After filing his company for bankruptcy, Kyle's wife leaves him and his three-year-old son. Now a forty-two-year-old divorcee with no parenting skills or money, Kyle decides to move back to the small home town he grew up in.
He should have lost all...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
After that day Kyle dropped Chaska off at the school gym, he had been a bit nervous. His mind got filled with worry as he worked on cars and helped repair farm machines through the weekend. His subconscious kept drifting to the young man as he worried and worried about the minor details of their interaction on Friday.
He wondered if he had been too weird. He wondered if Chaska noticed how nervous he was, and he wondered if Chaska was going to avoid his gaze on Monday.
All those questions had run through his mind through the weekend and had made Kyle nervous to see the man on Monday when he dropped Otis off. His panicked thoughts held no water, however, and Chaska didn't seem the least bit different. The man spared him a few more words than usual and a small smile, but apart from that, there was nothing drastically different about his behavior.
"Did you have a good weekend?" Chaska asked Otis and he squatted to meet the boy at his level.
Otis was all smiles and squirms, and he ignored the question to say what was on his mind instead. "I missed you!" he chirped, gripping the knees of his trousers as he tried to contain his excitement.
Chaska chuckled, pulling the boy into a brief hug at his words.
The interaction had made Kyle's chest swell, and it remained that way until he left and got into his car. He didn't start his car right away, he just stared out into the road as he held a tight grip on the steering wheel. Things had gone better than he had planned, meaning that he had been worrying all weekend about nothing. It was odd, Kyle felt both relieved and upset. On one had Chaska wasn't avoiding him, and on the other had Chaska didn't seem very interested in him in any capacity. That was supposed to be good, but it felt bad. Why was he upset that Chaska didn't seem to think much about him? Why did he suddenly feel self-conscious about his dressing this morning and rush to change?
"What am I doing?" he asked himself, feeling his heartbeat quicken at the thought of the man. The well-built man. The young man with the nice lips and voice that didn't match his demeanor. He knew almost nothing about him, and here he was beating himself over their small interactions. His mother had called Otis' clingy behavior around Chaska a teacher crush. Was that what he had too? A teacher crush on Chaska? Did he just admire him a lot that his feelings were starting to get muddled up and confusing?
With a shake of his head, Kyle started the car and drove into the main road. He didn't have any appointments today, and he had a couple of hours to burn until he picked up Otis. He thought about visiting his father's grave for a moment, but he decided against it. Too soon. He thought, driving the car back home. He could do that later, not now. At least that was what he told himself, but he knew deep down that if he kept avoiding it, he would never get around to doing it.
When Kyle got home, he was greeted with silence. His mother was off to work in the grocery store, and they didn't have a neighbor for miles. He took the time to sort out the internet connection. It was bad, but it worked well enough to go through Facebook and read his emails.
