Dear Mr. Brody by A.M. Johnson

Donovan

Three days.

Seventy-two hours.

Four-thousand-three-hundred-and-twenty minutes.

And I was miserable.

“Dad.” Anne stared at me from across the breakfast bar. “You’re sad.”

I shook my head trying to remember what I’d been doing. “I’m okay…” Anne’s math homework was spread out in front her, and I exhaled. “What problem were we working on?”

“You’re sad,” she said again, and this time I noticed the quiet strain in her voice. “Is it because you and Parker had a fight? Mom had a fight with Matt a few weeks ago and he bought her flowers. Maybe Parker likes flowers.”

I forced a tired smile. I hadn’t slept well since Saturday. I’d argued with myself so many times. Call him. Don’t call him. Text him. Give him space. I’ll talk to him in class.

He hadn’t shown up.

He wasn’t there.

Fuck, my chest hurt.

“I don’t think flowers are Park’s thing, little monster.”

“You could invite him over. Tell him you’re sorry for yelling.”

“Sometimes saying I’m sorry isn’t enough.”

“Why?”

“Anne… you shouldn’t be worrying about this. It’s adult stuff, okay?”

Her brows knitted together as she set her pencil down harder than I thought was necessary. “I’m worried. You were happy and now you’re sad. And I really like Parker.” Her voice cracked and my eyes started to burn. “Is this like what happened with Mom? Did you guys break up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know,” I said and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

I hadn’t spoken to Parker since he walked away from me on Saturday. He’d said what we had together wasn’t worth it. He and Marcos hadn’t shown up for class on Monday. Those facts alone led me to think maybe we had broken up. That wasn’t true either. He’d told me I had to figure out what I wanted, but I’d known what I wanted for a while now. Him. It was an easy choice. All it would take was a phone call and I could fix this, fix this fucking crack in my chest that pinched and split every time I took a breath. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t call him because it would turn into another argument about who should sacrifice what. He’d say I’d resent him, and I’d say he’d resent me, and round and fucking round we’d go. No. I had to fix this another way.

Anne didn’t say anything more, but her watchful gaze never wavered as I moved through the motions of making dinner. Tuesdays she usually stayed with me, but she had a dentist appointment in the morning. I had an early meeting, or I would’ve taken her myself. Lanie would be here to pick her up in an hour, and I didn’t want to be a broody asshole for the rest of the night. My time with my daughter was limited enough already. I put the pot on the stove to boil and plastered on a smile.

“You know… Mom said The Day After Tomorrow is playing at the old dollar theater we used to go to.”

“No way.” She practically bounced off her stool. “Can we go?”

“I don’t see why not. Maybe Friday.”

“Yes.” She pumped her fist, all traces of worry gone from her eyes. “Yes, yes, yes.”

I laughed as I opened up the box of penne pasta. “I’ll even let you put butter on the popcorn.”

She cracked up, her head falling forward. “And salt.”

“All the salt,” I said, and for the moment it didn’t hurt to breathe.

With Anne here, eagerly chatting away about snowstorms and ice ages, it was easier to forget how shitty the last three days had been. It was easier to forget about the choices I had to make. But once dinner had been cooked, and cleaned up, and the doorbell rang, an old but familiar loneliness had begun to settle in for the night.

“Sorry I’m late,” Lanie said as she walked into the kitchen. “I had to drop Matt at work.” She mussed her fingers through Anne’s hair and bent down to kiss her cheek. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” Anne slid off her stool, and I laughed at the dejected glare she sent in her mother’s direction. “I have to go to the bathroom first.”

Lanie stared at her as she walked away. “She’s grumpy.”

“She hates it when you mess up her hair.”

“She does?”

“Oh yeah,” I said and set the pot I’d finished washing onto the rack next to the sink to dry.

“Well, shit.” Lanie plopped down onto one of the stools. “How was your day?”

“Like every other day.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“Something happen at work?” she asked.

The pinch returned, deeper this time with everything I wasn’t sure how to say.

“Van.” She reached across the counter and covered my hand with hers. “You can talk to me. We’re divorced, but you were my best friend once too.”

