it's Dr. McBradden. People probably still talk about him, though I'm not sure that it would all be good…"
"What do you mean by that?" he asked me, leaning forward slightly, entranced.
I fought back the tears and the memories. And then, I said, "He fell in love with a student and then he committed suicide after he left the school."
"Did the school fire him or did he quit?"
"I don't know," I said. "And I'm not sure that anyone does aside from the principal at the time, Dr. Drake."
"He committed suicide?" he asked softly. He thought that he knew; he thought that I was still upset because Dr. McBradden had been like a father to me – my favorite teacher. He thought that I had just been through trauma then. He thought that he knew – but he didn't. "Was that just so that he wouldn't have to go to prison?"
I shook my head. "No. The girl that he was with was eighteen by the time that anyone found out."
"So it had been going on for a while?" he asked.
I nodded. "She was on the soccer team and it had been going on for a couple of years."
"And no one noticed?" he asked, surprised.
I shook my head. "No one. Everybody was too busy fantasizing about him."
"She was on the soccer team…" he said. "Did you know her?"
I nodded and blinked back tears. "Yeah, I did. I do."
"What was her name?" he asked gently.
"Her name was Aidan Smith," I said softly. I took a breath. "But she moved out of town as soon as she graduated. She left and no one ever heard from her again."
"Did she commit suicide?" he asked.
"No."
"But wait," he said, confused. "You said that no one ever heard form her again…"
"They didn't," I said and I finally looked at him as a tear fell. "She changed her name to Cayden Sanders."
Joe
I was completely frozen for a minute. And Cayden – or maybe Aidan – waited patiently, her eyes never leaving mine. Finally, I said, "So your real name is Aidan Smith?"
"Only if you choose to look at it that way."
I raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
She sighed. "I'm not Aidan Smith anymore. I've been Cayden Sanders for a little over six years now. I'd like to think that that's who I am now."
"But your name, at birth, was Aidan Smith?"
"Yes," she nodded.
I took that in. "So, would you like me to call you Aidan?"
"No," she said and another tear fell, leaving me with the urge to kiss it away. "My name is Cayden."
I nodded slowly and shifted on the couch. "So, you left because…because you loved him?"
She thought about it for a minute. "Not really. I left because I couldn't be there anymore. Because he had completely changed me and without him…I just wasn't me anymore. I had to find a new me. So, I changed my identity and went to the academy at Quantico."
"How did you change your identity?"
"Come on," she rolled her eyes. "I'm a mega-genius. I found someone that had died recently that was around my age and had my hair and eye color. It was lucky, really. Not too hard to destroy the birth certificate."
"So, he committed suicide."
"I'm not sure I believe that," she whispered. "He would have found a way to tell me goodbye."
"So what do you think happened?"
She looked down at her knees. "I think my dad killed him."
"Your dad?"
"He was the one that found the body," she explained. "How convenient is that? And he was a cop; no one would have suspected him. And I knew that he wanted him dead. I heard him talking about it on the phone one night."
"How did your dad even find out?"
More tears fell from her eyes but she looked right at me. "One of the sergeants, Ted Newman, his wife saw me at Planned Parenthood. And Coach was with me. And she found out what I was there for."
"What were you there for?" I asked. "Birth control?"
She shook her head. "I had already been on birth control."
"Oh no…" I breathed.
She nodded her head as more tears fell. "You don't understand; I couldn't have that baby. The National Team was recruiting me – I was going to go to their camp in less than a year, be a part of their team. I was going to play in the Olympics and I couldn't have a kid. I thought…" she choked up and put a hand over her mouth. I wanted to go and comfort her, but I was frozen. "I thought that we would have time to have another kid together," she whispered. "He didn't really want me to have the abortion, but he agreed for me. I'm sure that he thought we had more time, too."
"So, this thing with him…" I took a breath. "It wasn't just a fling?"
She shook her head. "It was the most real kind of love that I had ever felt."
"Do you still love him?"
"Yes," she admitted and my heart fell. "But what good does that do me if he's six feet under?"
"I don't think you can ever stop loving your first love," I said quietly. Not that I would know. I had never fallen in love with someone before Cayden came along.
She nodded. "Me either. But I think that you can love again."
I looked at her and gave her a smile. "Do you think that you could fall in love with me?"
And my heart soared when she said, "I think I already am."