Love You Better Read online

  Amelia and I marvel at the files once more, and then steel our resolve for what’s about to be many hours of work.

  “Welp,” I exclaim, downing the last of my coffee, “let’s jump on it! We are dangerous mountain lions of greatness. Let’s show these file folders who’s boss.”

  Several hours, multiple cups of coffee, and two turkey pesto paninis from my favorite café later (praise Saint Geoffrey for his heroic lunch run), Amelia and I are ready to call it a day. It’s been exhausting, and I think part of my cerebrum has gone numb from overuse, but we’ve done good work today.

  “Thanks be to the Goddess of Espresso and Endurance, for we have succeeded!” I declare dramatically, throwing both hands up and tilting my head to the heavens. “We covered a lot of ground today. I’m proud of us.”

  “I’m proud of us, too, V. We make a good team.”

  “We do. Will all my colleagues be as awesome as you?”

  Amelia laughs and shakes her head. “Girl, no one is as awesome as me.” She gives me a wink, grabs her leather satchel, and shoots a text to Ms. Pierce, letting her know we’re leaving for the day. Then we walk out of the office together.

  “What are your plans for tonight?” Amelia asks as we make our way to the side lot. “You out on the prowl?”

  “Nope.” I pop the P and shake my head with a smile. “I did that last night. Tonight’s Netflix and Fill with Kelley.”

  “Ah, yes, Kelley Pierce. The prince of the PP&A dynasty. Sexy ginger and exceptionally boring bachelor.”

  I laugh. She’s not wrong. My best friend is friggen gorgeous. Auburn hair, hazel eyes with bright flecks of green and gold, plus a body that I’m pretty sure a lot of the students on the Butler University campus want to lick. Professors, too, probably. He’s a regular Irish Adonis, but dang if he couldn’t try to have some fun once in a while.

  “When are you going to hook him up with one of your friends?” She waggles her brows at me, and my stomach twists. “A fine specimen like him shouldn’t go to waste. Hell, if I weren’t happily married...”

  I know she’s only joking, but I can never stop the initial jolt of discomfort anytime Kelley’s love life comes up (no matter how non-existent it may be). It’s unfair and irrational, especially given my personal weekend proclivities, but no matter how much I fight it, it’s always there. That nagging sting of jealousy and anxiety. It’s always hiding in the dark recesses of my mind, ready to strike at even the slightest hint of competition.

  Ugh. I’m such a cliché.

  We reach our cars, and I glance up, finding Amelia’s eyes on me, a curious expression on her face.

  “What?” I ask. “Why are you studying me like I’m Mr. Harrison’s 2012 tax returns?”

  She sighs and shakes her head. “I don’t know why you won’t just admit it. I’m no fool, Ivy.”

  I scoff. “What? No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure.” She unlocks her car, opens the door, and slides in, popping that infuriating perfectly arched brow at me once more. If she doesn’t watch it, I’m going to shave it off. “You’re in denial, Ivy. And your face is turning bright red. Better blast that AC before you get home to Kelley for Netflix and Chill or your secret won’t be a secret anymore.”

  “It’s Netflix and Fill, Ames!” I shout as she shuts her door and puts her car in drive. “Fill! There won’t be any chilling!”

  My protests are futile, though, and she waves at me as she pulls away. I bet her eyebrow is still popped.

  Curse the Gods of Overly Opinionated Friends.

  2

  “Good morning, Mr. Pierce!” Matthew, one of my eighth graders, calls out as he approaches me. I’m writing the day’s objectives on the board and waiting for my supervising teacher to show up. He’s usually late, but I like knowing that he trusts me with the classroom even though I’ve only been here a few weeks.

  “Morning, Matthew. How was your weekend?”

  “It was good! I went to my friend’s house, and we played video games and I hit a new high score and his mom ordered pizza.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “It was. Don’t worry, though. I finished the study guide.” He plops his Trapper Keeper on my desk and starts riffling around in it, digging through an unorganized stack of crumpled papers.

  “Here!” he shouts as he pulls out last week’s study guide and hands it to me. “My mom says sorry about the coffee stain.”

