Smile For Me (Student/Teacher)

Fin Pt I

Erin settled things with Toby, and he was heartbroken. He accused both Erin and me of being selfish whores who only used guys for our own pleasure. We didn't argue.

Charlie monitored my drinking, because it was a drinking night. I realized I could no longer mope around and get drunk off expensive Cabernet and complain about my problems as a teenager. I was an adult, now. I could get drunk with my man, and annoy each other to death by being clingy as can be.

I hadn't stayed at my own house the entire time I was back, but that was okay.

...

We moved.

I got a job in Dallas with a book company, and Charlie quit teaching and became an engineer. We lived in a condo-like apartment, with a guest room. My house back home was no longer ours, because we sold it. Everything that belonged to my parents was distributed evenly between the four of us.

It was perfect.

We had our usual days, showers, breakfast, coffee, work, sometimes lunch, we'd come back and have dinner, talk, sex, sleep, and so on. But the extra days, the cold days or the days we'd both stay in if one of us was sick, we'd have deep talks of our cliche undying love, and we'd speak like we were falling in love for the first time. Ridiculous, yes, but the sex that came after was always the best.

One day, about seven years after we'd lived together, I was home for the day, it was around the holidays but the sun rose to capture the chill in the air and it balanced out. There was a knock at my door.

I answered it, seeing a boy in his tweens with a large backpack standing in front of me. He looked terrifyingly familiar. "Hi, can I help you?" I asked him, and his beautiful blue eyes looked at a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Yeah, are you-" He read the paper with squinted eyes. "Diana Apollo?"

I stared at his face. Who's face is that? "Yes." I answered, expecting him to say something after that, but he just stared at me. He stared so long that I shifted on my feet, looked behind him to see how he'd come. Finally the silence was too much as he wouldn't take his eyes from my face. "Do you mind me asking who you are?"

"I'm Julian." He said, holding out his hand to me. "Julian Carl."

And I was close to fainting.

At a loss for words, I just stared back at him, leaned forward a bit to look at his face, and yes, he for sure was Andy Carl's son. Then I realized his hand was still out, so I took it, without words.

We stared at each other for a while, then finally I looked behind him and said, "Who brought you here?"

"I took a cab." He said, and the breeze swirled the leaves behind him so I widened my door.

"You can come inside, it's too cold out here to be standing."

He came in, looking around carefully, but then felt he at me.

And why had he come in the first place? Why on Earth did Andy let him come here alone?

We walked to the living room, then I stopped. "So you don't have anyone waiting outside for you?"

"No," He said, and then he must've realized he was staring because he flushed and looked down at his paper. "So you knew... my dad," He began slowly, still looking down at the paper and then looking up at me as he sat on the couch. I sat on the chair across from him.

"Your father is...?" I knew who his father was. At least my heart did, but my mind did not want to comprehend what was going on. Then I wondered desperately what would Charlie think of this?