A Fractured Lover (Student/Teacher)

Chapter 16

Thoughts of the strange note plagued my mind on the drive home from my parents house. It was eerily similar to the note I received a few days back on my car in the school parking lot. Which brought me to the only possible conclusion: Mr. McCoy had an odd affinity for peculiar love notes.

As romantic a gesture are they were, there was a certain air circulating in the words of the poems that gave me a suspicious feeling that I couldn't seem to shake.

Before I realized it, I'd arrived at Rachel and I's apartment and noticed that Ben and Mia's cars were here as well. 

Gathering all of my bags from the passenger side seat, I stared at the maroon red, slightly worn apartment door that led to my home with a particular feelings of dread sitting in the pit of my stomach.

I knew the second I walked in there all three of my closest friends would bombard me with questions about my weekend and Nathan. I knew that it's an absurd and silly reason but part of me wanted to keep this all to myself.

I'd been dealing with it all just fine by myself and the occasional helping hand of alcohol. When I stepped foot through that door, everything would become real. Every thing and every feeling Nathan and I had shared was no longer just ours. Putting it out in the open forced the dilemmas that I'd been pushing to the back of my mind to spring forward, front and center, and demand a solution. A solution that I was not nearly ready to figure out.

With a labored sigh, I pushed myself out of my car and took those final steps towards what would no doubt be my own personal talk show session. I placed my hand on the knob connected to the door.

"Lord, please help me," I muttered begrudgingly under my breath before pushing the wooden door open and stepping inside.

Inside, the scene seemed casual enough at first. Ben and Mia in the kitchen, making what I assumed to be buffalo chicken dip. Rachel was on the couch watching an episode of Friends, the one where Ross tries to make fajitas. To anyone else, this would look like a completely normal thing to walk into. 

But I knew better.

Buffalo chicken dip was one of my favorite snacks in the entire world. This particular episode of Friends that Rachel had on just so happened to be one of my favorite episodes in the entire series. 

They were plotting something. Something devious. Using all of my favorite things against me to practically force me into staying in the living room where they will eventually begin their slow interrogation of the events of my weekend.

The moment I walked in, all conversation stopped. Three heads snapped in my direction, eyes wide with surprise. Seconds passed with nothing being said, the air thick with tension. I was the first one to speak.

"Hey guys. Smells good in here," I stated and dropped my bags on the floor right next to the door and walked over to the kitchen.

 Finally, Rachel snapped into gear.

"Oh, yeah! We thought it would be nice for you to come home to your favorite snacking dish," she replied a bit too enthusiastically.

 I nodded my head in approval as I scooped up a load of the dip with a chip and piled it into my mouth. As I continued chewing, I made eye contact with Ben and Mia and nodded my head in the direction of the TV.

"Nice choice. You guys thought of everything." 

Mia's eyes darted to Ben's in what I assumed to be nervousness at my blunt statement. Ben finally piped up.

"Yeah, Rachel mentioned that this one was your favorite, or one of, and thought it would be nice to have it on when you got home," he said through a forced smile. I raised my eyebrows at all three of them and continued to nod my head, feeling like a bobble head at this point.