The Teacher

by Freida McFadden

all I can think to myself is that I hope a truck blows through a stop sign, plows into the Honda, and kills us both instantly.

uh what?

She doesn’t have to deal with the fallout of what happened last year. Of what I did.

If I were a cat, I would have peed on him, but since I’m a human, I plant a kiss on his lips that is markedly steamier than our usual three kisses per day.

The thing I really need to worry about? Addie is in my husband’s class too.

God, he is such a good kisser. He makes me melt. I used to think Nate was a good kisser, but I was wrong. This man is far better.

Where did this dude come from??

There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t wish Jay and I could run off together. But in my heart, I know this will all end horribly.

Why would I be stupid enough to think my husband would want to have sex with me on my birthday?

You were right. I should never have married him.

was trying to be nice to her because she lost her father recently, and I think she just got too attached. She became fixated on me.

What you deserve is to get your eyes scratched out. No, that’s too good for you.

My eyes tear up. Life is so incredibly unfair. I am stuck in what I am increasingly realizing is a loveless marriage, and meanwhile, I have no chance of being with the man who I really love.

But we’re never going to be able to be friends again. Things will never be the way they used to be between the two of us. Not since Hudson helped me kill my father.

He’s dead, Addie! We killed him!

I love my mom, and I know why. She makes me food so I don’t die.”

She deserves what’s coming to her.

who I would like to be with, it isn’t him anymore. It’s Nathaniel Bennett.

Girl...

“I love this line,” he tells me. “‘The blood drains out of my heart with each beat.’ What a powerful image.”

I can’t resist you. I’m helpless.

“Sweet Adeline…”

“Sorry, this is… It’s new territory for me. Honestly, I feel like a bad person. I’m your teacher…”

“I married Eve because it was expected of me to settle down. I never met anyone genuinely special before. And now I’m thirty-eight, and I’m meeting my soulmate for the first time, and she’s only sixteen.”

“I mean it.” He stares at me through the shadows in his car. “My entire career is in your hands. I’m counting on you.”

Your eyes are brown like freshly fallen autumn leaves I crave your embrace in the misty night I see you every day But when I can’t be with you I long to be in your arms My love for you is like a black hole It is so deep and I can’t stop falling

“Addie,” he breathes. “My sweet Adeline.”

38..16...

Life nearly passed me by Then she Young and alive With smooth hands And pink cheeks Showed me myself Took away my breath With cherry-red lips Gave me life once again

“You gave me my life back. You have no idea how dreary my world was before you came along.”

“We love with a love that is more than love. With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted.”

Plus, eventually I will graduate from high school, and I will get to date whoever I want. But if Nathaniel is still with his wife, he will be trapped. If only Mrs. Bennett weren’t around. It would be so much better.

I wish it didn’t have to be this way, believe me, he told me. I wish I could be with you all the time instead of her.

This maiden has no other thought than to love and be loved by him.

That bastard is cheating on me. With her.

Busted

If she were dead, I could still keep my job,

And certainly not my husband, who is the one squeezing the life out of me and is the last face I see before I die.

Darkness there and nothing more.

I’m sorry, Addie. One of us has to take the fall for this, and it can’t be me.

“Because Nate and I have been sleeping together since my freshman year.”

she was only fourteen years old then. Nathaniel would never…

to have all these beautiful young girls throwing themselves at you year in and year out. I’m not made of stone.

they are kids

I recite to myself the poem he once wrote for me many years ago, back when I was fifteen years old and he was my English teacher fresh out of college who swore to me I was his soulmate:

Things never change

“Later, Jay,”

No way!!..

“we better go. My shift at the shoe store starts at five, so we’ve only got one hour for milkshakes.”

also babysits his one-year-old brother