Page 62 of The Write Place

The novel is beautiful. No, beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe it. It is easily the best thing he’s ever written, and I think I’m saying that objectively. I’m nowhere to be found in this novel, and yet I’m everywhere in it. He’s taken the mundanity of every day in the classroom and made it magical in a way that shouldn’t look true on the page but feels true in the part of my heart that is devoted to my job and my students.

The characters are wonderfully well-rounded. If someone wasn’t a teacher, they might think they couldn’t be real, but having interacted with each of these types of people on a daily basis for nearly the past decade, I know this is exactly how teachers act, teach, and feel. That said, the story is emotionally driven, with the characters furthering the plot, but taking a backseat to the raw beauty of the work of molding young minds, and sometimes, the minds of fellow teachers.

It is, in short, a love letter to teaching and learning.

I think it might be a love letter to me.

I text Jenny a picture of the pile of used tissues next to me. My eyes feel tender and heavy. The skin of my nose is on fire from being rubbed so often. I pull the cuff of my sleeve over my hand and scrub painfully at my face again to try to rub the bleariness away. My phone buzzes.

I know, is all she replies.

I’m not at all surprised that she’s already read it, too. In fact, I’m glad to have someone to share this feeling with. I touch the call button at the top next to her name and press the phone to my ear. She answers on the first ring.

“Did you sleep?” she asks.

“No. You?”

“I read it a few days ago,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure if I should give it to you or not, so I read it first.”

We are silent for a moment. I look out the window at the dreary gray dawn, my eyes unfocused. I take a deep breath.

“What do I do?” I ask quietly, twisting an errant strand of hair around a finger. She’s silent for another moment, as if considering the best way to answer.

“I don’t blame you at all for being upset with him,” she starts cautiously, and I know from her tone that she is about to ease into some tough love. I fidget with a loose thread on my blanket while I wait for her to phrase what she wants to say in her head. “You haven’t been yourself since he left. Justin stopped by my classroom this week because he was worried about you, and that’s what finally pushed me to give you the draft. I figured you needed to see what you meant to him for yourself.”

I feel tears sting the corners of my eyes again at the thought of my students worrying about me. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Was it really that obvious? Jenny had Justin in class as a sophomore, and she has his younger brother in class this year, so it would make sense that he’d seek her out, but the fact that he felt the need to do so hurts my heart. I rub at my chest as if that could ease the strain there.

“This book wasn’t about me,” I try, but even I’m not convinced.

“Stop it, Mac. It doesn’t have to be about you to be about you. You teach literature. You should know that.” Jenny is being gently firm, but when she takes a breath and lets it out slowly, I know she’s getting irritated by my willful ignorance. “Do you trust that he broke it off with Alison before he came here?” she asks.

“Yes.” I’m surprised at how sure I am. She doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “I don’t know why, but I do. The way he talked about how she treated him and how she made him feel… I don’t think you can make that up.”

“So, what’s the holdup?” she asks.

“Why would she come here with that ring on, insisting they were still together? It doesn’t make any sense. Something is off about all of this, Jenny.”

“True,” she says slowly. “But I think we both know that it takes two to build a relationship, and he was not invested in whatever he had with her. You told me he described her as obsessed with climbing social and professional ladders. She probably was worried about what would happen to her if she didn’t have him to prop her up.”

It’s logical, but also something I had considered before. I had even tried to send a message to him a time or two, but didn’t know where to start and always decided it wasn’t worth it to open myself up like that again. What if he had changed his mind? What if he was right and there really is no happy ending for anyone? For us? A tear rolls its way down my cheek, and I brush it away with my sleeve, sniffling.

“What’s going on in that brain, Mac?” It’s a question Jenny used to ask me all the time when she would see that I had lost myself in my raging grief right after Ellie died. I laugh wetly at the memory and at how appropriate it is that she’s asking me this again now. Losing Daniel feels so much like losing Ellie. I’m grieving his loss the same way I grieved hers.

“He doesn’t believe in happy endings.” I sniffle, and she hums, unconvinced.

“That’s because he hasn’t had one yet,” she says. I huff, and we are silent for another moment. “There’s more to happiness than just the ending,” she suggests, and despite myself, I feel the corner of my mouth tug up at her unfailing optimism.

“Yeah,” I agree. “I think I’m going to go get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she says.

I have no intention of sleeping. Instead, I get up to brush my teeth and make myself some coffee. When I have a steaming mug in my hands, I go back to the couch and pick up the stack of papers so I can read it again, slowly this time, to savor it.

Chapter 27

On Monday after school, Ken opens the door to my classroom and comes in, letting the door close behind him. When he sees me, he smiles.

“Oh good. I’m glad you’re still here.” He comes closer to me and perches himself on the edge of a student desk.