So it goes [Breakable Heaven #1]

24. A pancake in his heart

"Alright, so what happened to Mr. Donovan in the video you watched?" I ask the student, articulating every single word - every single letter, really - so much that my jaw hurts, then I take a sip of water from my bottle.

"Mr. Donovan was at restaurant. He had a... he had a pancake in heart."

For a moment I forget where I am and who I'm talking to and I am about to spit the water all over my computer, the desk, and the woman in front of me, and laugh my ass off. I am aware it wouldn't be professional, though, so I don't, and I try to keep a straight face while internally giggling like a five-year-old. This is the funniest thing I've ever heard in a lesson!

"Excuse me?" I simply reply. "What did Mr. Donovan have in his heart?"

"A pan... oh!" she stops, realizing what she has just said. "Pain. He had pain in his heart."

"Yes, he did," I smile, trying to sound supportive and not mocking. "He had a heart attack. Go on."

The lesson continues, and it gets worse rather than improving. This lady's struggle is real and I almost feel sorry for her, but most of all I feel sorry for myself. I wonder if maybe getting fired would have been a blessing in disguise.

While the student is reading her cue card and gets ready for the role play, I look up and for the hundredth time since the lessons started I catch Rory staring at me. I wink, she flinches and looks away.

I've decided that, this time, I'm going to let Rory come to me. I won't stalk her or wait for her out of the school, I won't force her to talk. When she's ready - if she'll ever be - she's going to make the first move. Or so I hope.

School is torture, though. The whole time I'm there I feel my body physically aching for Rory, and the fact that she has barely said a word to me the whole day only makes it worse. Rory has become a pro at avoiding me, not going out to smoke when I do, staying away from the break room when she knows I'm there. She even started a lesson without the proper material, just because I had been at the photocopier when she needed it.

All this leads me to one conclusion: once again, gay panic. I was kind of expecting it, given how she had reacted to our kiss, but despite all my best resolutions, I'm becoming quite impatient. Either she tells me she wants to keep having sex, or we go back to being friends and forget about what happened in that parking lot. I would be ok with both, even though it's quite obvious I'd rather take the former option than the latter. Still, I can't stand this silence, this distance. Putting my attraction aside, I have become quite fond of her as a friendly presence in my life, and I don't want to be in a position of giving that up just because our hormones had gotten the best of us once. Ok, twice. Maybe three times, if we count the night of the Murder Mystery, but still, it's just hormones, nothing more. I don't want to lose a friend over that, and I hope Rory finds the guts to talk to me soon, so I can make that perfectly clear.

Too bad confronting me seems to be the last thing on Rory's mind today. Or the next day.

On Friday I'm starting to have enough. We haven't had a meaningful conversation in more than four days, or at least a conversation that didn't involve yelling at each other and that ended with a quickie against a car. How long will she keep this up?

At nine-thirty that evening I decide I am done waiting. As usual, we're the last two in the parking lot, only this time, as the past four days, we aren't talking, we're just smoking. I wonder why she decided to stay, instead of just getting in the car and drive away. She can smoke while driving, and anyway, her apartment is really really close to the school, so I highly doubt she couldn't have waited for her nicotine fix until she got home.

Her gaze is lost somewhere in the darkness of the parking lot, and I wonder if she's having flashbacks like I am. From time to time, she sneaks a glance at me, and she looks hesitant, confused. Maybe I should be the one taking the initiative here.