“I'm better. I need to talk to you.” I blew out a breath and took a sip of the root beer- it was my favorite Barqs.
“What's going on, my love?” He was worried again.
“A lot. But I guess that is not a very good answer. And I know if you said it I would want to throw you into the ocean. So let me try to explain. I'm missing my old life. I never thought that this sort of thing would be my life. I miss Kelly, and I hate that I can't tell her everything. I miss Mike- even if it upsets you. He was part of my life from the moment you left until I came here. That is a lot of time for me to just let go. It feels like there's a hole in my heart where he belongs. I'm stressed out about the wedding, and all this chaos of trying to stick to the month thing. And I'm seriously feeling inadequate about the whole teaching thing.” I let out a long breath and tried not to look at him.
“Em, you just need to take a moment to breathe, cara mia. I understand the wedding stuff. I knew that would be the case when I told you. And I'm sure the idea of teaching is overwhelming, but I'm going to help you with that. I promise. I can't do anything about your old life. It hurts that Mike was such a big part of your life, but it's something that I know. And that I'll live with. Perhaps if you went to visit him, or had him come visit?” I could see it hurt Dom to suggest this.
“I was thinking that once things are settled here that maybe I could go visit him in Ireland.” The words were hard to get out, but I knew I needed to be honest with Dom.
“I understand completely. You are the only one that I knew my entire life. I knew we would be together, but it isn't something that you knew. And Mike was the person you dreamed of for so long. I think that the Kelly thing will naturally work itself out. I know how you felt when you had to spell her. But I've yet to find a loophole around it. There is no reason for her to know of our existence. If for some reason she becomes involved with one of our kind- something completely looked down upon- then she'll find out that way.” He shrugged.
“Ugh.” I knew he brought up Kelly to change the subject.
Dom let me eat in peace and then led me into the library. He had set up a series of drafts for lesson plans. I wasn't sure if they were for his classes or specifically for me, but the gesture was so nice that I almost started to cry again.
Thank you. I knew if I spoke I might actually cry.
For you, the moon. He walked me over to the various papers and sat me down.
“So here are the typical plans that I do for my classes. But I tried to create one for each of the classes that you would have to teach. I figured it was only healing and mental training, I doubt that Leland would ask you to do anything other than be civil.” He shook his head laughing.
“Yep, those are the only two that I know of.” I took a deep breath as I knew I would have to learn how to be nice to Leland again.
Dominic went through each of the various articles on the table. After he had talked to me about what I thought I might teach the students, he had a sea of new ideas for each class- although he had more for Daniel's class but since I was trained by Betty to do this stuff, I had a better grasp on it. Ultimately, it seemed like there would be an overlap of information between the two. I tried to think about how many of the students were in both classes, and I realized that I had no clue- only that Leland was in them. I sighed and tried to plan two different sets of beginning plans, just in case I had a significant overlap. I felt much better once I had an outline to at least go off of. When we were all done, I sat back and rolled my shoulders. I looked over at Dom and realized that there was still so much that I didn't know about him.
Chapter Four
Start from the beginning