“We were.” I lowered my head. “I miss that.”

“Then, talk to me.”

“I’ve been seeing someone,” I admitted, but kept my eyes on the counter. “It’s getting serious… and I think…” I swallowed through my hesitation. “I love him, Lanie. And I don’t know what to do. I messed up.”

“Him?”

“His name is Parker.” I lifted my head and was met with glassy eyes and wet lashes. “Lanie, I—”

She wiped at her eyes, her smile trembling as she said, “I’m happy for you, Van. Truly. I just wish… You could have told me. I would have understood. I should be shocked, but I’m not… you’ve always been, I don’t know. Like maybe, not all there? But you found it.” She squeezed my hand before letting go. “The thing you were missing.”

“You’re wrong, though. It doesn’t work like that,” I said, my voice almost too thick to speak. “I never missed a thing when I was with you. I loved you, Lanie. With everything that I was. I might’ve not had a chance to know this other side of myself, but when we were good, I never needed anything else. It’s different with him, but it doesn’t diminish what we had.”

“You’ve always been good at knowing what to say,” she said and sniffled.

“I wish I knew what to say to him.”

“You love him?”

“I do.”

“Does he know?”

“I don’t think he does.”

Her laugh was light as she wiped at her eyes again. “Hell, Van. Have you told him?”

“No.”

“There’s you’re answer,” she said, looking at me like I was an idiot. Maybe I was. “You have to tell him that you love him. Whatever happened, maybe he’d be more understanding if he knew.”

“Yeah... It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it always,” she said as she fidgeted with her car keys. “Has Anne met him.”

“She has. He’s the one who bought her that big ass whale.”

“I like him already… he’s good with her?”

“Yeah, he is.”

She set her keys to the side and leveled me with a look I knew all too well. “Just tell him how you feel. And if that doesn’t work, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

“You don’t know what I did.”

“I don’t. But I know you, Donovan, and whatever it is… you’ll make it work.”

Three days had turned into nine, and when he hadn’t shown up last Wednesday for class, I’d thought for sure I’d fucked everything up beyond repair. But as I stood by my desk, summarizing the final assignment, he walked into the room. He kept his head down, his hat low enough I couldn’t see his eyes. It wasn’t until one of the students in the front row turned to look over their shoulder that I realized I’d stopped talking.

“Uh…” I couldn’t do this. Fuck… I couldn’t do this. Each breath I took was marked as I tried to collect my thoughts. “Um… what… what was I saying?”

“The final…” someone said, and I ran a clammy hand through my hair.

“Yes. Thank you… The final.”

Parker flipped his hat backward, his blue gaze penetrating. His chest rising and falling in quick succession as he stared at me. The dark circles under his eyes made me wonder if his nights had been as restless as mine.

I counted to five in my head before he looked away.

“When did you say it was due?” another student asked, and I remembered where the hell I was.

“Friday,” I said, and tore my eyes away from him. “The final assignment is due on Friday, but you have all of next week to turn in any late work since we don’t have an actual final exam.”

I did my best, going over the assignment while stealing glances at Parker. The handful of times he’d caught me, he’d look away. It was torture having him here, missing his secret smiles, his loaded, inappropriate looks. I was standing in the front of the classroom, but his scent was everywhere. Soap and spice in my lungs and on my hands, and I heard him in my head. He said, figure out what you want, and you know how I feel. Instead of walking up the aisle to pass out the outline, I handed it to the first row and asked them to pass it back. I didn’t trust myself not to say something to him if I got that close. The hour dragged by as everyone worked on their paper. While most of the students had tapped away on their laptops, Parker scribbled into his notebook, ignoring me. As class ended and everyone started to pack up, my heart rate increased. He stood to leave, and despite the number of students remaining in the room, I called out his name.

“Parker, can you stay a minute?”

Parker.

Not Mr. Mills.

I didn’t give a shit anymore. I was done hiding.

He looped his thumbs under the straps of his backpack. “Not really.”

