Teacher is on walk with student. She finally tells him what's wrong, the source of her anxiety. The teacher's reaction, in some ways my own I confess, was probably not unusual fifty years ago.
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She blew a moist breath over her glasses and rubbed them with a balled Kleenex she'd pulled from her pocket. "It's my fault, I think. If I wasn't there, there wouldn't be a problem," she said. "He's not a bad man, Mr. Soerens, but it's just that I can't be around him."
I wanted to touch her myself right then, I wanted to comfort her in my arms. "You think I should just quit the whole deal?" she said.
I don't know why I said what I did. I really don't. It was so much easier, I think, just to keep it quiet, to keep the lid on. I suppose I was thinking the same way she was, that there was more to lose all the way around if the truth were known. I was no Walters, but maybe I even wanted to protect myself--I don't know.
"What should I do?" she said.
"Don't tell Templeton," I told her. "Just be sure that tonight he can't get you alone. Leave early," I said. "Do something."
"I can't," she said.
"Try," I said. "Just don't put yourself in any kind of position where it might happen again. Stay away from him."
I suppose I assumed that the fear across her face, in the way her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed—I suppose I thought that was only natural. What did I know, really?
When we walked back to school, we walked through an uneven cadence of grunts, three or four guys in dirty practice jerseys lowering their shoulders and butting the blocking sled around the field, the coach astride the machine in front of them, yelling derisively. All the way back, I had Jessica on one side, almost silent, and the football team grunting on the other.
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Tomorrow: . . .the next day in school.
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