Chapter Text
While Ryland was more eager than he thought he'd be to spend time with Simon, he'd had to put off their meetup (not a date, he'd been too much of a coward to explicitly ask him on a date) to the later date the cashier had offered, as he'd already made a commitment for the next day:
A bike ride with Olesya.
He hadn't expected the activity to come up so soon when he'd agreed on Tuesday night, but apparently she took these bike rides every Thursday and was very eager to have Ryland join her on the next one. Ryland wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth; he hadn't had anyone to ride his bike with since he was a teenager. He'd often see fliers or online posts in Toronto advertising biking groups, but he'd never been able to gather the nerve to join in.
As he packed up his bag at the end of the school day, his fellow science teacher poked her head into his room with a wolfish grin. "Ready?"
Ryland returned the grin, pulling his bag over his shoulder and clapping his hands together. "Ready!"
"Yay!" Olesya mimicked the stim with an excitable giggle, waving for Ryland to follow her. "Come, come!"
The more he got to know her, the more sense it made to Ryland that Olesya, like him, chose to work with middle schoolers: she had that kind of youthful energy and optimism that tweens have little difficulty connecting to.
She'd've been eaten alive in Toronto, he thought almost bitterly.
The two left the school and walked around to the bike rack, where Ryland was surprised to find another member of staff waiting, smiling and waving when he saw them approaching: one of the gym teachers, Mr. Yao. "You're late!"
"No, you are early!" Olesya replied, playfully shoving Ryland forward by the shoulder as they reached their bikes. "You let students out early!"
"They need to change!" Yao defended good-naturedly, before turning to Ryland and holding out his hand. "Glad to meet you finally, Mr. Grace."
Ryland shook his hand, a sheepish smile on his face. "You too, Mr. Yao."
Olesya faked a gag. "Ugh, so formal! Li, Ryland! Ryland, Li-Jie! Not complicated!"
The men laughed, Ryland taking hold on the strap of his bag as the handshake ended. "I didn't know you were joining us."
A light punch from Olesya hit his arm. "Am woman biking through woods, Ryland. Can't go alone."
Ah. Yeah, alright, that was fair.
Li-Jie fastened a helmet to his head, adjusting the straps with a practiced ease as he grinned excitedly. "Off we go!"
Ryland couldn't help but return the smile.
~~~
The forest trail was beautiful; a stream running along the gravelled path, a handful of the earliest autumn leaves littering the ground.
Ryland wouldn't pretend it wasn't gruelling- some of the upward slopes had to be more than forty-five degrees -but that almost made him enjoy it more. Reaching the top of each hill gave him a new rush of accomplishment, and he knew the way down would be one heck of an adrenaline rush.
The trio took a break about half an hour in, settling on some rocks at the side of the stream.
"So," Li-Jie began, taking a sip from his water bottle. "How are you liking our school, Ryland? Ms. Ilyukhina and Mr. Murphy speak very highly of you."
Ryland felt his eyebrows raise in slight surprise as he swallowed his own water. "Uh, yeah, it's nice. Really nice."
Kind of weird, he thought privately, though not at all in a bad way. This place was just... baffling. Even Marissa, his best friend back in the city, had taken a few weeks to warm up to his eccentricities. He'd known his two companions for two days and half an hour respectively, and they already seemed to be enjoying his company. He'd been adopted by the shop teacher on the first day, he was being defended by the principal in regard to his old board coming after him- Hell, Ryland had a "not-date" that weekend! This place was bizarre!
"Hm," Olesya hummed, squirting Powerade into her mouth from a distance before smirking at him. "And how about rest of town? Is anything else 'really nice'?"
She repeatedly raised her eyebrows in a teasing fashion and Ryland felt his face go red as he rolled his eyes. "Yes, everyone's been nice."
"Yeah, especially someone."
Oh, now Ryland understood! He'd accidentally moved to the setting of a Hallmark movie! That explained it, that made sense. That's why everyone was so flipping nice and oddly accepting of his awkwardness and oddities.
