5. The time after the time Helen Cutter told Nick about the affair she had with her best student.
He was screwed. Not literally screwed, of course he was almost sure if he gave Helen any more time to share with everyone, she would have told them about all that too.
No, he was friendship screwed. The kind of screwed where you know that feelings had been hurt, trust had been broken, and knowledge that shouldn't have been shared had been shared.
The look that Nick was giving him was unbearable.
It was so long ago. It was so many mistakes ago. It would have... never should have gotten to this point. If he had only told Nick before. If he never would have opened that door, and cut those moral ties, and did the things he did, said the things he said, said the things he didn't say. If only...
It all didn't matter now, there was no going back, no amount of apologies that could make this all blow away.
The looks he was getting from Connor, from Abby, even from the other people that didn't quite know what was going on, (but they were sure it was something unspeakably bad), all of those looks had no bearing on his soul. It was only Nick.
It hurt so much. The kind of pain that would never go away, never get pushed to the back of his heart to be shielded and never spoke of again.
And she just looked so smug. Helen, standing there with her look. The one that said, 'Haha I just ruined your life again, for the umpteenth time, whatcha gonna do about it?' That look.
That hurt too, but in a different way, in a 'I don't really care about you anymore but if I did... harsh much?' That way.
How Stephen wishes that he could just take it all back. That he could turn back time and make all the pain of past mistakes just melt away. But he can't.
He did this. He made these mistakes, and he was going to have to fix them. But how?
As Stephen watched his boss, his mentor, his friend walk by him without a single glance, and give prominence to the idea that this particular mistake would never blow over. Leaving Stephen with a bitter taste in his mouth, and the undeniably difficult question of: should I stay, or should I go.
He took a deep breath, and decided that this was going to be hard, but that he was going to live through it anyway... at least for right now.
Stephen's head dropped as he squeezed his eyes shut. Only one thought came to his mind:
' I shouldn't do this. I mustn't do this. I can't do this... but I will anyway.'
