That Teacher (Wattys2016)

Chapter 14: She's Positive

Chapter 14: She's Positive

It was sad of me to think that tears could assuage the pain I felt inside, to countervail the imbalance in my mind. If every part of me wanted to be with him, how did I say no?

"We need to talk." Carla demanded as she walked through the front door of Max's parents' house. The fake smile she usually wore was MIA and her hand clutched tightly on the strap of her purse.

"Do we ever." I chuckled bitterly on the couch. The TV was closed and yet I was staring at it like it was showing the most interesting show on Earth but in reality, I was just looking at my pathetic reflection.

"You need to stop seeing Duncan." She stomped her skyscraper-high heels towards the living room where I sulked in my sorrows.

How dare she try to control who I was allowed to see? I didn't tell her she couldn't see one of my teachers, one that I happened to be lightly in love with, one that she had no right in telling who I dated. I was still pissed about that. If anyone should tell him, it should have been me even though I felt like it was none of his business anyway.

"You want me to stop seeing Duncan... So you can have him to yourself?"

"No, because he's playing you." She threw her bag on the floor and took a seat next to me. "Everything he's told you is a lie."

I laughed, finding it hard to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. She just went on a date with this so called player a couple days ago!

"Tell me how he said we met." Her eyes told me she was dead serious.

"He said you guys went to the same college but didn't talk until you ran into each other at a nightclub."

"Ha!" she cackled. "We didn't go to the same college. He went to a career college and that's why he got his degree at a young age. And he picked me up at a coffee shop last Sunday afternoon. Tell me what else he said."

I straighten my posture, interested in what other lies Duncan had been telling me. "He said he went to Ticonderoga High."

"He's from Georgia but went down to Miami a couple years ago for college. Anything else?"

I thought back to the past conversation him and I shared together. What other fibs did he tell me? "He said that he saw me at a hospital a couple months ago."

I didn't feel like she needed to know I was beaten and sent to the hospital but how could Duncan have known if he really didn't treat me.

"First of all, he didn't get into town until last week. He probably searched your medical records up since he does work at the hospital."

"I get it, he's a liar." I believed her. She really didn't have a reason to lie to me but why did she wait until now? "Couldn't you have told me before we went out to dinner?"

"I thought you would have seen through his lies." She stood up from the couch and walked over to the stairs. "Oh and remember that Jillian tells me everything." She mouthed the word 'everything' before heading up the stairs.

Could she have known about my beating? Jillian surely knew after seeing me in the hospital while she was visiting grandma and probably knew before that too. She always seemed to know everyone's secrets.

Picking up my phone, I began to dial her number, only to erase it. If she wanted to talk to me, she would have to call me herself.

Returning to the calling screen, I dialed Duncan's number. I couldn't hang out with someone who lied so naturally to me like he done it all his life. He did say that he was that type of guy, which seemed to be the only truth he'd told me.