A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!
April 8th 2022
Chapter 98
Our Growth Into Identity
"How was the mall?" Lucas asked when he came up the basement steps with his third run of laundry baskets full of clean clothes to put away and nearly ran into Maya. He'd thought he'd heard the car a minute before, and now here she was, closing the door after coming in. She still had her bags in hand, and she only looked at him for a second before moving forward, unburdening herself by setting everything on the couch and turning to him once more. The look on her face made him set the baskets down and approach her. "What happened?"
"I…" she started, then paused, frowned to herself, and let out a breath before looking at him again. "There's a thing," she confirmed, "But I can't talk about it, okay?" He didn't have to ask her to elaborate; he understood. It was just a part of her job, and her position, that there would be times when she simply could not let him in, not on things that were not hers to tell. She was always honest about it with him, and he in turn would roll with her, following her lead. He didn't know who it was about or what it was, but it would have to do with one of her students, and that was all he needed to know, that and the awareness that, once she could talk to him, she would. Right now, though, he couldn't ask her anything.
"Yeah," he promised. Her look now suggested he had a solid bit of Huckleberry face, but he couldn't help that, could he? He could see that she was concerned, and he wanted to help. They took a moment and finally let out a breath, choosing to set aside the unspeakable topic and returning to the original question. How was the mall? It was the day before the start of school, so it would have been busy. Maya told him about her trip out there as the bags and the baskets were taken up again and carried upstairs to be unloaded where they belonged.
As much as she tried to follow her own lead and put aside the thing she could not speak of, Maya really didn't see how she could not think about it. She would be back in school tomorrow, back with her students, and one of them would absolutely be thinking about their encounter, too, thinking about it, worrying over it maybe. Oh, how she wished they could have had more time today, but it had all happened so fast…
She hadn't even been planning to go out there today. They were headed to Rosa and Jenna's place for dinner later on, and she'd had it in mind to just fall into weekend mode, join Lucas for laundry… Between the two of them, and her sisters, and Marianne, and the triplets, it usually meant so many loads, and it had always been one thing that she and her husband loved to handle together… But then she'd woken up with this idea in her head, a new project for her classes, and it was one of those ideas that just would not let go, would not be ignored, enough so that she'd made up her mind by the end of breakfast. She would just go out there and quickly pick up the supplies she needed and come right back.
That was in itself a… challenge. It would usually end up that, with the 'creative valves' cranked all the way open, her mind would tend to wander. She would start and think about other things they might need back home, too. And right now, with September coming on and October right after that, she'd veered right from collecting her supplies for the new project into thinking about Halloween, and about her two October girls' birthdays coming up. It was a big number for both of them, how could she help it? Ella would be turning twenty, and Marianne… her little pumpkin was turning five! She wasn't going to go overboard, no, especially so soon, but she couldn't be blamed for exploring options a little, could she?
She was only walking by the store, not looking to go in, but it simply happened that she'd looked to the side for a second and her brain had registered a familiar face, seen barely long enough for her mind to go 'hey, there's Cody…'
It was really a case of right place at the right time because he wasn't even in full view, but he'd been standing just enough in the gap between the clothes stands for her to see him and recognize him while she passed by. And after that, once she'd stopped and acknowledged that she'd seen him, she didn't know why she decided to go in and say hello, but she did. Most likely, she'd figured he was either there with his mother, and she had been meaning to thank her for a tip she'd given her the last time they'd seen each other. If not that, then she'd assumed he was taking his lodger around for a trip through the stores on their last day before the start of class and she wanted to see how Carina was settling in. Either way, she went into the store.
The spot where she'd seen Cody Marshall was actually kind of isolated, in the full layout of the store, enough so that, other than the gap in which she'd seen him, the only other way to reach him was to go around, landing in that corner. It would be the perfect place for someone to sort of drift off, to make use of the tall mirror on the wall… Whether it was that promised isolation, if only temporary, or not, the soon to be sophomore was inspecting a row of sundresses hanging in front of him, touching the fabric on the flowy skirts, the bright colors, and he looked… happy? Here was something that was interesting to him, even as he displayed a sort of clumsiness in his exploration that she couldn't quite put into words. Whatever it was, he had clearly been getting lost in his curiosity, enough so that he wasn't thinking about where he was anymore. It was just him and these pretty dresses… He took one hanger off the rack, moved to hold it before himself in the mirror, and the way he carried himself felt so different to what Maya had seen of him in the past year, so much so that she forgot herself, too.
It was the mirror that gave them both away. He saw her reflection in the corner, and he froze up at once, hands fidgeting until he lost grip on the hanger and the dress, both of these falling to the floor with a muffled clattering sound. He didn't turn to look at her. He just slipped through the gap, the same one through which she'd first seen him, and by the time Maya could move back out into the open, he was nowhere to be found. He'd left the store.
