1407: Part 21

Kristina lay on her couch, staring at the ceiling. Underneath her blanket was nice and warm, and it felt safe.

The TV was still mumbling something in the background, but her mind was too hazy to even contemplate what was on right now. It had been on all night, but she hadn’t paid any attention to it, nor had she got a wink of sleep. She kept replaying the incident with the year 9 class over and over again.

She felt ashamed; she had utterly overreacted to the situation, and she had lost her cool. She doubted she’d ever be able to recover her credibility from what had happened — at least among that class, and probably now among the rest of Year 9, too — and knew that she had made a huge mistake. But there was no turning back now.

The stress had been gradually building in her head for some time now. How much she noticed it depended on how good a day she had had, but it was always there in the background, rumbling away like the noise from the TV in her living room right now. It never truly left; the feelings of inadequacy, of worrying that she couldn’t match up to people who did her job far better than she did; the feeling of panic that she would be somehow letting her young charges down through her own incompetence.

She screwed her eyes up and rolled onto her side, burying her head in the couch cushions. It was a futile gesture, of course, since anxious thoughts are not something you can blot out like unpleasant noises, but it made her feel momentarily better to try and escape from her own feelings. Then they caught up with her and she felt like she wanted to cry, but instead she just rolled onto her back again and stared at the ceiling. No tears came; she simply didn’t have the energy to do anything.

She heard her phone buzzing on the table where she left it, but didn’t move to answer it. She had no idea what time it was or who might be calling her, and right now she didn’t care. She just wanted to sink into the couch and disappear, never to be seen again.

I’ve failed, she thought. I’ve failed utterly. This is the one thing everything in my life up until this point has been leading towards, and I’ve ruined it.

Finally, a tear spilled from the corner of her right eye and rolled down her cheek, but she still couldn’t muster the strength to actually cry properly. It frustrated her, because she felt it would probably help to release all the tension currently wracking her body, but it wasn’t happening.

She closed her eyes and was immediately confronted with the image of what had happened again, replaying over and over. She could hear herself screaming, could see the sneering face of the boy she’d sent out, could feel the mocking looks of the children she was being paid to look after and educate. She had let them down.

 

*  *  *  *

There was a banging on her door, and it happened to coincide with one of the rare instances where she had got off the couch — this time to get herself a drink to soothe her parched throat.

She had spent most of the day on the couch with the curtains drawn, so she had no idea what time it was — nor did she know who might be banging on her door at this hour. She had a feeling she didn’t want to know, either, but despite part of her brain urging her to just return to the couch and continue to wallow in her own depression, she walked to the door and opened it.

She was relieved to see it was Maxine — the one person she felt like she could be reasonably comfortable with right now.

“Hey, you,” began Maxine, before looking Kristina up and down. “Man, you look like hell. What happened?”

Kristina was clad in her pyjamas — a rather immature, girlish pink top with a picture of a rabbit on the chest, and some ill-matching striped bottoms that weren’t at all flattering to her figure. Her hair was bedraggled, her eyes were puffy from sporadic bouts of crying, and her lips were dry and cracked.

“I…” said Kristina. “I’ll tell you in a bit. Come in. I’ll put some coffee on. I need it. Now.”

Maxine followed Kristina inside, a concerned expression on her face. Kristina wordlessly walked into the kitchen and began preparing the coffee. Maxine sat down on the couch, moving Kristina’s blanket aside and turning the television off. The familiar loud buzzing of the coffee machine emanated from the kitchen.

Kristina returned a moment later with two steaming cups of coffee and sat down on the couch. She handed one of the cups to Maxine, sat down and wrapped her legs in the blanket.

“I was going to tell you some stuff,” said Maxine. “But you haven’t been answering your phone all day and… well, you look like you might need to talk first.”

Kristina sighed.

“No,” she said. “You go first. I think I need to work up to mine.”

“All right,” said Maxine. “I went back to work today. Mark was there, but I steered well clear of him.”

“He was there?” said Kristina. “I’m surprised he wasn’t locked up.”

“No,” said Maxine. “By the time the police got there, he’d long gone, and there was nothing I could do to prove what had happened. At least, not then. But while I was away he sent me a ton of threatening messages. Messages that proved more than adequate evidence to show to work.”