“It…” I stammered, my nerves bundling up in knots. “It won’t take long.”

His shoulders sagged and he clenched his jaw.

“Please.”

He made his way down the aisle as the room emptied, and keeping a few feet between us, he said, “I’ll make sure all my missed assignments are in on time.”

“That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

His jaw pulsed again, and God, I wanted to reach out and touch him.

“I don’t have a lot of time. I have to get back to Pride House.” He glanced at the door. “The play is this weekend.”

“I know.”

He exhaled a long breath. “What do you want, Van?”

“I… I don’t know,” I said, and his posture stiffened. “But I’m figuring it out.”

“It’s been over a week.” His bright blue eyes vulnerable, he asked, “Why didn’t you call?”

“I didn’t want to argue,” I said as the last student left the room.

“You could have texted… something. You left me fucking hanging.”

“You’re the one who walked away. You left.”

He’d told me I needed to decide, he’d put the ball in my court. And the longer I’d tried to figure out what the hell to do, the more my insecurity took root. Each agonizing day that passed, each class he missed made it that much harder to reach out to him. The more time I’d put between us, the more I’d worried I couldn’t fix this. It didn’t help that we were both trying to be martyrs.

“I’m not doing this.” He turned to leave, and as I grabbed his arm, goosebumps scattered across his skin.

“Wait, okay… just… wait a second.” It was harder to let go of his arm than I thought it would be. The heat of his body lingered on the tips of my fingers. “I’m not taking the job.”

“Van… I don’t want do this again.”

“Christ, you’re a stubborn ass.”

His lips twitched as he faced me. “I’m stubborn?”

“Full time, part time… If I stay here, we can’t be public. And before you say anything, it doesn’t matter that you’re not going to be my student after the semester. You were, and the dean knows it. When you change your major to creative writing next semester, Vivian, the entire English department, they’ll eventually know who you are, and if I’m faculty, that’s not going to fly. I can’t take the job, and I can’t stay here. I’m going to put in my notice.”

“No… You can’t.”

“I can. You told me to figure out what I wanted. And I have.”

“You can’t quit because of me.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s bullshit, Van.”

I heard the exhaustion in his voice. He was breaking too.

Stepping toward him, I said, “I know what I want.”

“Van…”

I closed the distance he’d put between us and set my hand on the curve of his neck. He closed his eyes as my thumb trailed along the length of his jaw.

“There will always be another job. As much as my pride hates the idea, I could probably work at Emory if I asked my dad to pull some strings. But I want you, Parker.” I leaned down and rested my forehead against his. “I love teaching, but I love you more.”

He tipped his head back, his mouth meeting mine in a soft surrender.

“I love you…” he whispered, his hands in my hair, the tips of our noses brushing together. “And Anne… so much.”

“I shouldn’t have let you walk away. We should have had this conversation nine days ago.”

“I can agree with that.” He framed my face with his hands. “But I shouldn’t have walked away in the first place.”

“Maybe.” I leaned into the rough skin of his palm, and I was home. “It was our first fight… we were bound to fuck it up.”

“Can it be our last fight, because these last nine days were a nightmare. And I’m pretty sure Marcos is done with my mopey ass. He might actually throw me out.”

I laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I have a spare bedroom.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he said, but his smile dimmed. “I don’t want you to resent me.”

“I want to hold your hand in public without worrying who might see. I want to kiss you and meet you for lunch. If I worked here, that couldn’t ever happen. This is about me as much as it’s about you. I choose this.” I placed my hand in the center of his chest. “I want more than three months, Parker. I want as much time as I can have with you.”

“I’m here for whatever you want,” he said, and I remembered. “This is all for you.”

He’d sent those words to me, what felt like ages ago, but even though the meaning had changed, my heart responded with those same quick and clumsy beats. I kissed him, letting the heat of his breath fully heal the crack in my chest. My hands dropped to his waist, my fingers gripping his shirt, holding him close, and I didn’t worry about anyone catching us. All I wanted was to show him I was here, too, and it didn’t matter if it was three months or three years, I’d choose this. I’d choose us every time.