The Repeat Year by Andrea Lochen Page A

possible.
    “What did she want?” He sounded mildly interested. A courtesy question, really. He sifted through some papers on his desk.
    She shrugged. “It’s not important. Did I come at a bad time?” She was trying not to fret. She tried to reassure herself that his reaction to her arrival had nothing to do with their breakup, because to him, it hadn’t happened yet. It was simply the middle of a busy workday, and judging by the mounds of board work on his desk, he had been hoping to get a lot of grading done during his lunch period. She had caught him off guard. What did she expect? For him to sweep her into his arms and plaster her face and neck with kisses?
    “Of course not,” Phil said. “In fact, I’m so happy to see you”—here he scooped up a disheveled pile of spiral notebook paper with snibbles still attached to the edges and shoved it into a folder—“that everyone in my morning classes gets an automatic check on their board work today!” He stood up and wrapped her in a tight hug. The delicious scent of his soap made her a little weak in the knees.
    He motioned to his empty bowl. “Are you hungry? I’ve got a whole drawer full of Campbell’s and there’s a microwave in the teacher’s lounge. Or I have granola bars, bananas, oranges, beef jerky, some pretzels that might be a little—or a lot—stale.”
    “Thanks, but I’m okay. I really just wanted to see you. To talk.” She searched his eyes for any reservations. There were none. There was only warmth and liquid light.
    Phil pulled a student desk closer for her to sit in. It was at least two inches lower than his, and as she sat down she couldn’t shake the feeling of being a teenager again, awkward and exposed.
    “So how’s your day going so far?” he asked.
    “Not much to speak of. I literally woke up an hour ago. How are you doing?”
    “Eh, you can imagine. The holidays are over and the kids are all brain-dead from winter break. Final exams for the semester are rapidly approaching, there’s no end to winter in sight, and spring break is months away. The natives are a little restless.” He grinned at her, and suddenly the tremendous need to apologize overwhelmed her. But she couldn’t tell him about last year. He wouldn’t believe her, and if he did, well, that would be even worse; their new chance at happiness would be ruined.
    “How was dinner with Charlie?” she asked.
    He set the bowl down, knocking his spoon to the floor in the process. It clattered to the floor, but he didn’t retrieve it. “Sometimes I don’t know why we do this. This pretending.”
    Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream.
He knew.
Had the full force of last year’s events and all its unworthy moments abruptly come back to him like an amnesiac remembering his true identity? Or had he known all along and simply been putting on an act of starting over with her? She gripped the metal bar on the edge of the desk. “What do you mean?”
    “Pretending we’re a normal father and son. I can see how hard he’s trying, but sometimes it feels irrelevant to me. Last night, I was looking at him across the table, and I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Who
is
this man?’ He’s not the dad I adored as a little boy. But he’s not the guy that wrecked everything, the one I’ve blamed and pinned all my hatred on since then. He’s someone else, you know? This old guy with this sad, droopy mustache, and I have no idea how he spent more than a decade of his life, except that he wasn’t here.”
    She relaxed her grip and sank back against the hard plastic seat, but her overwrought brain could hardly make the switch from one crisis to the next. She’d been on the defensive, and now she had to change over to the supportive girlfriend role. “Phil, I . . .” She didn’t know what to say. It was a role she hadn’t filled in a long time, and she had always felt slightly out of her depth when Phil spoke about his dad. Both their dads had left them, but Phil’s had