Free Picking Up the Pieces by Elizabeth Hayley Page A

nothing on my Lily.
    “Max,” Lily growled at me. “I am two seconds away from using a very unsavory term. So, if you don’t want a repeat of our nightclub experience last year, I suggest you get rid of this trash. Right. Now.”
    And just like that, the memory sprang to mind. Some girl had insulted me and a drunken Lily had called her a sloppy cunt. It was priceless. And as I mentally replayed the vision of Lily, eyes wild, swinging her body around toward the offender, I couldn’t contain my laughter. It started as a smile, that quickly transformed into a chuckle, that then grew to a full on belly laugh. And as I erupted, Lily’s lips began to twitch until she was laughing right along with me.
    I’m not sure when our visitor left. It was too difficult to see with the tears clouding my vision. The only thing I could focus on was the sound of Lily’s laughter as she sat back down beside me.
     

Chapter 8: Lily
     
    Surprisingly, I awoke refreshed and upbeat on Monday, and that almost never happens. In the morning, I took the time to brew some fresh coffee before I left for work, and I even managed to pack my lunch: tuna with a salad, apple, and a small bag of organic popcorn. I’d been making a conscious effort to eat healthier when I could because I didn’t want all my hours at CrossFit to go to waste.
    The day moved quickly as I immersed myself in work, and the next two days were much the same. The students I had this year seemed genuinely nice. They asked intelligent questions, offered to help put the laptops away properly, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the class. They made it a pleasure to come to work each day. But I hoped I hadn’t jumped the gun on my assessment of them. It was still only September. In years past, the beginning of the year had only been a honeymoon phase. Then October came. And with it, spawns of Satan. But I had high hopes for this year’s kids.
    Unfortunately Trish wasn’t faring so well in her classes. As her mentor, I had the responsibility of speaking informally with her on a regular basis to answer any questions she may have and to give her advice. But Wednesday afternoon was the first formal meeting of the year, when the mentors and mentees from all of the district’s schools got together to meet with the administration about any issues they were experiencing. The topic of the lesson was classroom management. Thankfully, though the meetings were monthly for the new teachers, mentors only had to attend once in September and once in May.
    And two times was plenty. Though new teachers—who were just getting acclimated to facilitating a classroom of students on their own—could benefit from such instruction, classroom management was not a topic that I felt I needed to work on. I never had a problem in that area, and after years of teaching, I didn’t think I would start now.
    Trish, on the other hand, was a complete disaster. Instead of telling me privately about the behavior issues she’d been having in class, she apparently thought that a group setting would be the most appropriate place to share her struggles. After Mr. Coulson, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction, played a video of a well-run classroom in California, Trish’s hand shot up. As she spoke, tears threatened to fall from her eyes. “My class doesn’t look like that,” she said.
    “Well, what does it look like, Trish? Please, share with the group.”
    No, Trish. Please don’t share with the group. I felt my eyes grow wide with embarrassment as I anticipated what she might say.
    “I found out this morning that the kids who sit against the wall in my fifth period class have slowly been chipping away at the drywall behind my poster of Edgar Allan Poe,” she blurted out. “They were all laughing today, and I saw them crowding around one spot, so I knew something was going on. When I managed to get them out of the way, I saw that they’d dug a hole through the wall. You can see through the other side into