1392: Part 9

Kristina felt enormously awkward the following day. She couldn’t make eye contact with Martin and went out of her way to avoid speaking to him. As soon as the headteacher’s droning lecture that constituted the morning briefing was over, she snatched up her things and headed straight for the music department without waiting for Martin.

She was still angry, but she was embarrassed now, too; it wasn’t a great combination inside her head. She knew all too well that her colleagues were probably just as stressed as she was, but given how much she was inclined to bottle things up and then explode rather than talk about them rationally, she couldn’t help feeling like she was being treated a little unfairly.

Then she felt that she was being unfair, too; her colleagues weren’t mind-readers, after all, so how could she expect people like Martin to know that she was feeling overwhelmed and stressed by everything that had been going on, even without almost being assaulted by a student.

Either way, she didn’t really want to talk about it right now, so went straight to her classroom and began sorting things out ready for the day’s lessons. The piles of paper were still on her desk — she swore they’d grown since yesterday — and were still no closer to being filed or sorted. She sighed at the sight of them and spent a moment just gazing forlornly around her classroom.

It wasn’t an awful classroom in comparison to the rest of the school, but it was a distinctly awkward shape. Long and thin, the design of the room made it largely impractical for any layout of tables other than around the perimeter walls, but in doing so that meant the students were encouraged to turn their backs on Kristina — not ideal for getting them to pay attention. She’d tried to counter this in various different ways, with the most effective by far being getting everyone to pull their chairs away from their tables and gather around the piano when she was talking. It wasn’t ideal, but it sort of worked; she was extremely pleased with herself when it had proven effective, as it was something she’d come up with herself rather than something a textbook had told her to do.

Suddenly, she jumped as her phone chimed in her pocket. She normally switched it to silent before classes started for the day — it was hard to regain control of a class after they’d heard a teacher’s phone go off — but she’d apparently forgotten today. There were still a few minutes to go even before registration, so she fished it out, flicked the silent switch and then glanced at the screen.

It was a message from Maxine. hey babe, it read. need to talk2u. call me when u have a sec? x

Okay, said Kristina. TTYL. x

*  *  *  *

The day passed fairly uneventfully. Just before lunchtime, it was the GCSE group’s performance practice period, so Kristina, after doing her rounds and making sure everyone who was present — a group that excluded Edward today — was actually practicing, decided to take advantage of the relative peace to call Maxine.

She was grateful for her GCSE group being so motivated to get on in their own time. She knew by now that, Edward aside, she could trust them all to get on with practicing without having to continually badger them; playing their instruments or singing was the reason most of them had actually picked to continue studying music, so they appreciated the opportunity to have some free time to do just that — Kristina, meanwhile, appreciated the opportunity to sit back and let them get on with it. She was sure it wasn’t quite in the spirit of “active teaching,” but given how much energy some classes took up, she had decided to take up any opportunity to slack off a bit.

She knew that Martin was teaching a lesson himself right now, so slipped quietly into the music departmental office and drew out her phone, scrolled through its contact list and tapped on Maxine’s name.

“Hello,” came the answer after a few rings. Her voice didn’t seem to have its usual energy.

“Hey, Max,” said Kristina as cheerfully as she could muster. “What’s up?”

“It’s…” There was a long pause, and Kristina thought she heard her friend sob. She felt a knot immediately form in her stomach, and braced herself for some unpleasant news, whatever it might be. “Sorry, Kris, I can’t do this over the phone. Meet me for coffee after you’re done working today?”

“Sure,” said Kristina. “Are you… all right?”

“No,” said Maxine. “I’m really not. But I’m not sure how to talk about it yet. I’ll figure it out by this afternoon. See you later.”

She hung up before Kristina could get another word in. The strange conversation had dampened her spirits considerably, and she was starting to worry. After a moment of standing alone in the office grinding her teeth in thought while just gazing at her phone, Kristina eventually decided to do another round of the music students to distract herself from her own thoughts.

*  *  *  *

Kristina was out of the gates almost as soon as the end-of-day bell went, and headed for her friend’s favourite coffee shop.

When she arrived, Maxine was already there. She was considerably dressed down from her usual appearance; her face was without makeup, her hair was disheveled and she was wearing a rather drab sweatpants and hoodie combo. It looked like she’d been crying.

