Hate You Still by Lyssa Lemire

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EMMA

“A test?” Ms. Kimler leans back in her chair, a heavily skeptical look on her face. “I just don’t know, Emma. You know, I read that students can be traumatized by failure. We don’t want to contribute to that, do we?”

“Well, Megan, the idea is to help the students so that they don’t fail, right? How do we know if they’re even learning what we’re teaching if we never assess them?”

I’ve been able to make some progress with Ms. Kimler this year – a lot more than I thought I’d be able to at the end of my first week of student teaching, that’s for sure – but I still haven’t fully overcome her non-traditional classroom philosophy. Not by a long shot.

Ms. Kimler laces her hands over her chest and looks searchingly up at the ceiling. “Hm. I never thought about it that way.”

Really? You’ve really never thought about how assessments can measure whether or not students are learning the things you’re trying to teach them?

Then again, it seems like Ms. Kimler’s never actually thought about, you know, teaching students anything in particular. It’s not like you can give a test on whether you can pound on a drum in a circle while “sharing your feelings.”

I bite my tongue and don’t give voice to those thoughts, though. Honestly, as frustrating as Ms. Kimler is, she really is a sweetheart. She means well.

As if I’m proposing something revolutionary and untested (pardon the pun), she lets out a long sigh as if conceding defeat. “Alright! We’ll give it a try!”

“Great!” I smile. “We’ll schedule it for next Tuesday. We’ll have plenty of time to prepare the kids so they don’t fail.” Thinking of a way to add some amateur psychology justification, I add, “You know, if failure can be traumatic, success can be empowering.”

Her eyes light up. “Maybe you’re right. This testing idea might not be so bad after all.”

She packs up her stuff and leaves for the day, telling me she has yoga lessons to get to. I stay behind and start writing the test covering the last month and a half of math instruction.

Just when I finish, my phone rings. It’s my mom.

As much as I love talking to my mom, it’s sadly gotten to the point lately where I feel an apprehension in the pit of my stomach every time I see her name on one of my notifications. In the back of my mind, I’m always worried that it’s going to be bad news – maybe even the worst news – about Kyle.

“Hi, Mom,” I answer, trying to sound cheerful and trying not to let the unfortunate situation my brother’s trapped in cast a shadow on all the other relationships with my family.

“Hi, honey. How are you?”

We spend a couple minutes catching up. I talk about how my student teaching has gotten better since the last time I talked her ear off complaining about it. She tells me how she’s been on a big pasta-making kick lately. Now that’s a topic of conversation that makes me look forward to my next visit home.

“About your brother,” she finally gets to the topic that always hangs over every conversation we’ve had for the past year or more. My breath stops for a minute, though I’m comforted to some extent by the obvious knowledge that if it were anything truly terrible, she would have told me right away. “Good news,” she finishes the sentence.

I release a sigh of relief. “Really? What happened?”

“He’s in treatment.”

I lean forward in my chair and my jaw slacks open in shock. “Really?”

“Really,” she says, her voice happy and optimistic. “He’s in an actual rehab program. Your dad went to visit him yesterday, and said he’s doing very well.”

I feel tears well in my eyes. But not the kind of tears that were present the last time I saw my brother, when he had a meltdown on my doorstep what feels like a lifetime ago – tears of happiness, of relief.

“That’s so great,” I say, almost choking the words out.

We talk for a bit more about how he finally decided he needed to get professional help, and how he contacted them, and how they found a good facility for him.

I’m so happy to hear it all. As fantastic as my time with Knox has been these last couple weeks, not a day has gone by that I haven’t worried about Kyle. Especially since I hadn’t talk to him since that night he came pounding on my door.

I check the time on the clock on the classroom wall and wrap up my conversation with my mom, telling her I love her and asking her to give my love to Dad and Kyle when she can. I’d like to talk more with her, but I have a deadline.

I have to be home at 4:30 sharp.

Well, not my home – I have to be at Knox’s home by 4:30 sharp. Because I set something up for him.

“Shh! They’re coming!” I whisper to the rest of the people gathered in the darkness in Knox’s living room. Gavin, my conspirator for this occasion, just texted me that he and Knox have just this moment pulled up in his car out front.

It’s October 27th: Knox’s birthday. And I planned him a surprise party.

When he told me three days ago that he’d never had a real birthday party, that sealed it: I had to do something memorable for him.

Knox might like to act like he’s a stone in the middle of a river sometimes, that nothing moves him, that he’s impervious to the emotions that affect us other mere mortals.

But I know that’s not true.

Besides, those days are over for Knox: the days of not having anyone who cares about him, of having to pretend that he’s perfectly fine with a day like his birthday passing by unnoticed and uncommemorated.

It’s heartbreaking that he ever had to live like that. It still makes me cry wanting to think about it.

But just because he had to grow up getting used to that, doesn’t mean he has to stay used to it. Because he does have people who care about him now. People that he means something to – people that a day like his birthday means something to, people who want to celebrate it because they want to celebrate him.

He has me. His roommate and best friend, Gavin. He has Clare, who I was able to bring over and who now hides behind a piece of wall that juts now in Knox’s living room for a closet, since she can’t kneel down to hide behind the couches and chairs in the living room like the rest of us. He has his whole football team, most of whom I’ve been able to pack inside his house here.

And I want him to know that. I want him to know that he has people who care about him now, who are excited to celebrate a day like this together with him. I want him to know that his past is really just that: his past.

I want him to know, to really know and feel, that his future can be so much brighter if he only lets it be.

The door opens and the muttering and whispering between the hiding group shuts up. Gavin flips on the light switch by the door, and then we all jump up out of our hiding places.

“SURPRISE!”