She did look for him out in the mall a little. She spotted Carina Mendoza coming out of the store a few minutes later with her phone in her hands, looking like she was trying to figure out where her new classmate/host had disappeared off to while she'd been trying on a few things. So at least on that, Maya had assumed correctly… With that in mind, she chose not to pursue Cody. Wherever he'd ended up, Carina would find him, and hopefully all would be well. Part of her still felt like she needed to find Cody, still couldn't help but want to make sure that he was okay. She couldn't say for certain exactly what it was that she'd walked in on, and she wasn't about to force herself into a conversation that her student did not want to have. She had to hope at this point that Cody would know her enough to understand that, if he did want to talk, her door would always be open to him.
It took her a little while before she could remember what she'd been doing before, and what she still needed to do before heading on home. She stopped and got a milkshake, sat for a few minutes, and looked through the supplies she'd picked up so far, recalled where she'd been headed… Yes, now she knew where she'd been going before… before…
Oh, who was she kidding? She wasn't going to be able to ignore this, was she? That wasn't who she was as a person, and as a teacher, well… From the moment her students walked into her class, they became part of her world, and she became a part of theirs, if only for the space of four years. With some of them, naturally, with how they'd have any kind of external connection, that part she'd play would be more involved, yes, but then the others, those who were for the most part the 'standard' student experience… Even if she would rarely interact with them outside of class, if she ever saw that something was going on with them, in the vast array of high school situations, she couldn't just remain indifferent. Some events would rank low on the involvement scale, but others would have her feel like she needed to have her eyes and ears open at all times, if there was any chance of the student in question being in any kind of trouble or danger.
She didn't know exactly what was going on with Cody, but that brief encounter was enough to land him officially on the radar side. What would this day mean for him? She wondered… It wasn't just that she'd seen him, he had been seen, in a moment that was clearly not meant to have happened, not like that. He'd let his guard down, probably not intentionally, and now one of his teachers knew… something. It might not matter that she was the teacher in question, the fact that someone knew would be enough to leave him unsettled.
The more Maya thought about it, the more she wished she'd been able to find him and talk to him. She couldn't get the image out of her head. Not the part where he'd seen her and bolted but the one before that, when he'd still believed no one was there and he was in his moment. All through freshman year, the part where she'd been home on leave, communicating with him primarily through his diary, and then back teaching at school, he'd been one of her less involved students, less vocal, just coasting by. She could try as much as possible to get kids like that to get involved more, to really make something significant in her class, but there was really only so much that she could do if they weren't going to put in the effort in return.
For what she'd seen of Cody the year before, all she'd known was exactly what he had shown her. He didn't make waves in class. He came, he did the work. It wasn't the most personal or creative, but he did it all. He was on the basketball team, and going by the cover of his diary, which was one of the rare things she'd seen from him that felt like it was part of him, he genuinely loved the sport a lot. His conversation with Marianne that day at the ranch came to mind now, and it made Maya smile… It also left her to wonder some more. With how little she actually knew about this boy, it really wasn't impossible that there could be this whole other side of him she hadn't known about, her and who knew who else. Sitting there with her milkshake, she did wonder what had driven him to that moment back in the store. Just because he was a boy, it didn't mean he couldn't like dresses, though she could think of any number of people who would think otherwise. Then again, maybe that wasn't exactly it, maybe 'boy' didn't fit him, maybe he was starting to figure that out, or he already knew, but…
Once she'd gotten to that point, it had become infinitely clear that she wasn't going to accomplish anything by digging deeper and deeper into that hole, not that day, not sitting at the mall with what she finally saw was an empty cup. She'd finished her milkshake.
So, she'd finished her shopping and returned home. And Lucas had been there, and immediately she'd known… She couldn't tell him. Oh, with just about anything, she could confide in her husband and trust that no one would hear a word of it. If she told him that she'd seen Cody Marshall getting lost in a happy bubble while looking at dresses, no one would ever know, certainly not through him. But this… It felt too personal. She'd already invaded upon it, and sure, it had been an accident, but that only left her with this responsibility in her heart, to guard Cody's secret as much as he would want it to be guarded. It wasn't her place to decide who else knew. All she could do and did do was tell her husband that there was something she couldn't tell him about, and there the matter ended.
"Hey…" Lucas propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her, that night, as they climbed into bed and she lay there on her back, staring at the ceiling. It took a few seconds before she came back from so far away and looked at him.
"Mmm?" she asked. He just smiled. She sighed and turned on to her side, facing him, so he lay back down, draping his arm around her back. "Here I thought the new year was going to start off with a bang already with my sisters and the others coming into class…"
"Maybe it's making up for lost time, since you weren't there half of last year," he suggested, and despite herself she snorted. He would be able to deflate the tension this way. Taking her response in stride, he drew her closer, kissing the side of her head as she embraced him in return.
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't mind it not getting ahead of itself too much. I'd like to enjoy being back in school again."
"You will. You always say it's your favorite part, the start of the year." She hummed in agreement. "Until your next favorite part comes along. And the next one… You know what I'm starting to get?"
"That the whole year's my favorite part?" she looked up at him, and he nodded. "Ah, you caught me. Actually, I have another favorite part."
"Is it the one where you're back here with us?" he guessed, and she smiled and nodded before stretching up to kiss him. Alright… She could get into this new year, no matter what it brought.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
