In the silence that followed, it was like he shuttered himself back up. He took a step back. He gave a single nod. Then he said, “Noted.”

We’d forgotten ourselves for a second there. His utter surprise that I’d thought he’d married the long-forgotten Chelsey and fathered a litter of kids had disarmed him. For a few minutes, he’d relaxed into his natural self. We hadn’t been fighting, or disagreeing, or sparring. We were just talking. Like people do. Not cast in roles as uppity librarian and hard-ass administrator—just two people catching up on old times.

But I’d been so afraid of saying something foolish, that I’d done something foolish instead. I’d tried to argue him into staying like that.

Surprise! It didn’t work.

He took another step back in the sand, composing himself. Then, he turned back toward the group—all of whom were staring at us, by the way. And, as he made his way back toward them, I had no choice but to follow.

The teachers’ eyes shifted between the two of us as they watched for a verdict.

When he arrived at the group, he let out a long sigh.

Then, in a tone of voice like he was the one who’d been defeated, he finally said, “Everybody back to school. Right now. Or the kids all have D-halls and the teachers all have to proctor them.”

The teachers hesitated for a second.

But then, when Duncan added, “Don’t make me take the Keurig out of the faculty lounge”—they jumped into action.

eleven

That moment on the beach left me on an emotional seesaw about Duncan.

He was still acting like a warden, and systematically dismantling everything I loved about my school, and by extension my job, and by extension my life.

But that little human moment we’d shared together on the beach wouldn’t let me give up on him entirely. Worse: it had cracked open a little leak of longing in the dam of my heart. And I could feel the crack growing a little bit every day.

In response, mostly, I avoided him. Things had been easier when I could see him as nothing but a jerk. It wasn’t fun to see him that way, but it was easier.

That taste of honey wound up being worse than none at all.

Just like the song says.

Now, I was having to master the art of looking at him but not looking. Because now, I wanted to look as much as I didn’t want to look, and that state of tension was infused with agony. So I’d look at things near him. I’d find a reason to glance in his direction without actually focusing on him. I’d try to give in just enough to satisfy the urge without actually doing it. Like biting the corner of a chocolate bar.

It only made things worse. You could’ve told me that.

This was the crux of it: Yes, he was the enemy, and yes, he was ruining my life, and yes, I was in the process of trying to get him fired … but he was also really fun to talk to.

Irresistibly fun to talk to.

You know those people? Those very rare, very special people who just play a kind of counterbeat to yours? It was like the way we talked had a rhythm, like he was the bass drum and I was the snare. He was doing his thing and I was doing mine, but the two of us together were just super danceable.

And the more we talked to each other, the faster we fell into that rhythm, and the more I just wanted to stay there.

But of course, it was all forbidden. I shouldn’t joke with him, or banter with him, or even talk to him unless I had a good reason. I sure as hell shouldn’t walk through the hallways with him.

The other teachers wouldn’t approve. Heck, I didn’t even approve.

So, for a couple of weeks there, I found myself looking for “legitimate” reasons to pop by his office, or ask for his help, or stay late after school in case he might be walking out around the same time that I was walking out and we could walk together and crack each other up without, you know, getting in trouble with myself.

Chuck Norris turned out to be a great resource for this because he kept coming to the library and gnawing on the books when he should have been on patrol. He really loved to eat books. So I’d walk him down, hand the book to Duncan to add to the growing pile, and then, as I turned to leave, Duncan would say, “Great outfit today, by the way.”

I’d look down at my kelly-green circle skirt and my striped, multicolored knee socks below. “Thanks,” I’d say. “These are clown socks, actually. Got ’em at the party store in the bargain bin for a dollar.”

“Wow. Clown socks.”

“Yeah. But … cool ones.”

“They’re less cool now that I know they’re clown socks. Remaindered clown socks.”

“False. Now they are more cool. Because now they have my stamp of approval.”

“Yes, but you are a person wearing clown socks. So you’re not qualified to judge.”

And before I knew it, I’d spent twenty minutes trying to tear myself away.

I can’t explain it, but talking to him—about anything—just felt good. The way singing feels good. Or laughing. Or getting a massage.

I’ve never been addicted to anything, but I suspect it might feel a little bit like this: You know you shouldn’t but you just want to so bad. That was conversation with Duncan: illicit, indefensible, and wrong, wrong, wrong—but also blissfully, hopelessly impossible to resist.

And so I thought we were going to have one of those moments on the last day of school before winter break as I reported for lunch duty. Like, I walked along the cloister and saw him holding the door for people, and my heart did a little illegal shimmy in my chest. I almost felt nervous as I got closer—a feeling in myself I did not endorse—and then when it was my turn to go through the door, I looked up at him from under my eyelashes to say thank you, and just as I did, Chuck Norris came bounding toward us from behind me and knocked me right into Duncan’s arms.

Totally legitimate.

I smacked against Duncan’s chest with an oof, and the next thing I knew, he’d caught me.

It was the first time we’d touched in any way since I’d grabbed his arm on the beach—and now here I was, in his arms. The moment seemed to shift into slow motion and all my senses seemed to ramp up: I heard the swish of fabric, felt the rumble of his voice, the tension in his muscles as his arms clamped down to catch me.

He lifted me back to my feet, and it wasn’t until I was standing on my own that time caught up. I looked around and saw the room staring at us.

“Chuck Norris!” I said, all scoldy, to prove to everyone that I would never have voluntarily crashed into Duncan’s chest like that. But Chuck Norris had wandered off to try to drink from one of the sprinkler heads in the courtyard.

So I just kept moving, stepping on into the cafeteria, my whole body giving off invisible sparks from the impact.

It was a moment that made me feel dizzy and girly and stupid, and who knows what kind of giggling I might have done afterward if circumstances had been different. But as it was, as I arrived in the cafeteria, I looked up to see something that wiped the memory of Duncan’s chest clear from my mind.

The butterfly mural on the cafeteria wall—the floor-to-ceiling, full-sized, gorgeous, epic, legendary mural that Babette and I had spent an entire summer painting—was gone.

In its place was a gray wall.

I gaped.

Then I turned to look around the room like maybe it had … moved, somehow?

But all the walls were gray.

Everything was gray.

Even the floor, which hadn’t changed and was still a yellow-and-white checkerboard of slick industrial squares, looked gray. Like all the gray around it had soaked into it. The room—always so sunny and bright—suddenly looked dingy, and dirty, and sad. Just like a prison. Just like I’d warned him.

I looked around for Duncan.

He’d walked in after me.

He always prowled the perimeter of the cafeteria during lunch duty, standing at military attention and watching all entrances and exits. He never actually ate during lunch. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him eat anything at all. Did he eat? Maybe he just plugged himself in at night like a Tesla.

I spotted him, standing stiff as a soldier, on guard.

I don’t even remember closing the space between the two of us. I just remember showing up.

“Where’s the—” I started to ask, but then I couldn’t say it. I started over and forced out the words. “Duncan … what happened to the mural?”