13

SCOTT

“What happened to your hand, Scott?”

He looked up at Lauren. She was standing over his desk, her arms folded, staring like an accuser. Maybe Lauren was secretly working with Casey. Maybe she was about to pull out a hammer and take it to his goddamn head. His hand was hot fire; he’d bought some salve on the way to school, wrapped it in a bandage, but that was it. He might need to go to hospital.

But would Casey let him?

Let him. He wanted to flip the bloody desk.

“Scott?”

“I burned it by mistake.”

He wondered, in a distant sort of way, if he qualified as a beaten husband now. The thought almost made him laugh.

Lauren unfolded her arms as she sat. Beyond them it was the school sounds, each one more annoying than usual. The wailing and the shouting and the music and the sense of being young and hopeful. But they’d see. All their dreams would turn to shit.

“I want to say something, but I don’t want to offend you.”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re acting weird. You have been all day. You’re not paying attention. It’s like you’re somewhere else.”

He was. He was in the kitchen, his hand pushed against the boiling plate, the agony, the sheer terrifying violence of it. He was watching Casey, as her smile spread wider.

“I’m fine.”

“If something’s wrong, we can talk about it.”

“Why do you care?”

“Your job affects mine,” she said. “The school’s budget is rubbish as it is. You know that. If you go, I doubt they’ll keep me around for the sake of it.”

“If I go? As in, get fired? That seems a tad dramatic.”

“You’re not your usual self. First the picture. Now this. You’ve been staring at your hand half the day.”

He couldn’t deny that. He’d found himself gazing at the bandage far too often, remembering the glint in Casey’s eyes. Pleasure like he’d never seen, nothing like the way she looked at him during sex.

There was a vicious creature locked inside his wife’s body, and it only fed on pain. It wasn’t like him and Natalie, the good mixed in with the bad; this was a knife produced from a bouquet of flowers and driven deep into his guts where all his ignored goddamn feelings were buried. Fuck.

He stared at his hand, warning himself to calm down. “Yeah, well.”

“Yeah, well… what?”

He sighed. “You’re coming on pretty strong.”

She adjusted her bracelet. It was a stylish piece, with a studded silver tree on it. “Says the man who sent me a photo of his dick.”

Scott laughed. It came from nowhere, and it felt good, a valve releasing pressure. “Fair enough.”

They paused, Lauren sitting back, letting her hands drop. Scott studied her, looking at her as the person instead of the teaching assistant. She’d always kept things professional. But she seemed genuinely shaken by his sudden change in mood.

“I can tell you what’s going on,” he said, “but you have to promise to never, ever tell anybody else.”