Free Turning Thirty-Twelve by Sandy James

by one of my bosses, but I still had to face my first period class. I couldn’t stop the tears. The students had gaped at me as if I’d lost my mind.
    Kids must believe their teachers are some kind of reverse vampires. Evidently, they think we retreat to some sort of coffin during the evening and rest until the next dawn when we emerge to torture them. Running into a student at the mall always resulted in the students flashing me one of those deer-in-the-headlights looks and stammering out a greeting. At least when they waved at me in a public place, they tended to use all their fingers. They also think educators are not entirely human. Losing your temper, crying, or any other expression of real emotion leaves students confused.
    I kept my emotions to myself when I was at school. Hell, I kept my emotions to myself everywhere. Yet today, I sat in the teacher’s cafeteria with tears brimming my eyes. 
    I’d trusted a man again, and I’d been hurt.  Despite what Mark had said about how he felt about me, he hadn’t called in six damn weeks.
    Carly seemed a little less happy every day in class, but I resisted the urge to go and talk to her. We exchanged cordial words, and we functioned fine as teacher and student. But I couldn’t ask her about Mark. It would be too embarrassing, and it didn’t seem fair to drag her into the middle of things.
    His ignoring me—discarding me—hurt. It hurt like hell. I hadn’t wanted to let it. I didn’t want to face the fact that I’d let him get to me despite all my promises that I wouldn’t put my heart on the line again. I’d let him in anyway. I was humiliated at how quickly I’d allowed the attachment to form.
    I could have loved Mark Brennan. Then I was honest enough to admit to myself that I probably already did. And how was I rewarded for being open and honest with another man and handing him my heart on a silver platter? It was the same old shit. Mark was no better than David. They were two of a kind.
    Julie looked at me with that compassionate smile she must have floated my way a hundred times during my divorce.
    I knew she meant well, but I didn’t want to talk about Mark, didn’t want to think about Mark. I knew I’d cry.
    I don’t cry in front of people.
    “No,” I finally said in reply to her question. “He didn’t call. Drop it, Julie. Please. I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “But—”
    “I don’t want to talk about it!”
    I shoved some salad into my mouth to give it something to do except talk about Mark Brennan and the fact that he’d gotten the better of me. The lettuce tasted like cardboard as the tears formed again.
    Damn him .
    “Have you tried to call him?”
    If I hadn’t just finished chewing my lettuce, I would have spewed it across the table at the ridiculous question. “Are you freakin’ kidding me? Call him? Call him ?”
    I was practically screeching at the notion of doing something as foolish as announcing to him that he’d gotten to me. The group of male teachers who were eating at another table in the faculty lounge gaped at me. Then they elbowed each other and chuckled.
    Go coach football or some other macho sport and mind your own fucking business.
    “No, I’m not kidding. You’re a grown-up, not some kid in junior high school. Call him. Find out what he’s thinking,” Julie replied before she sipped some of her diet soda.
    “I know what he’s thinking.” I pushed the remaining salad around the plate with my plastic fork. “He’s thinking some neurotic, under-sexed, middle-aged woman came on too strong and way too fast. You know, his silence speaks... volumes .”
    Julie shook her head. “You don’t know what’s going on in his head, Jackie. He could be...I don’t know...thinking about his daughter. Maybe he was uncomfortable dating one of her teachers.”
    I snorted a small, sardonic laugh that made Julie glare at me. God love her, she was trying to make me feel better. I didn’t have the heart to tell her