“Max?” said Kristina, sitting down opposite her almost unrecognisable friend. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I…” Maxine began, but her lip began to tremble and she was obviously holding back tears.

“Max?” said Kristina again. She reached out her hand across the table, and Maxine took it; Kristina was surprised at how cold it was.

“Oh boy,” said Maxine, sniffing and composing herself somewhat. “Last night was… a bad date.”

“Bad date?” said Kristina. “Oh, right, you were going out with Mark, right? It didn’t go well?”

“No,” said Maxine. “I… may have misjudged him somewhat.”

“How so?”

“I, uh,” said Maxine. “It’s sort of embarrassing.”

“Hey,” said Kristina. “I’m not judging. Honestly. You can tell me anything.” She really wanted to know, but she was trying her best to frame her curiosity as supportiveness.

“Well,” said Maxine, “it was going well. So well, in fact, that we headed back to his place after the movie, and, um…”

“Did you…?”

Maxine’s face screwed up and a tear rolled down her cheek.

“You know me, Kris. I don’t do that on a first date, I just wanted to… but he… he…”

The knot in Kristina’s stomach grew tighter, and she felt like she wanted to throw up.

“Oh, God, Max, did he…?”

Maxine closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then exhaled noisily through her mouth. It seemed to help her compose herself a little.

“No,” she said. “Thankfully. But it wasn’t through lack of trying, I don’t think; I managed to get out before he could… do anything. But, oh, Kris, he was scary. I… can’t believe I misjudged him so badly.”

Kristina’s eyes widened.

“Um,” she said. “Are you… are you sure you’re not just misreading the situation? Perhaps he’s just one of those guys who likes to, you know, take control?”

“No,” said Maxine. “This was different to that. I was up-front with him, told him it wasn’t going to happen that night, but that I liked him and that we should see where things went from there, but he was… he was very persistent. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Ugh,” said Kristina. “I’m glad you got out when you did. He sounds like a dick.”

Maxine chuckled. “To the point,” she said, a weak smile on her face. It quickly turned serious again. “I just don’t know how I’m going to face him now. I skipped work today because I couldn’t deal with the prospect of seeing him in the office. What am I going to do?”

“I… don’t know,” said Kristina. “I’m sorry. You know I don’t have a lot of, you know, experience at this sort of thing.” She pondered for a moment. “But you can’t hide from him by not going to work, can you? You’ll need to go back eventually, so you need to think about what you’re going to do about that then.”

“What can I do?” said Maxine, an exasperated tone creeping into her voice. “I just… can’t face him.”

“Um,” said Kristina, thinking for a moment. “Perhaps you should mention it to someone. Not details, obviously, just that… there’s problems between you, and that you need to stay away from him or something? Would that work?”

“I don’t know,” said Maxine. She sighed. “I guess I’ll have to find out though, huh?”

*  *  *  *

That evening, Kristina lay on her sofa beneath her favourite blanket, watching TV. A half-eaten microwave meal lay on the coffee table in front of her; she didn’t feel hungry enough to finish it.

She was feeling very lonely. She wanted to talk to someone about what Maxine had said earlier in the day, but felt that she didn’t want to upset Maxine further.

Then she had an idea. She didn’t know if it was a sensible one. She paused, weighing up her options for a moment. Then she got up from the sofa, rummaged around in her bag until she found her “admin” folder, flipped through the pages inside until she found the list of phone numbers she’d taken from the students participating in the charity 24-hour music marathon that had taken place the previous month.

Where was it… Ah!

Her finger slid smoothly down the page until she found what she was looking for. With her other hand, she reached into her pocket, took out her phone and brought up the contacts page.

After registering the details, she switched to the messaging app.

Hi Sian, she typed slowly and hesitantly, then paused for a moment to consider how she should phrase what she wanted to say. This is Miss Charles. No. She backspaced over “Miss Charles” and replaced it with Kristina.

This is Kristina, she typed. I hope you don’t mind me messaging you like this, but I could do with someone to talk to. She added an “x” to the end of the message out of habit, but suddenly thought it might be inappropriate, so she deleted it. Then, before she could reconsider, she sent it.

Hi, came the response a few minutes later. Thanks for the message. Is it okay for you to be texting me like this?

I don’t know, said Kristina. I guess we’ll have to find out.