Some Day One Day (Maylor AU)

Chapter 71

Chrissie heaved a sigh as she closed the book she was working in, sitting back in her chair and glancing at the clock on the wall. To say she'd been productive in any sense that day would be a lie. All she could think about was Brian and how quickly the façade she'd worked so hard to build had crumbled to pieces in a matter of days. It wasn't what she wanted, but it was what she needed, and heaven knew she wouldn't survive the repercussions if the truth were to be revealed—not only about him, but about her—especially about her.

Feeling like her office walls were closing in, Chrissie jumped up from her desk and broke out into the hallway flooded with students and faculty either headed to their next class or leaving for the day. Her eyes scanned the corridor, bouncing from one familiar face to the next until they landed on that infamous group of five. They were too engrossed in their own conversation and delinquency to notice, all except for one—John. He stared right back at her, with his arm wrapped around his girlfriend's back and his hand on her hip, but his reddened cheeks belonged solely to the headmistress.

She turned her head in the opposite direction and joined the crowd, slipping downstairs and stopping by Brian's classroom—the handwritten note that all his classes were canceled for the day infuriating her like nothing else. Without so much as a second thought, her hand shot out and ripped the paper from the door.

"Someone's angry."

Chrissie's head snapped in the direction of the voice, her widened eyes falling upon none other than Ray's replacement, leaned against the wall with his arms folded over his chest and a pair of sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.

"I'm not angry," she mumbled, crumpling the sheet up.

He chuckled and slipped his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, and I'm not still hungover from last night."

The headmistress resisted the smile that wanted to crawl onto her face, tilting her head down and advising, "It's not professional to come to work hungover, Mr. Sumner."

"Yeah, you should tell that to your husband," Sting snickered, waltzing towards the headmistress and ducking down a bit to meet her diverted gaze. "Or did you? Because I noticed he wasn't here today. Why is that?"

She distractedly played with the wrinkled ball of paper in her hands. "He said he wasn't feeling well."

"Oh really? He wasn't feeling well."

"That's what he told me," Chrissie bleakly replied, her fractured composure shattering when the interim professor placed a hand on her shoulder. She instinctively fell into his chest and allowed the tears she'd been holding back all day to roll freely down her cheeks, the typically frigid man warming up just enough to find some compassion within him to comfort her. He met the strange glances directed their way with a small nod of his head and the upward curl of his lips, letting the headmistress cry into his shirt until the halls were cleared and they were the only two lingering behind.

"Hey, now," Ray's replacement murmured, rubbing her upper arm in an attempt to calm her down. "It's going to be okay."

"No, it's not, Gordon!" she sobbed, her hold on him growing tight. "He's going to leave me! I know he is! I saw what he wrote!"

"Well, would that be such a bad thing? If he left you?" Sting dared to ask, his proposal separating the two of them almost instantly.

"Yes, yes it would be," Chrissie answered tersely, swiping at her wet cheeks. "I already get enough weird looks from my colleagues because of what happened before. If this gets out, that he did the same thing to me that my last husband did, and that I..."

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to finish her sentence. When all she did was stare at him, though, he tried to help her along by saying, "That you..."

"I just don't know what I'm going to do, Gordon," she conceded, crossing her arms and shaking her head. "I'll never be respected again. All they're going to see me as is—"

The headmistress and professor were so wrapped up in the former's affairs that they hadn't heard the approaching footsteps, and therefore were startled when a third voice joined the conversation. "Uh, Headmistress Mullen?"

As Chrissie spun around, her hand flew to her chest and her breath got caught in her throat. "John," she gasped, Sting tilting his head to the side to get a better look at the lanky, shy student. "What...What do you want?"

"I-I was just wondering if you had a moment to talk...in private," he answered, his gaze flickering over to the temporary women's studies teacher who lowered his sunglasses—his narrowed, judgmental eyes arching the student's brow. The professor hummed after he finished his assessment and leaned back against the wall, sending a chill down John's back and allowing him to return his attention to the headmistress whose hands had found their way to her hips and whose gaze had shifted to her feet.

"I'm sorry, John, but now's really not a good time," she apologized, lifting her head ever so slightly to watch the blush staining his cheeks intensify.

He dropped his jaw to plead his case, but before he could utter a single word, his name echoed down the corridor. The three all turned towards the entrance, where the four girls he was often surrounded by stood, waiting for him in a straight, intimidating line. He heaved a sigh and begrudgingly excused himself, pushing through the headmistress and substitute professor and sulking down the hallway to join them. His head twitched as he fought the urge to look back, but he kept his back to the pair of faculty members as he approached his friends and left the school with them.

"What did you have to talk to her about?" Veronica asked as she hooked arms with him.

"Nothing, Ronnie," he muttered, pulling her close and planting a kiss on her head. "Don't worry about it."

Chrissie and Sting watched as the double doors closed behind the group of five, the professor glancing over at the headmistress whose cheeks had grown just as red as the student's. "Did something happen between the two of you?" he unapologetically blurted out, catching Chrissie off guard.

"What? No!" She chuckled anxiously, crossing her arms and eyeing her colleague suspiciously, worried he figured out something he wasn't supposed to. "Why would you even say that? That's crazy." Her gaze traveled back to the entrance, seemingly in a trance as she repeated, "That's crazy..."