Classroom Affair - Chapter 29：The Next Step

The silence between them lingered like a toxic shadow, infecting them both with its poisonous smog.

Shannon tried to stand, but found her feet giving out from under her.

Chris’s arms, wanting to take no part in his recent madness, reached out to steady her.

With his cool hands on her shoulders, his toned chest pressed against her back, Shannon felt a fresh wave of anguish break over her. “Don’t touch me!”

He retracted his grasp and stood quietly resigned, as Shannon used the bed to pull herself up.

“Shannon, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Her voice froze him in its fury. He thought he’d seen every side of her in the past year, her happiness, her sorrow, her anxiety, but this was a rage unlike anything before it.

And what stung the worst, was that it was his own doing. He caused this mess. He deserved whatever wrath she chose to unleash.

Instead, she sized him up in one glance and walked out the door, without so much as a whisper of her passing.

In the quiet, the roar of his shame and anger fell upon him like a swarm of angry bees. He paced back and forth, his feet gaining traction and begging to follow after her. His arms longed to hold her, his lips taste her, but it wouldn’t happen. Not again. He wouldn’t do this to her again.

His hand curled into a fist and he punched the wall as hard as he could, creating a fresh hole in the dry wall.

Shannon walked in a fog, her heart shattering in so many different ways.

It was all too much.

She numbly walked down the stairs and out into the pouring rain. Falling to her knees, she didn’t even feel the mud slosh around her jeans or the freezing water pouring from the sky.

It was really over; her prince kicked her off the saddle and rode without her.

Shannon pictured Julie’s cold beauty, wrapping her arms around Chris’s neck, kissing him in all the ways she desired from the first moment she saw him.

He was the perfect man and now, he got to be the perfect man with her.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. Why had this happened? Why did she allow herself to be so stupid? Who did she think she was to come between them because she thought she was in love?

He wasn’t in love with her. It was all a lie.

Shannon curled up in the mud, not caring that for the second time it pooled in her hair.

How could he move on and leave her haunted the way she was? How did he expect her to go on like he wasn’t what she saw every time she closed her eyes? That she didn’t hear his voice in her dreams?

Shannon closed her eyes and stayed as she was; broken, alone, soaked in the pouring agony of the pain she felt.

~

The sun came up that day, just like it had before and would again tomorrow; the same golden sphere, the same warmth and yet, today was different.

For today, the life-giving-light did nothing to stir the broken girl, lying frozen on the damp earth.

Her empty eyes stared at nothing; barely comprehending that with the sun’s light came people and with people came questions.

Questions were a dangerous thing in her life, though they were the things that shaped it now.

What would she do? Who could she trust? What now?

Shannon closed her eyes, praying for God to turn her into stone, to make her one with the cement, so nothing could hurt her. She wouldn’t sleep again, which meant she wouldn’t dream, and a world with no dreams, meant a world without him and that was a world she could cling to.

Though the sun barely peeked over the trees, Shannon guessed it was probably six, which meant she had ten hours until the huge concert started. No doubt their Nazi of a conductor would want to run over practice again and it wasn’t like she could stay where she was forever.

Slowly, so very slowly, Shannon convinced her feet to stay firmly on the ground, her arms to push her off the muddy pavement.

That was exactly how she would have to do this, one shattered footstep at a time.

Her body ached with the movement, as if her muscles had frozen over with the emptiness pulsating through her. Each step felt like she would sink back to the ground, but she kept going all the same.

Nobody was in the common room, a fact she was very grateful for, since she was certain she looked as awful as she felt.

Slowly shuffling up the stairs, Shannon closed her eyes, as a memory from the night before flashed through her mind.

His cold gaze, the shadows of the rain drops sprinkling his face in the low light and her heart ached when the words. “I never did” stabbed through her again.

With a pained gasp, Shannon managed to pull herself up the final flight of stairs leading to her dorm room, where voices leaked through the door.

“She should have been back by now. What could she be doing?” Iris

“What do you think she is doing?” Alexia

“You’re out of your mind. Shannon isn’t that type of girl.”

“Are you sure? What kind of girl goes after a married man? I don’t think you know church mouse, as well as you think anymore.”

Shannon closed her tired eyes, feeling Alexia’s words drip over her.

What kind of girl was she anymore?

She was just about to open the door when Iris’s voice answered firmly. “She is the kind of person who can’t stand to see another in pain. I know you like to think there is only darkness in the world and if I hadn’t met Shannon, I would probably believe the same thing. But when my mom died, she was there. When I almost got kicked out of school, it was Shannon who pleaded with the principal on my behalf, risking her reputation. She’s not perfect, but she’s my friend and that’s all I need to know.”

Shannon’s hand trembled on the door handle, when she took a breath and pushed it open.

Iris and Alexia looked in her direction and by the look of shock on their faces, Shannon’s theory of her shattered appearance was confirmed.

Alexia scanned her a few times, while Iris took a tentative step forward. “So, how did it go?”

The question didn’t seem to register with the fractured girl. She walked past the two teenagers numbly; one worried, the other calculating.

Stepping out of her ballet flats, Shannon eased herself into bed, pulling the itchy blanket to her shoulder. “His wife is pregnant. It’s over, everything is over.”

Iris looked to Alexia, before sitting beside Shannon. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry this whole mess happened.”

There was a heavy silence over the room, until Alexia’s sultry voice stated. “I’m not. I’m not sorry for you at all.”

Iris glared at the dark girl. “No one asked your opinion, slut.”

Alexia’s golden eyes widened at the comment. “Slut? You want to call me a slut while comforting her? That’s a laugh. What I mean is, I’m not sorry for the situation and she shouldn’t be either. You gave your all and went for it, didn’t you? So, his cow is pregnant? So what? It’s obvious he’s unhappy with her and that even if it were only for a few months, he was happy with you. Things aren’t all sunshine and puppies, like your little guard dog would have you believe.”

Iris stared at her, one confused eyebrow raised. “And do you have a point with all this? Or will you just leave Shannon alone for a while?”

Alexia rolled her eyes. “You’re so simple-minded. Look church mouse, for once in your perfect life, you walked on the dangerous side and it turned out to be a lot more real than you were ready for. However, you took the reins and charged through it with everything you had. And though I still think you are a pretentious snob; I can respect you a little more for it. Life is shit and sometimes we just have to roll in it. The question is, will you get up and clean yourself off? Or stay there and let its stink infect you?”

Shannon searched the wall, mulling over the question quietly.

Alexia scoffed, walking out the door. “I’ll see you both at the concert. Don’t forget about why we’re here in the first place.”

When she left Iris rubbed friend’s shoulder. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Shannon shook her head.

“Will you be ok tonight? I’ll be right next to you.”

At this, Shannon turned and held her friend’s tiny hand, looking into her eyes. “You are always right next to me. I don’t think I tell you it enough, but I’m grateful to have a friend so loyal and supporting. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have made it through the night. Thank you, Iris, thank you for everything, I love you.”

Iris’s smile was like warm milk, soothing to anyone who saw it and she curled up next to Shannon, snuggling her head into the crook of her neck. “I love you too.”