This Girl (Slammed #3)(61)

“Lake, there’s no way I could have continued teaching there. I’d reached my breaking point. I was going to get fired one of two ways if I hadn’t resigned that day.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because it’s true. They would have fired me the first day Javier returned to school because I would have kicked his ass the moment I laid eyes on him. That, or they would have fired me because one more second in a room with you and I would have jumped you, but in a completely different way.”

She laughs. “Yeah. The tension was intense. We would have lost control eventually.”

“Eventually? We lost control that same day,” I say, reminding her of our incident in the laundry room.

She frowns and closes her eyes, then sighs a deep sigh.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s just hard thinking about that night. It really hurt,” she whispers.

I kiss her lightly on the forehead. “I know. I’m sorry.”

laundry room

I SOMEHOW MADE it to the end of the workday without getting suspended, fired, or arrested. I’d say being transferred to Detroit to finish out my student teaching is one of the best outcomes I could have anticipated.

I pull into the driveway and the boys are helping Lake and Julia with groceries. I haven’t even made it out of the car yet when Caulder meets me at the door, beaming with excitement.

“Will!” he says, grabbing my hand. “Wait till you see this!”

I walk across the street with him and grab the rest of the sacks and take them inside. When I set them down, I notice the contents aren’t groceries. It looks like sewing supplies.

“Guess what we’re going to be for Halloween?” Caulder says.

“Uh—”

“Julia’s cancer!” he yells.

Did I just hear him right?

Julia walks into the room with her sewing machine and I give her a questioning look.

“You only live once, right?” She smiles and places the sewing machine on the bar.

“She’s letting us make the tumors for the lungs,” Kel says. “You want to make one? I’ll let you make the big one.”

I don’t even know how to respond. “Uh—”

“Kel,” Lake interrupts. “Will and Caulder can’t help, they’ll be out of town all weekend.”Seeing the excitement on Caulder’s face, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here. “Actually, that was before I found out we were making lung cancer,” I say. “I think we’ll have to reschedule our trip.”

“WHERE’S YOUR MEASURING tape?” Lake asks Julia.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know if I have one, actually.”

I have measuring tape, so I try to think of a way to get Lake to come with me to get it. I know she’s dying to know what happened today and I owe her a huge apology for acting the way I did toward her last night. She had experienced what was more than likely a horrifying event alone with Javi, and I acted like a jerk the entire way home. I was trying to refrain from yelling at her last night, when I should have been consoling her.

“Will has one. We can use his,” Lake says. “Will, do you mind getting it?”

I play dumb. “I have measuring tape?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, it’s in your sewing kit.”

“I have a sewing kit?”

“It’s in your laundry room.” She spreads the material out in front of her. “It’s next to the sewing machine on the shelf behind your mother’s patterns. I put them in chronological order according to pattern nu— Never mind,” she says quickly. She shakes her head and stands. “I’ll just show you.”

Thank you.

I quickly jump up, maybe a little too eagerly.

“You put his patterns in chronological order?” Julia asks.

“I was having a bad day,” Lake says over her shoulder.

I hold the door for Lake, then close it behind us. She turns around and completely loses her calm demeanor. “What happened? God, I’ve been worried sick all day,” she says.

“I got a slap on the wrist,” I say as we walk toward my house. “They told me since I was defending another student, they couldn’t really hold it against me.”

I jog a few steps and open my front door for her, stepping aside to let her in.

“That’s good. What about your internship?” she asks.

“Well, it’s a little tricky. The only available ones they had in Ypsilanti were all primary. My major is secondary, so I’ve been placed at a school in Detroit.”

She looks up at me, her eyes full of concern. “What’s that mean? Are y’all moving?”

I love the fact that the thought of our moving scares her so bad. I laugh. “No, Lake, we’re not moving. It’s just for eight weeks. I’ll be doing a lot of driving, though. I was actually going to talk to you and your mom about it later. I’m not going to be able to take the boys to school, or pick them up either. I’ll be gone a lot. I know this isn’t a good time to ask for your help—”

“Stop it. You know we’ll help.” She grabs the tape measure and shuts the box, then walks the kit back to the laundry room. I follow her, but I’m not sure why I feel compelled to. I’m afraid she’s about to head straight back to her house and I still have so much left I need to say to her. I walk into the laundry room behind her and pause in the doorway. She’s staring quietly in front of her, running her fingers across my mother’s patterns. She’s got that distant look in her eyes again. I lean against the doorframe and watch her.