“Oh!” said Kristina. She could feel her anxiety and depression lifting — temporarily at least — and was grateful to Maxine for providing a distraction. “So you…”

“Yep,” said Maxine. “First thing I did today was go see my boss, explain what had been happening and show her those messages. By the time I got back to my desk, Mark was nowhere to be seen in the office, and I somehow don’t think he’ll be back.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Kristina. “Just be careful. He strikes me as the sort of person who will probably hold a grudge for something like that.”

“Well, if he does, I have plenty of ammunition to give to the police now, too,” said Maxine. “I’d like to think that he’s not so stupid as to jeopardise his wellbeing further, particularly as I discovered he’s got a kid he’s supposed to be taking care of, too.”

“A kid?” asked Kristina, suddenly curious. “You never mentioned that.”

“Neither did he,” said Maxine. “And I never saw any sign of them, either. But apparently it’s true.”

“Huh,” said Kristina. “Well, I can’t judge his parenting, but if he behaves anything like he does towards you towards his kids, then…”

“Yeah,” said Maxine. “I’m not sure what the deal is. And frankly I’m not sure I want to know any more.”

The pair took the opportunity presented by the natural break in the conversation to sip their coffee. Kristina leaned back, exhausted, after she swallowed.

“Oh, gosh,” she said. “I needed that. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.”

“Yeah,” said Maxine. “Come on, spill it. What’s going on with you?”

Kristina took a deep breath and recounted the story of what had happened the previous day. Maxine’s face alternated between horrified and sympathetic towards her friend.

“Man, you’ve got to get out of there,” said Maxine after Kristina had finished. “It’s killing you. Possibly literally.”

Kristina shivered. She’d never actually gone so far as to seriously contemplate suicide, but had found her thoughts wandering to dark places in particularly stressful times; last night had been particularly bad.

“Yeah,” she said. “But it’s not quite that simple, unfortunately. I can’t just quit. I’d be letting everybody down. I’d be letting the kids down, letting the staff down—”

“Fuck those guys,” said Maxine. “Right now, you’re the most important one. You need to take care of yourself. And do you really think you won’t be letting them down if you collapse in the middle of a lesson from a heart attack or, I don’t know, fly into a crazy violent rage or something?”

Kristina knew that Maxine was joking, but shuddered at the possibility of actually hurting one of her young charges in anger. Sometimes it was so, so frustrating, and in her mind’s eye she saw herself dealing with the problems with force. She was ashamed of those thoughts, but she knew at the same time they were nothing but fantasies that no-one really needed to know about.

“Yeah,” said Kristina. “I’m… going to take the rest of this week off, then see how next week goes. It’s Parents Evening, so I really need to be there to talk to these kids’ folks on how they’re doing. I’ll decide what to do once that’s all dealt with.”

“Jeez,” said Maxine. “You have a twisted sense of duty to that place.”

“It’s how we’re trained to be,” said Kristina sadly. “However shit it gets, you’re supposed to just deal with it and keep on carrying on.”

“That’s no way to live,” said Maxine.

“No,” said Kristina. “It’s not.”

Internally, she had already made her mind up and knew what she was going to do, but had decided to maintain the appearance that she was going to “try” going back next week to see what would happen. She knew that she had already given up, though; there was no going back. She needed a clean break, though, and Parents Evening felt like a good time to cut the cord and escape.

*  *  *  *

Kristina invited Maxine to stay the night. She wanted her friend to be safe from any potential repercussions of her reporting Mark earlier, and also wanted to not be alone, though she didn’t admit the latter part. Maxine immediately saw through her, though, and agreed to stay.

Later that evening, while Maxine was in the bathroom, Kristina looked at her phone for the first time that day. She had heard it buzzing off and on as the hours had passed, but had deliberately stayed away from it. She didn’t want to know.

Now, she picked it up. It was down to 5% battery, so she knew it wouldn’t last much longer, but she also saw that there were ten missed calls, some from the school’s number, others from mobile numbers she didn’t recognise. There were three voicemails, too, but she didn’t feel up to listening to those right now.

She started feeling the grip of anxiety around her stomach again. She felt like she’d done something really wrong, and that she’d have to somehow make up for it.

But then the rational part of her brain kicked in, and thought of her plan. Not much longer to go, she thought. Then I can escape.

She hadn’t thought of what she would do after she escaped, of course, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.