Love, Emma

Chapter Fifty-Six: 4 Years Later

"Have a goodnight Ms. Dawn!" Tucker waves at me as he ducks out of the classroom, all knobby knees and rosy cheeks. He's the shortest kid in my fourth-grade class this year, and positively my favorite, although I'm not supposed to let anyone know that.

"Thank you, you too, goodnight Tucker!" I maneuver around the desks quietly, tucking in chairs and collecting forgotten pencils off the floor as I go.

Today was a good day, the first in a week of hopefully many more good days to come. My mind is all over the place, already reviewing lesson plans for tomorrow, and the art project I have planned for Wednesday's class. Not to mention the mental checklist running through my head, trying to remember everything I'll need to buy so I can make cannoli's for AJ and Kate's engagement dinner this Saturday. Maybe Mom has extra piping bags at home?

After retiring from nursing, she got back into painting, and even more surprisingly, she took up baking. With some of Helen's recipes, and a few quick tips, she became this baker extraordinaire over night, as if it was just a secret talent waiting to be set free.

I have to smile at the idea of Helen, and her beautiful family. We still talk, as do I, Mia, Peyton, Enzo, and Matteo. In part, it's because of them I have this job. Enzo, who's a teacher at the high school to this feeder elementary school, managed to pull some strings with the school board when he heard they had jobs available; I was employed right out of teachers college on his reference.

I'm so incredibly gone, so lost in my thoughts, and a whirlwind of memories, that I don't hear my name being called over the PA system, asking me to come to the office.

When finished tidying the room, I move to the chalk board, erasing the various notes and outlines that were drawn on today, and start moving to fill in our agenda for tomorrow, on the side, as always, so the kids know what's happening when they come in tomorrow.

He clears his throat from the doorway, and it's such a distinctive sound, I can't help but be flooded with memories when I look up and meet his eyes. Midnight blue eyes that glow in the brightness of the fluorescent lights overhead, just as they did years ago, whenever I spotted him across the hallway of our old High School.

Although I've kept in touch with his family, we also mutually avoided the topic of Nathan. It killed me to not be able to ask how he was doing, to not hear his voice, or see him. In that sense, it was a comfort to know that his family would tell me if he wasn't okay. No news was always good news in that regard.

He's as beautiful as I remember; short, unruly brown hair that seems to be styled in no particular direction, and yet looks amazing anyways. Tan, smooth skin riddled with acne scars over his sharp jaw and cheek bones. His scar is still my favorite feature; paler than his normal complexion, and thus complimenting the darkness of his blue iris.

And then he smiles; with this shy dusting of a blush over his cheeks, and I feel like I'm a teenager all over again, with my heart fluttering in my chest, and my lips naturally smiling back.

There's so much of him that has changed, that isn't what I remember; there's a shadow of hair dusting his jaw, and his shoulders and chest are so broad, thick with obvious muscle beneath his black canvas jacket and hoodie. He seems so much surer of himself, an air of confidence that believes in the man I always knew him to be.

"M-may I come in, Ms. Dawn?" He gestures to the classroom around us, trying not to smile at all the educational posters and pictures lining the walls.

"Of c-course." I'm so distracted by the clarity of his voice, that it makes me falter in my own sentence, too obviously surprised to try and hide it.