The New Teacher

Part 9 - Im Sorry

Steve sat at the bar with Natasha. He hadn't spoke much since they had sat inside. Steve looked down at his drink messing with a straw. Natasha looked at him, and decides to break the silence. "I'm sorry okay..." Natasha puts her hand on his shoulder.

"What did you just get up and leave? Did I say something that upset you?" Steve stresses and looks at her and speaks with a concerning voice.

"No.. you didn't upset me. I'm sorry I ran off. I just panicked." Natasha doesn't look at Steve.

"Hey... Nat. It's okay." He places a hand under her chin lifting her face. So there eyes met.

green eyes met blue

"Normally, I would get left behind in any situation... so when you helped me and gave me your bed.. I j-just wasn't expecting it..." Natasha answers honestly looking up at him, not breaking the eye contact that they both held.

"Who would leave you behind?" Steve's voice shows sympathy and worry for Natasha.

Sighing she speaks. "Everyone... everyone in my life. My parents, put me in some boarding school in New York I was originally from Russia. They never came back for me. I then went from foster home to foster home. I was a troublesome child. But I think I was just distraught from everything. I then made a few friends, but I got thrown into a different foster home and I lost all contact with them. Then I finally became eighteen, I could do what I wanted. So, I travelled back to Russian to find my parents and eventually I did find them.." Natasha stops speaking and looks down breaking the eye contact, her hands fall into her lap and she tries to calm her breathing.

Steve puts a hand on Natasha's shoulder slowly and gently. "What happened? You don't have to say if you don't want to." He gave her shoulder a squeeze to show reassurance that she would be safe to talk. Natasha eventually looks up, her eyes glassed over, she was hurting and she had held in all this sorrow for too long.

"They didn't want to know me... they told me that's the reason they left me. I just wanted to know what I did wrong... for them to hate me so much..." Natasha mentally cursed herself for opening up, she felt weak and vulnerable.

"Well I'll have you know I like you very much... so you have me." Steve tries to reassure her. He realises what he says and slightly panics "Well I like you. You know as a fellow co worker!"

Co worker
Yikes

Natasha felt a hint of sudden hurt in a heart by his choice of words. Was they even friends? He just sees me as a co worker. Ouch. She thought to herself. "Yeah... thanks Steve." Her mood wasn't in the slightest bit uplifted from the feeling of heart ache of her troublesome passed.

Steve realised that her mood wasn't uplifted. In fact she seemed even more upset than before. He frowns moving his hand from her shoulder and offers her another drink. Again, not an alcoholic drink he had already made that mistake the first time they both went out together. He decided to change the topic of conversation.

The night went swiftly from there, instead of talking about the past. They spoke about past positive moments...

"Wait so your first kiss ended up with you in a swimming pool?" Natasha burst out laughing. "How did you even manage to fall into a swimming pool!" She hits his knee playfully, while Steve's face started to burn up turning his face into a bright shade of red.

"I panicked okay! She was pretty.. and I'm glad I knew how to doggy paddle!" He laughs

"Doggy paddle!" Natasha laughs more. "Could you not swim at the time? You know properly?" Natasha fans her face, as she was practically crying with laughter.