Mercy
The halls weren’t quiet. Students ran past, the younger ones barely paying me any
attention, opening and closing lockers with noisy clangs. They yelled for their friends.
Laughed at something that had happened in class.
Students who knew me from previous years, now in seventh and eighth grade, were
well pr epped for my arrival. I was greeted with hugs and boisterous energy, but no one
looked sad. Piteous. Not a single person gave me condolences or their sympathies. They
were just happy to see me.
Kayla didn’t have blue braids. She’d gone back to her natural hair, which was longer
than I remembered. It was beautiful, and she beamed when I told her how much I loved it.
Walker had read the books I’d suggested and chattered my ear off about the last in the
series, which ended in a way that really pissed him off.
Caleb had made the soccer team, and had grown at least four inches, wearing a jersey
with his name on the back and a grin that made him look like an entire fucking adult.
Occasionally, I’d look back to lock eyes with Grant. He stood just behind me, his hand
always in reach in case it became too much. But despite the thrashing of my pulse before I
walked through the doors, it wasn’t. Having him there, trying to answer the question of
whether I needed him or not, wasn’t the point.
I wanted him to do this with me. That was more than enough reason. He’d held my
hand as we walked through the doors together.
The secretaries cried when they saw me.
Rae handed them tissues and told them not to make a fuss, because I’d never let them
live it down.
When my previous students had their chance to greet me, I found myself staring at the
doorway that led to my classroom, nerves whirling up in my belly, fast and fierce. I
reached over and found Grant’s hand, exhaling when his long, warm fingers wound
through mine.
“Go,” he said, mouth near my ear. “They’re waiting for you.”
He kissed my temple, and a group of eighth-grade girls giggled as they went past. I
gave him a wry look. “Careful, you’ll break a dozen hearts before this is over.”
Grant raised an eyebrow. “I can hardly help that. Look at me.”
“Good Lord,” I muttered. “If you couldn’t back that up, I’d be sick to my stomach right
now.”
He laughed, a rich, easy sound that made my stomach flutter for an entirely different
reason. I’d never had butterflies once in my life. Not until him.
Now the sound of his laughter had me imagining all sorts of things. Sex. Breakfast in
bed. Football games on the weekends. A dog that drove us crazy. Decorating a Christmas
tree. Babies.
Had me imagining a life.
For the first time since I woke up, I wasn’t spending very much time thinking about
what I was missing, because the things in front of me were so good.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Thoughts of your giant and well-deserved ego distracted me. I’m going.”
“If you say so.” He smiled faintly, then nudged me closer to the classroom.
They were waiting for me, and as the halls emptied out before the start of the next
period, I was able to take the remaining st eps with ease.
I turned the corner and exhaled a shocked laugh. Each student was practically
vibrating with excitement, a nervous chatter rippling through the room. They were all
holding signs, large block letters in colored marker.
Damian: I’m the class clown.
Nora: I always help you clean up after snack.
Aiden: I set the record for detentions in the first trimester.
Zara: I’m the rule follower.
Noah: I had to do fifteen push-ups every time I called you bro.
Mateo: I’m your favorite.
My eyes skimmed over each one until I couldn’t read them anymore. I was crying too
hard.
“This is . . .” My voice faltered, and I gripped Grant’s hand so tightly that he eased
himself closer, his chest behind my back. A solid, strong presence. I tipped up my chin and
took a de ep breath. “This is amazing, everyone.”
Mateo groaned. “I told you we’d make her cry. I said this was a bad idea, for the
record.”
Nora skipped across the room and handed me a box of tissues. “We had these ready,
just in case.”
The substitute, a woman I recognized from the year before, was wiping underneath her
eyes.
I held my hand over my heart and gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you,” I whispered.
A few of the girls in the class wiped away tears too. And I caught Aiden, the detention
king, rub a fist underneath his eyes as he stared down at his binder.
I released Grant’s hand and walked over to his desk. He had brightblue eyes and
strawberry-blond hair. He looked up briefly when I handed him a tissue.
“How many detentions this trimester?” I asked quietly.
He sniffed. “None. You . . . you scared me into acting right.”
The class laughed. So did I.
Slowly, I walked past each desk and read their signs. Asked each one a question. By
the time I was done, my chest was soggy with feelings. Weighted with meaning. With love
and appreciation.
The kids started putting their signs away as their teacher instructed them to get their
notebooks so I could talk about what I wanted them to read for First-Chapter Friday.
There were only a few weeks of school left, but I planned to come back once a week for
this, and to help out in the office. My desk was still in the corner, where I preferred it, and
the sub had left a picture of me and Grant and Connor among her things. I picked it up,
recognition hitting me like a punch.
We’d gone to a Michigan game together just six months before Connor died. It snowed
that day, big fluffy flakes that covered the field, covered our hats and coats too. The
players had made snow angels when they won. Connor hooked his arms around us, asked
the woman in the row behind to take a picture with the field in the background.
“Name one thing that’s better than this,” he’d said.
Maybe then, I wouldn’t have been able to. But now . . . now I could. Despite the loss
and the grief that might never really go away. It was okay to miss him. To miss the things I
couldn’t remember. But they didn’t have to define me. I could name so many things that
brought me even more joy than that one simple moment. It wasn’t about running from the
hard or hiding from the bad. From the situations that might hurt. They would always be
there. It was learning to face down your fears when you knew in your heart it was worth
the risk.
I could have done that without someone to hold my hand or stand at my side. But I
didn’t have to. I didn’t have to do any of it alone. I raised my eyes and found Grant
watching me with a proud gleam in his eye.
He smiled.
With the students milling happily around us, and the picture clutched firmly in my
hand, I didn’t stop until I walked straight into Grant’s embrace, my arms wrapped tight
around his waist. His hands coasted along my back, and he made a small noise of surprise
in my ear.
“What’s this?” he asked.
I looked up into his face. “I love you.”
His expression softened. “I love you too.”
We didn’t kiss. It wasn’t the place for it. But he closed his eyes and brushed his lips
over my forehead while my students tittered at the display of affection.
“Do you know what’s insane?”
“What?”
“Less than a month.” I smiled, wondering briefly whether there was such a thing as too
happy. “It took me less than a month.”
His brow furrowed. “To what?”
“To tell you I love you.”
“I’d call it a few more years than that, but I take your point.”
“You’ve made such a hypocrite out of me, Hastings.” I gave him a wry look. “I should
hate it.”
“I don’t. The things it does for my ego,” he said with a grin, mimicking what I’d said to
him just one day earlier. “I’ll have to send all your heartbroken ex-boyfriends a note letting
them know that I’ve won.”
“I’m not sure it’s much of a competition.”
“Oh, but it is.” His expression turned grave. “You’ve never thought about your grocery
list when you’re with me, darling.”
“I refuse to confirm or deny,” I answered loftily.
Grant dropped his mouth to my ear. “If you’re trying to bait me into proving my point
when we get home, I can assure you it’s working.”
I narrowed my eyes in a mock glare. “Grant Hastings, I would never.”
I knew I was full of shit.
He knew I was full of shit.
And when we got home an hour later, he did indeed prove his point. Twice.