Instead, I keep going into the office. I go back to working with the other teachers.
It's a month before I see Chris again. He comes to the loft just as everyone is trickling home for the day. He goes up to the conference room without looking at me.
There's a knot in my stomach that appears when I see him. But I follow him anyhow.
He glances up at my entrance with a blank expression. He immediately looks back at the papers he holds in front of his face.
I pull out my FlexPhone from my skirt pocket and put it down on the table. The Toronto Star is emblazoned on its surface with a headline across its front page:
Local renegades arrested after impromptu demonstration devolves into riot
"You're not who you say you are," I say. "Are you, Chris?"
"What are you saying?"
I put my hands on my hips.
"They say you were the ring leader and that you conveniently got away. They say you accosted the Labor Minister and that you maced him."
"That never happened."
"They say there were some personal service bots involved. It says that they got destroyed."
"What? What are you..."
He picks up my phone and begins to read.
"You're just a coward, aren't you? You're not going to try everything and anything to help these people out. And all they do all day is support you. They are committed to the cause, okay. Fine. But even more than that, they're committed to you. And all you do is use them. I guess that means you're just one of those fighting guys. Any excuse to get caught up in something?"
His only response is a deep chuckle. A laugh that begins in his belly.
"What? What is it? Am I funny?" I ask.
"Look, Anderson, you can't believe everything you read in the --"
"Why haven't you talked to me?" I ask before I can stop myself.
"Well, I--"
"I was waiting for you to say something. I was waiting for you to apologize. And now I have to read the papers to find out you've been brawling on the street with bots."
"Me? Apologize?"
"Yes, you," I say. "You yelled at me."
"I'm sorry," he says. "I seem to have hurt your feelings."
"This has nothing to do with feelings. You just...you're the leader of this Group. You should explore every option for change. You shouldn't just shut me down because I have a different opinion than you. I have something to offer, too. Something that won't get you in the paper as a vigilante. What exactly do you do when you leave here? What is it that we're supporting?"
"I know, I know," he says. "Look, I'm sorry. I missed you." He looks at me sheepishly.
"What do you mean?"
"I missed talking to you. Our conversations were always helpful to me -- to the cause."
"Well that's just fine then."
I try to suppress a smile. My mouth twists with the effort.
"Look, I'm sorry too. We'll just have to be professional about this and stop arguing all the time."
"Sure, Teach."
He leans back in his chair.
"And you've got to let us know what's going on out there."
"Okay, okay. I'll hold a meeting about this," He points to the article. "First thing tomorrow. You'll all get the truth about what really happened."
"Okay, well. Great," I say. "Then I'll just...get back to work."
"Great, Teach."
I turn to leave. But as I glance back over my shoulder at him, I can see him as he looks over my figure hungrily from head to foot and back up again.
#
On my way home later that afternoon, I think about the way he looked at me. I stare out the window of the subway into the blackness beyond. As I lean my head on the window of the automated train, I picture his blue eyes looking me up and down.
Lust crawls through my body like a virus. I hate the feeling.
I hated it even when I was single: the feeling of being off-kilter, of thinking so much about a single person that I can't tell what is real and what is a daydream. I thought that unresolved lust would leave me alone, now that I'm married.
I can't look at him and ruin our relationship. Our professional relationship is this little bit of nothing that we can cling to now.
I'm afraid that if I look at him, he'll know what I'm thinking. But even though I try to avoid his eyes, I can't.
I picture the way he leans in to talk to me. When I close my eyes, I can see the curve of muscled chest under his thermal shirt.
When I think about the way he looked at me this afternoon, it's as if I am standing still in a flow of time. Years have passed, and I've gone from rod thin teenager to pudgy married lady in a moment.
Boys and men of every sort have looked at me the way he looked at me today. Is it some animal pheromone that draws them to me? Am I more attractive than I believe?
It all started with Jonny Wong back in Mississauga. He was my friend in junior high. No one else would talk to me.
We'd hang out in the computer lab, laughing and talking. Programming pranks that would pop up on the teacher's tablet in his office. We hung out in his bedroom, too, after school. Playing video games.
Then he had to ruin it by trying to kiss me.
Next came my biggest regret: Matt. We were in the same department in university. We dated for a long time and stumbled through losing our virginity together.
But we had to part ways. I stopped playing video games because of Jonny. I stopped poking at the guts of computers because of Matt.
Then there was Austin. And I thought that would be the end of men for me. But now Chris looks at me with lust.
Even though he's arrogant, stubborn, and brutish -- even though I should be disgusted, I can't deny that I like it.
(Continued in Chapter 33...)
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OMG so awkward. What did you think of this chapter? Let me know in the COMMENTS or toss me a VOTE if you thought it was deftly handled. Byeeeeeeeeeeee...