Running for Home - 7. August 24, 2021

August 24, 2021

What. The. Fucking. Hell.

Okay, so staff meeting this morning, right?

Apparently, the guy who’s been teaching the juniors business decided to take off, too, a couple weeks ago. The French-Canadian guy teaching economics and the flying class apparently already has too many classes and there was no one else around who had enough specialty to teach the senior courses. I guess Emma had to pull some strings to get a new teacher in time for classes. She said yesterday it would be someone already familiar with the curriculum to be taught and the needs of the school. What she failed to tell me was that the replacement was one Robert Louis Drake.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!

So Emma’s standing there up front with me sitting right there, doing the whole introduction shit, and I’m about to stand up and say hi and Bobby just fucking waltzes in late and starts joking around with everyone. Of course, everyone here knows him. It’s Bobby. Emma gives him a death glare, but he doesn’t notice and keeps it up as he tries to find somewhere to sit. There was only one seat left, since we were all crammed into Emma’s office instead of in a classroom or somewhere else that would make sense for a meeting this size. So, of course, Bobby nonchalantly goes for the open seat until he sees the person sitting next to it.

Me.

It was priceless, that moment. I honestly think that Bobby almost shat himself, he looked so shocked, then completely freaked out, and then pissed. The temperature in the room dropped, and Bob of course had to ask the obvious, “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Teaching English. Now sit down and shut up like the professional that you are supposed to be,” Emma replied, ever so bitchily. Guess Icepick got the point, because he grumbled and then did exactly that.

So Emma turns back to the whole introducing new staff thing and I have to stand up in front of everybody in this totally uncomfortable silence now that Bobby has identified me as someone to have a snit over. I make an ass of myself, stuttering out that I’m a journalist/writer, went to school here years ago, some of you already know me, blah blah blah. I got through the details Emma told me she wanted me to highlight and then sat the hell down before it could get any worse.

Not that I’d have that kind of luck today.

So on to the next problem: how the fuck was I supposed to pay attention with him sitting next to me? Emma started talking again, but I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what she said. Fuck, it was a nightmare. All this shit from years ago just came flooding back through my mind and I just wanted to shoot myself in the foot. I didn’t spend the last decade of my life letting Dom fuck me and pretending he actually loved me just so Bobby Drake could remind me how much of a failure I am and how I’ll never be good enough just by sitting next to me. He was staring at me, but trying not to look like he was, and that only made me feel worse. I wasn’t going to let myself feel threatened, though. Not by him. No fucking way. But I was pissed that I’d have to deal with this, now. Fuck.

I must have missed at least half of what Emma was saying. Hopefully she’ll have mercy on me and give me a handout of the minutes, or something. I don’t want to fuck up and look like the staff retard because I didn’t register something important. At the same time, I feel like she’d start busting my balls for not being professional enough if I have to ask. I don’t actually care what she thinks, to be honest, but I don’t want to get fired before I’m even out of the starting gate. Maybe I’ll ask Pete first.

Anyway, so the meeting finishes and I try to book it out of there. I figured Bobby would stick around and make small talk with all his friends. After all, during the last few months of my life at this school he proved just how great he was at ignoring me. Well, unless I was bashing Marie or about to set something on fire. Or when we were alone in our room. God forbid he associate with the school pariah in public. Okay, I’m being melodramatic and not giving him enough credit because I’m too fucking jaded about it all. He was my best friend at Xavier’s, but I was just another body in his sea of friends. I probably wouldn’t have even been in the same ocean if we weren’t placed as roommates.

Well, I was wrong again. Not only did Bobby choose to leave right away, he made a point of following right on my heels and forcing me into a confrontation right in the front hallway. There were twelve and thirteen year olds walking around, new kids still scared and confused about this new place they were in. They were still exploring, waiting for classes to start in a few days and here’s one of the teachers menacingly shoving another adult against the wall and threatening them.

“What the hell are you trying to pull?”

“Back off, Ice-pick. I was hired. You got a problem with that, take it up with the boss,” I hissed, glaring daggers at him. All I wanted was to get back to my room and get another hour or two of sleep. And/or wake up to find that Bobby was not, in fact, going to be teaching here this year, and the day so far was just one colossal nightmare.

No deal from Bobby, though. “I didn’t know they were so desperate for teachers this year that they’d hire a criminal.”

“Don’t act all high and mighty, Mr. Boyscout Brigade. All you X-men and your goddamn self-righteous crusader shit have broke at least as many laws as anything I ever did.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it, Allerdyce. I’m warning you, if you even think of doing–”

At that point, Emma walked in and took telepathic control over Bobby to move him away. It was annoying; I could have handled it. I told her I can fight my own battles and to stay out of it. She just rolled her eyes and gave me this knowing look like I'm just another stupid kid in her school. It pissed me the hell off, the fucking bitch. I’m not sure what she said to Bobby after that, because I just took off. Not like I care, anyway.

Good riddance.

You know, when I was considering whether or not to take the job and had basically already decided it was my best option, I had this moment where suddenly my stomach was a ball of ice when I realized Bobby was probably still here. I went to the school website to check, though, and his name wasn’t anywhere to be found in the faculty profiles or anything like that. I did some more research and found him listed as an associate at some bigwig firm in New York, so just assumed it would be safe. It looked like he’d finally moved on, just like me. Well, except that now my moving on has moved me right back into a place that I’m now not so certain I want to be.

Fuck.