The whole story goes public in class.
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The next day, Simon Walters lost it all in class. Jessica and two others stood at the board working out a simple problem, the rest of the class diligently computing through the sub-stratum of the same exercise in their notebooks, likely as not glancing up once in a while to see how Jessica, the whiz, was accomplishing something that seemed to the others impenetrable.
No one knows what had happened between them the night I sent Jess back to math contest practice. I don't know either. Jessica never told me exactly.
But I can guess what happened because I think I understand something of Simon Walters. He likely tried to explain to Jessica once again how his soul was rushing headlong towards her in a way that he'd never felt before. He probably told her everything again, expecting her to return the intimacy. And he probably reached for her, expecting this very bright and mature student to be one, at least, who would love him.
But no one knows exactly what happened, and I fear the worst. Even then, I didn't really want to know. Maybe what I'm guessing is just the best possible face I can put on Simon Walters. Maybe it's the maleness in me that I'm still trying to protect.
The next day in class, Jess stood in front with the chalk in her hand, trying to wrench the right answer from some stubborn puzzle on the board, and she wasn't getting it. But no kid in that room understood why not. There was more in her figuring than what she was scribbling, but when she didn't get it right, Simon Walters' best student, the one he'd opened up to the night before—when she didn't get the answer, he took it personally. It drove him crazy, and he blew his mind all over that classroom.
"I try and I try, and I try," he screamed. "I give my life for my students, and what do I get for it? Does anyone every appreciate me?" He screamed directly at Jessica.
The kids stared, petrified, at the assault.
"You can't believe how hard I work around here-how much I care."
He turned to the rest of them. "I want you kids to learn this. I want you to leave my classroom knowing this stuff. I give my life for this, and what do I get back? Does anyone ever say anything?" he yelled. "Does anybody ever say thanks? Do I ever get a yearbook dedicated to me? What do I have to do?"
He turned back to her, in silence. He caught himself for a moment, I guess, then looked back at the class, his eyes unfocused, as if he recognized none of them. He stepped back, felt behind him for the corner of his desk, and brought himself slowly around to his chair, still glancing back and forth between Jessica and the rest of the kids. Blindly, he sat down, stunned, they said, as if suddenly embarrassed. Then he dropped his head into his hands and started to cry out loud.
Jessica stood stiff at the board.
He sat there before them crying, then came up once more and looked at them again, eyes full of tears. "And you," he said to Jess, "you know what I mean. You—of all of them—know. And you don't even care."
That's when Jessica ran.
The others stared blankly at each other as Simon Walters put his head down once again when he saw her leave. "I try and I try and I try," he said again, banging his fists on the desk. "I try and I try and nobody cares—no one," he said.
He pulled both arms up around his face and lay there on the desk bawling. The kids waited, looking at each other, wondering what to do. When the sobbing stopped, two of them, football players, took it upon themselves to walk to his desk--at least that's the way the story went.
They took hold of Simon Walters' elbows, got him to sit straight, then helped him to his feet. "You need to get out of here for awhile," one of them said, almost in a whisper. "Come on," he said. "Let's go."
Mr. Templeton met them at the door because Jessica, this time, hadn't simply run out of school.
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Tomorrow: And then what happened. . .
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