Devotion Page 11

  "Need some company?" a voice says to me.

  34

  Annette

  My day picked up its pace after seeing Corey at recess. The seeds I planted in his mind can only grow from here on out. I need to keep nurturing them to flower. It won't take long for him to realize he made a huge mistake marrying that terrible excuse for a human being. If I do my job right, he will welcome a separation and eventual divorce.

  As lunchtime arrives, I head for the faculty lounge for a quick coffee. I don't spot Katherine hanging around the way she routinely does or find Corey, for that matter. They both usually sit at the same table having a private conversation while smiling at each other like lovesick puppies. Have I ruined their routine already?

  Needing to know, I head toward Katherine's room to see if she's by herself. If I discover her there, miserable and eating alone, my work has been a success.

  Thinking about how things have progressed, I only wish I hadn't waited so long to take action. I guess I got swept up in the delusion that Katherine and Corey's relationship would fall apart on its own. If only I had known it would be this easy.

  I approach Katherine's room and step up to the doorway, seeing her alone sitting on her desk like a rebellious teenager. With a single knuckle, I knock on the glass and realize two seconds too late that Corey is already inside. He's relaxing on Katherine's chair. Their held hands snap away from each other.

  "Come in, Annette," Katherine calls out with a huge smile on her face. She seems happy. And why wouldn't she be. She was eating lunch with her perfect damn husband. What the hell have I walked in on?

  I open the door a crack and poke my head in. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll leave you both to it."

  "No, it's fine," Corey says. "Join us." He ushers me in with a wave.

  "Okay," I mutter, like a stunned idiot. I have no choice but to venture inside and be the third wheel to Katherine and Corey as they've somehow become the perfect couple again.

  "Have lunch with us," Katherine adds to Corey's invite.

  "Oh no, I can't stay. I just needed to ask Kat a quick question."

  "Ask away," Corey says.

  Katherine leans toward me. "What's up?"

  My mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. "I, um. You know what, on the way over here I forgot what I wanted to ask you. How stupid is that?" I force out a chuckle and feel the room close in around me.

  "I hate that," Corey says with an awkward laugh.

  "Me too," Katherine adds. "If you think of it, I'll be here."

  I smile, feeling the phony expression plastered over my face. It starts to burn me. I have to get out. "I'll leave you two be."

  "Okay. Have a good one," Corey says, dismissing me. Did I imagine our intimate conversation earlier? I feel myself float out of the room; my legs disconnected from reality. Did any of what we talked about before mean a thing to him? Was he messing with me?

  As I walk back to the office at a shuffle, feeling stupid, I divert to the nearest restroom. I find the disabled toilet and rush inside, locking the door behind me. None of the students are around, so I claw at my skull and feel a pure rage swarm within.

  I scream out loud and kick the solid gate as hard as I can. What the hell is happening? Katherine and Corey should hate each other. They should accept the cold truth that they don't work as a couple.

  I shake my head and realize I've been going about this all wrong. This slow burn is taking too long. I have to show Corey we belong together. I need to step up my game and make Katherine understand what happens when you steal from me.

  Her time is coming.

  35

  Katherine

  Corey doesn't seem to enjoy being a lead teacher. By the end of the first week of his new role, he looks stressed out and worried. With the weekend now upon us, I hope he tries to take his mind off school for a few hours and relax by spending some time with his family.

  It's Saturday afternoon and Corey has spent the morning working on his Math planner again. From what I can see, he has thrown out everything the higher grades had been using and has started from scratch. It seems like the hard way to go about it to me, but I remind myself it's not my problem. I've already offered to help.

  "Dammit!" Corey yells from the small desk we have in the corner of the living room.

  "Honey?" I say to him while tilting my head sideways toward Ava, gently reminding him not to cuss in front of her. "Please try to stay calm." I'm sitting on the sofa while Ava lies next to me watching her favorite animated show about talking dogs. Thankfully, she seems oblivious to Corey's outburst.

  "Sorry. It's this stupid planner. It's driving me insane. If I'm going to help the students improve their results, it needs to be flawless. I can't get things working the way I want them to."

  "It's okay. Don't stress about it. You've only been at this for a short time. Why not take a break for the rest of today?"

  "No. I promised Barry I'd have something for him Monday."

  "Really? That doesn't sound like him to put pressure on a teacher so soon."

  "He didn't. It's more that I said I'd show him some progress by Monday. I can't go to school next week and reveal this mess. He won't think I'm up to the job." Corey throws his hands over his face. "God, why did I have to say anything?"

  I shift Ava to her own spot on the sofa and wander over to Corey, placing my hand on his shoulder when I reach him. "It's okay, honey. You'll get it worked out. Maybe you need to move aside from it for an hour or two. That helps me with these kinds of things."

  Corey lets out a long sigh and takes his hands from his face. "Yeah, you're right."

  "I'm always right," I say with a chuckle.

  "How could I forget," he says, playing along.

  I bend down and kiss him on the cheek. "Come on. Let's go for a walk and get out of this house. The sun's out. It'll be good for us all."