  I can’t help but laugh. We’re not supposed to have favorite students, but any teacher who tells you they don’t is fucking lying.

  Matthew is one of my favorites. The kid can’t sit still to save his life, and more often than not he speaks as he’s raising his hand instead of waiting to be called on, but his enthusiasm for learning is unmatched. If my mind wasn’t made up to teach high school history, students like Matthew might make me consider teaching middle school.

  “You tell your mom that it’s fine. I can still grade it with the coffee stain,” I grin. “What else did you do this weekend?”

  “Just hung out with my friend and played his video games. It was only supposed to be for Friday night, but Mom asked if I could stay Saturday night, too.” Matthew shrugs, a little less excited but there’s still a buzzing energy around him

  “Alright, well we’re still on for lunch today, right?”

  “Yeah,” he nods, the excitement returning. “I brought fruit snacks and some granola bars.”

  “Nice. I love fruit snacks,” I say with a grin. “Now go take your seat. Mr. Miller will be coming in any minute and then the fun begins.” Matthew laughs at my use of the word fun, but he eagerly heads to his desk. He enjoys this class even if he tries to pretend like he doesn’t.

  This semester’s student teaching assignments are in seventh and eighth grades, while next semester the university will place us in a high school. The program I’m in to get my bachelor’s degree in education requires that we get both middle school and high school experience in order to graduate with a secondary teaching certification. It makes sense, but I already know where I belong. High school is the end goal, but right now I’m just happy teaching in a classroom.

  The only thing I look forward to more than my student teaching days is my Saturday night Netflix and Fill date with Ivy. Two nights ago, we watched this, in Ivy’s words, “tasteless comedy aimed at entertaining man-children,” and while she tried to pretend that she hated it, she about pissed herself laughing, and I about pissed myself laughing at her laughing.

  Writing the agenda on the board, I’m lost in my thoughts of the oversized, off the shoulder sweatshirt Ivy was wearing on Saturday. The freckles on her back that I dream about tracing with my fingertips dance in front of me like stars in my vision. I only snap out of it when my supervising teacher comes lumbering into the room smelling like a mixture of coffee and cigarettes and grumbling something unintelligible. He’s a grumpy fucker in the mornings.

  “Good morning, class!” Mr. Miller booms, and the students greet him back randomly, some with giggles and some with disinterest. “And good morning, Mr. Pierce.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “How was your weekend?”

  “It was good. Almost finished with my project for Educational Psychology.”

  He nods. “And training as well?”

  “Yes, sir. Nine weeks until the marathon.”

  I know what question he’s going to ask next—he asks the same one every Monday.

  “And how about socializing? Did you go out at all?”

  I shake my head slowly and shrug. “Nah. Too busy.”

  Mr. Miller harrumphs and gives me a skeptical look.

  “Have some fun once in a while, Mr. Pierce. It will be a lot harder to make time for it once you start teaching, so you might as well make the best of your last free year.”

  Before I can respond, he turns to the class and begins going over the day’s agenda. This isn’t the first time Mr. Miller has given me the you’re only i
n undergrad once speech. Instead of overthinking it, though, I focus on today’s lesson. We’re starting our unit on Industrialization, and call me a nerd, but I fucking love this shit.

  When the lunch period rolls around, I grab my bag from the fridge in the lounge and set up at Mr. Miller’s desk. He always takes his lunch in the teacher’s lounge after driving around the block twice to smoke a cigarette. I prefer to eat my lunch in the classroom.

  At first, I did it because I could work on lesson plans or course readings, but a few days into my first week Matthew came wandering back into the classroom for something and found me sitting at Mr. Miller’s desk. Since then, he’s started eating lunch in the room with me, and we’ve worked out a nice little system.

  “Ok, Matthew. What have you got?”

  Matthew plops a crumpled brown paper sack onto the table in front of him and proceeds to dump out its contents.

  “I’ve got three granola bars—two are chocolate chip and one is almond.” I’m not sure what the granola bar ever did to him, but you’d think almond was code for garbage juice by the way he scrunches his nose up at it. I’ll definitely be taking that one. “I also have two whole packs of fruit snacks and these cheese crackers!”