  Corey doesn't argue and helps to remove Ava from her position on the sofa. She protests a little to her show being switched off but is happy the second we head outside.

  We're not close to the beach, but we can be there in less than ten minutes if we all walk fast enough. As we stroll toward the ocean with Ava between us holding our hands, I can't help but ask Corey about what he's specifically struggling with. We get into the details of his proposed changes to the Math curriculum for the fifth graders. His overall concept sounds ambitious and problematic, but I don't tell him. Instead, I try to point out smaller issues.

  "How do you think that will all work with the correlation between place value and operations?" I ask.

  "I'm not sure yet. I'm still trying to simplify a system so the kids can better understand place value. It seems to be a severe problem from what I've found in the hundreds of tests I've gone through."

  We continue to talk shop while Ava sings to herself, ignorant to our boring conversation. I sometimes wish I could disappear into her carefree mind for a day.

  We reach the beach and zip up our coats as a blast of ocean wind rolls in from the waterfront. It's a beautiful sight before us of crashing waves and cliff stacks, but the cold temperature is a letdown given there's some nice sun out. Spring is fading.

  "I'm happy to help you," I say to Corey.

  "No, it's okay. I have to push through and get it done. Everyone needs to know I'm up for this."

  "No one is saying you're not, baby. I'm just offering to support you with a particular problem I'm good at solving. If I were you, I'd take help wherever I could. I sure do whenever I need it. Plus, the school likes results more than anything else. They don't care where they come from. And it's not like I'll run around telling people I helped you."

  Corey stares out into the water for a moment, no doubt in thought. "Okay. You're right. I'll accept the help."

  "You'll need to ask me better than that."

  He turns to me with his crooked smile. "Pretty please, my love, will you help me with my pathetic problem?"

  I pretend to consider his request for a secon
d. "I suppose so. But it's going to cost you three milkshakes."

  "Done."

  Once Ava finishes exploring the beach, we head over to the nearest café and enjoy some milkshakes as a family.

  After an hour of fun, we walk home and prepare some dinner. Once Ava heads off to bed, I help Corey with his problem. We have a strong breakthrough within the first few hours, giving Corey something concrete to show Barry on Monday.

  "Thank you so much, honey," Corey says. "This is a huge step in the right direction. I can apply this to everything instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. I might even email some of this to Barry so he sees it before Monday."

  "That's a good idea. Also, you're welcome. And please remember, I'm happy to help with anything I can."

  "Got it," he says, holding my hand.

  I pull Corey toward me and drag him to our bedroom. "Come on. Let's go have some fun before this weekend is over."

  36

  Annette

  An interesting email comes by me early Sunday morning. Corey has sent Barry some work he's been plowing through over the weekend like the dedicated man that he is. With back door access to Corey's emails via a virus I put on to his laptop before he left on Friday, I've been able to see everything he sends and receives through his school account. As I go through the attachment he sent to the principal, something becomes clear: Katherine has been helping him.

  I saw the mess Corey emailed himself as a backup on Friday. There's no way he has pulled all of this together in such a short time without Katherine shoving her nose into his business. I'm no teacher, but I recognize the language she uses. I know the words she loves to put into action. If she hasn't taken over his project, I'd be almost shocked.

  I hate to see Corey struggle this way and have to rely upon some glory hog like Katherine for help. She's always looking for another way to make herself feel important. I'll never forget the time when one of her students came to the office for help, informing me that her father was hitting her mother. I was the one who spent hours comforting the child throughout that day. I was the one to call social services to properly investigate. Yet when the time came for Barry to step in and do his part, Katherine decided to take over without asking me and said it was something a teacher should handle.

  Corey shouldn't have allowed Katherine to soil his hard work with her inflated ego. Yet I'm glad he did. There's a beautiful opportunity here that I cannot let pass me by.

  I'll deviate from the next phase of my plan for now to implement something that I know will reveal the ever-present fault lines in Corey and Katherine's relationship. It's almost too perfect a situation to ignore.

  Come Monday, I will drive an entirely new wedge between the newlyweds. There won't be forgiveness like there was last week when Corey gave in to Katherine's BS. I love this man more than anything in the world, but he needs to show some backbone and realize he has married a manipulative loser who only cares for herself.

  If I pull this off, Corey will finally see what has been holding him back all along. And I'll be there to pick up the shattered pieces, ready to glue them together the way they should have been from the start.

  37

  Katherine

  Everything is right again. Corey and I feel like we are functioning the way we always have. So much so, he offers to take Ava and me to school, and not too early either. With the effort we achieved on the weekend, he didn't need to rush in first thing to bash his head against the wall trying to pull together something for Barry. By now, the principal will have seen the impressive work Corey sent him.

  "Thanks for taking us in to school," I say, making sure Corey understands how much I value him doing so.

  "Don't mention it. It's the least I can do considering what you've helped to save me from."

  "Hey, it was all you," I say, trying to play down what I did. "I only nudged you in the right direction."

  "That 'nudge' was the nicest thing you could have done for me. I'm sorry I was being so stubborn."

  "It's okay, honey. The important thing is that you let me in. I only ever want what's best for you."

  We smile at each other while Ava groans in the car's back seat. "Can I go now?"

  "Of course, sweetie," Corey says. "Why don't we all walk to before-school care."

  "Yah!" Ava calls out, overly keen to get going.

  Corey and I escort Ava to her room. I only wish we could hold hands to make this moment more special, but I take what I can.

  After we sort out Ava, Corey and I head into the faculty lounge to have a coffee together before class starts. Barry sees us coming by his office and calls out.

  "Corey. Got a minute? I'd love to chat about what you emailed me yesterday. It's quite interesting."

  "Go on," I whisper to Corey with a smile. "I'll meet you at lunch." I send him on his way into Barry's room.

  While Corey is busy, I grab a coffee and head to my classroom. My day will be a breeze. I feel energized, so much so that I clean up the mess on my desk and think about how to better organize my class. Sure I didn't get that promotion, but I can make some positive steps for a change with no need for validation.

  I wait in my room for Corey at lunchtime. It's become our new spot to have a break together. After five minutes, I realize he is running late to spend any time with me. Figuring a student or parent is holding him up, I start on my lunch. You never know when a problem might come bursting through your door to ruin your limited break, so it's best to eat when you can. I've had parents rush into class without signing in at the office all up in arms about something that could have been addressed in an email. I swear some of these people treat us like robots built to serve them and their children.

  Footsteps stomp up and into my room mere seconds after I finish thinking about annoying parents. I spot Corey in the window with a furrow in his brow. He snaps open my door and charges in.

  "You lied to me."

  "Excuse me? What are you talking about?"

  He slaps a piece of paper down on my desk. "Read this and explain it to me."

  "Calm down," I say as I pick up the document.

  "I'll calm down when you tell me exactly what you were thinking about when you did this."

  "Did what?"

  "Read it."

  I see what appears to be a print-off of an email sent by me to two people in the school: Barbara Cook and Jessica McDaniel. "What's this?"

  "Read it," Corey repeats.

  "Okay." I continue to read the email and see an urgent subject line. Confused, I discover a message delivered that expresses how much I helped Corey with the work he gave Barry this morning. And the body of the email doesn't say I aided him; it says that I practically wrote the whole thing.

  "What the hell? I didn't write this."

  "It's from your email account."

  "I can see that, but why would I send something like this to Barbara and Jessica? They're the most…" I trail off when I realize what I was about to say.

  "Go on, say it."

  "No, it doesn't matter."

  "It does. You were going to say that Barbara and Jessica are the two biggest gossips in the school."

  "Yes," I mutter.

  "They didn't disappoint. I had this message passed on to me by several people. Do you have any idea what you've done?"

  "I didn't do this. I swear it."

  "Don't lie to me. We both saw how jealous you were. Now I don't know if this was a drafted email you never meant to send, but this is pathetic, Katherine. Do you have any clue what this will do for my credibility?"

  "I—"

  "No!" Corey yells. "I don't want to hear what line of crap you've got for me. I hope you're happy." He charges toward the door and kicks over one of the tiny chairs, knocking over a display stand loaded with the children's artwork. He doesn't stop to pick it up and continues stomping away.

  What just happened? Who sent this email?

  38

  Annette

  By now Corey will have read the email. He'll
have seen the viral spreading of the rumor about himself multiple times. It hurts me deep down knowing he is going through this. It truly does. I only want what's best for him, but sometimes that means I have to put Corey through a little pain to show him the truth.

  Katherine will deny ever sending the message. What other option does she have? It's kind of ironic, given that she once spread a rumor about me back in high school when we had a fight. She took it upon herself to tell everyone that my parents were related, all because we got into an argument about who would get asked out to prom first.

  Katherine knows she didn't send that email, so I have to stop her from demanding to work out who did. There's only one way I can throw her off my scent and it will shatter Katherine into a million pieces at the same time. It's almost too exquisite to appreciate what I've come up with.

  I only wish I could be there when Corey confronts his spouse and accuses her of trying to sabotage him. She'll get the talking down to she deserves for all the crap she puts him through. Katherine thinks she's this amazing and supportive wife when in reality she's a selfish, egotistical maniac who only wanted Corey because I had him first.

  Part of my plan from the start has been to make Katherine think she is losing her mind, that her husband is purposely screwing with her to break her spirit. The only way to convince her that email is one section of a wider scheme perpetrated by Corey to beat her into submission is to have her believe that he sent out the email to Barbara and Jessica.

  Now why would he do that? Why would he intentionally sabotage his own promotion just to bring harm to his wife? One word: control. Katherine has been in this position before. Her ex held her in his grasp for such a long time. It wasn't until she fell pregnant with Ava that his spell broke. The abusive relationship would have gone on forever if it weren't for Ava. I would have had Corey all to myself while Katherine continued to have the man she deserves.