  “Not too shabby,” I say, nodding my head with feigned approval. As far as Matthew’s lunches go, this one is pretty standard. A small, random selection of easy-grab processed shit shoved into a rumpled brown paper sack. Sometimes he has a juice pouch or a can of soda, and once in a while, he might have a piece of fruit, but I’ve never seen him with a sandwich or any consistency of healthy foods.

  As disappointing as his lunch spread may be, there’s always one thing that always brings a smile to my face.

  “And what does it say today?” I ask with enthusiasm, and Matthew groans.

  “Awww, Mr. Pierce, do I have to?”

  “Matthew, it’s very cool that your mom writes you those notes. It means she cares about you and wants you to have a good day,” I press, and he rolls his eyes.

  “No, for real!” I insist. “I think it’s so awesome that I want to do it for my own kids when I become a dad someday. I wish my parents did it for me.”

  His grin grows, and he gives me side-eye. “You want to be a dad?” he asks with a giggle.

  “Of course, I do! I’m going to be a cool dad.”

  “I wish you were my dad,” Matthew says quietly, and I feel like someone kicked me right in my fucking chest. I’m not even sure how to respond to that, so I go with honesty.

  Reaching my hand out to pat his shoulder, I speak clearly.

  “If I have a son as kind and smart as you someday, I’ll be very proud.”

  I stay silent for a minute to allow him to fully absorb my words, and then I give his shoulder one last squeeze.

  “Now on with it, man! Read it!” I nudge his bag toward him.

  “Okay okay,” Matthew relents, and pulls a napkin out of his lunch sack and begins to read from it.

  “Almonds are good food.

  Eat the granola bar, Matt

  Growing strong, Love Mom”

  I laugh at his mother’s haiku as Matthew glares at the granola bar.

  “I happen to like almonds,” I say. “Do you think your mom would be okay if I trade you half my turkey sandwich and some grapes for the almond granola bar and some fruit snacks?”

  Matthew’s eyes light up. “I don’t think she’ll mind!”

  “And...” I grin as I reach into my bag, “I have some cookies that my friend’s roommate baked. I brought some for you, too.” Ivy is always giving me little snacks to bring to Matthew. She knows all about the student I share my lunch with. He reminds her of her younger brother Jacob, I think.

  “Thank you!” Matthew smiles big and organizes his new lunch in front of him.

  “My pleasure.” I slide Matthew the “extra” bottle of juice I got from the vending machine, we cheers, and then we dig in.

  “You want to grab something to eat?” Cassie asks as we drive the thirty minutes back to campus. The school where we intern is about halfway between Butler University and my hometown, and only about fifteen minutes from my parents’ firm. Cassie is another education major in my program, and we were placed at the same middle school for student teaching, so we ride together.

  “Yeah,” I say, checking the clock on the dash. “Jerry’s?”

  “Mmm, yes. Jerry’s would be heavenly.” Cassie rubs her stomach enthusiastically and closes her eyes. “I’m starved. I didn’t get a chance to eat my lunch because we had hall duty.”

  “Hall duty fucking sucks. I gave half of my sandwich to one of my kids, so I could definitely eat.”

  “Same kid you always share your lunch with?” she asks me playfully.

  “Same one,” I say with a laugh, as we pull into the Jerry’s parking lot. It’s a popular sub, salad, and soup shop just off campus, frequented by upperclassmen, and even sometimes grad students and professors.

  “How’s your Ed Psych project coming?” I ask after we order, sliding onto two stools on the wall counter.

  “Good. I’m about halfway there. You?”

  “Good. I’ve only got the annotated bibliography left.”

  “No kidding?” Cassie asks, her eyes wide. “How? It’s not due for weeks yet!”

  I shrug, not really wanting to get into the fact that my social life is almost non-existent, consisting mainly of Saturday nights with Ivy, soccer, and the occasional random gym session with Jesse.

  “You need to get out more,” Cassie declares. “Come out with me this weekend. The Sig house is doing a series of theme parties. We can dress up. It’ll be fun!”

  I take a sip of my Coke before I answer. “Nah, I’m not feeling it.”

  “Why not? It’s not like you’ve got work. I’m in the same courses as you,” Cassie presses. “Ed Psych is the only big thing assigned right now. Anything else doesn’t need a whole weekend’s worth of focus.” She fixes her eyes on me and smiles, and I’m certain she’s flirting. “Come out with me.”

  Cassie is stunning. She’s smart. She’s fucking funny as hell. We have a ton in common. On Tinder, her bio would definitely be worthy of a right swipe, and I should be jumping at this offer. But I see Cassie almost every day. We’re in all the same classes, and we’re currently placed in the same school. It would be awkward as hell when it didn’t work out, and I’m just not interested in trying for any type of relationship right now. Not even a casual one.

  “I’ll have to pass this time, Cass.” I avert my eyes and focus on the sub in front of me.

  I hear her sigh, a little sad but maybe more frustrated, and the topic drops. This isn’t the first time she’s invited me out with her, so it isn’t the first time I’ve turned her down, and it likely won’t be the last.

  Despite what Jesse thinks, I haven’t put my love life on hold for Ivy.

  I’m not waiting for her to finally see me or whatever unrequited love bullshit he’s comparing me to in those “best friends falling for each other and living happily ever after” kissing, sex books that Bailey’s always reading. In those stories, there’s always one sorry sap in the friendship who has been holding out hope that the other will fall in love with them and they’ll run off into the sunset to have three kids and adopt a dog.

  That’s not me.

  I’m not that sorry sap.

  I’m not holding out hope because I know there isn’t any. I took my shot senior year of high school and fucked it up, but contrary to what Jesse believes, I’ve come to terms with that. I accept it, and I want Ivy to be happy, even if that’s not with me.

  So, I’m not turning down Cassie’s offer because I’m saving myself for Ivy. That would be fucking dumb.

  But.

  The heart wants what it wants, and right now my heart is still tied up elsewhere. I’ve talked to other girls, gone on a few dates, but I refuse to start dating as a method to “move on” or whatever. I won’t do that to someone. It wouldn’t be fair to them, and it would
n’t be fair to me.

  And besides, I’m not like Ivy and Jesse—I just can’t do the random hookups with random people thing. When I start dating again, it will be because I am finally free to invest myself in someone new. Until then, I’ll be maintaining my 4.0 GPA and my friendship.

  * * *

  Wednesday nights are for soccer.

  When I was on the BU soccer team freshman year, practices were regimented and much more organized. Now I just get up with a bunch of dickbags on Wednesdays who like to fuck around with the ball. We run drills, and when enough of us are free we scrimmage. Some nights, like tonight, we’re able to get another group of dickbags together and we attempt to have something resembling a real game. It’s not an official college team, but I like this better.

  In middle school, when I ate, slept, and breathed soccer, I had every intention of doing whatever necessary to go pro. In high school, when my dream of teaching history started to form, I was okay with playing soccer here at BU instead of doing it professionally. Now, after everything that happened with my soccer scholarship, I’m content with weekly scrimmages and work out drills with my merry band of ball kicking dickbags.

  We’re a rag tag bunch, but we have fun.

  After leading the team through some stretches, the student ref blows a whistle, and we post up, ready to kick ass. I don’t want to brag, but I’m a fucking brilliant midfielder, and “real” games like this one are the only time I can really unleash. So yeah, I’m confident we’ll wipe the floor with these frat douches, because I didn’t have a full ride soccer scholarship once upon a time for nothing.

  Two hours later, I’m sweaty and physically spent in the second-best way. We ended up winning by a landslide.

  “Good game, man,” Brewer says as he slaps me on my back.

  Brewer is a decent guy. A little rough around the edges, but harmless. He’s a sophomore, a Poli Sci major, and a pretty good soccer player.

  “You too, Brew,” I say between gulps from my water bottle.

  “They thought they had us there for a minute,” Brewer laughs, “but they didn’t know they were up against a human rocket.”