Logically, he knew he should find it odd; childish. His coworker- because that's what Olesya was, he'd known her two days, they couldn't be considered friends yet -was teasing him about his... 'facination' with her friend, like they were thirteen and gossiping on the schoolyard the way their students did.
But... he liked it. It was weird, probably invasive, but also simple; almost comforting.
They were friends. After two days, they were friends. He and Rocky were friends, he was pretty sure he and Simon were friends, and by now he and Li-Jie were friends.
It was odd... but a good odd. A nice odd.
The trio continued their ride, going higher and higher up the mountain until they finally reached the top.
The entire town was laid out before them as they came to rest at a wood fence, blocking off a sheer cliff. Ryland could see the school, the fire department, the grocery store, even his own apartment building in the far corner.
Li-Yie clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm impressed! We didn't have to slow down for you!"
Ryland chuckled, offering a shrug as his eyes remained on the view. "Not my first rodeo."
Olesya bumped his hip with hers, also looking over the town. "Nice, huh? Favourite spot. Looks incredible at night."
Ryland could only imagine; the streets and buildings lit up in the dark, like hundreds of stars scattered across the land below, mirroring a night sky.
He can't remember the last time he saw a sky full of stars before he left Toronto; maybe his childhood? Camping in a provincial park? It had been so long that his first night had frozen him outside his building for nearly an hour.
He could stand here at the cliff for just as long.
"So," Olesya started again, nudging Ryland's arm to draw his attention to her. "Want to join our biking club? Do this every Thursday?"
"Not much of a club," Li-Jie admitted with a smile of his own. "But good company."
Ryland smiled. "Yeah, sure!"
Yes, this was odd. But to be fair, so was Ryland.
His good mood soured as he suddenly remembered: "Oh, I have a meeting after school next Thursday."
"That's alright," Li-Jie reassured him. "We'll wait for you."
Olesya nodded. "Of course! Only second week, should be short meeting."
And he appreciated the sentiment, but he couldn't help the sardonic chuckle that escaped him. "Uh, actually it'll probably be a long one. I'll be happy to join you the week after, though!"
His companions glanced at each other past him.
"What sort of meeting is it?" Olesya asked, her tone more careful than Ryland had heard it in the past two days.
He couldn't hold back another laugh, leaning forward on the fence as his gaze wandered over to the school below. "What have you heard about me?"
A more familiar awkward silence stretched out between the other two.
Ryland sighed. "Look, I've been in education for a while, I know how the rumour mill runs when a new teacher shows up out of nowhere."
His coworkers looked at each other again, before Li-Jie finally answered: "Some have guessed you're freshly divorced."
Ryland snorted. "Nope."
"Ms. Lokken told me you have doctorate," Olesya offered. "She thinks you're here to write another paper."
Ryland winced- great, that secret's out -but shook his head. "Never again. I basically rage-quit that a decade ago."
Another, shorter silence fell before Li-Jie said "Others say you were fired from your old board."
It still hurt to hear; his heart or his pride, Ryland couldn't pinpoint. Probably some mixture of both. He wordlessly nodded.
"What did you do?" Olesya asked, any carefulness gone from her tone as her curiosity seemed to overpower it. If nothing else, the consistency made Ryland smile.
He was... hesitant to answer the question. Let's just say he absolutely deserved to be fired for his actions, even if he still believed they were justified. There was no way to say it without it sounding bad, but he acknowledged that his new friends deserved some level of explanation.
He took a breath. "...I was helping a student with a difficult homelife. We had protocols for that, but... I didn't follow them. Technically, I straight-up broke the law, but her mother's testimony kept me out of legal trouble. Couldn't save my job, though."
There. Specific enough, holding the weight of his actions, but no specifics.
That same awkward silence made another appearance, with the additional horror of a male teacher in his thirties admitting to have crossed professional boundaries and broken the law in a situation involving a young, female student.
It sounded so much worse than it was, especially given his vagueness, but he couldn't see a way around it. It was either be vague, or betray the trust of the very child he lost his job to protect; to betray the secrets she told him to strangers who'd never met her.
Ryland was pulled out of his own head by Olesya linking arms with him.
He looked down at her, surprised. Her expression was determined, the smallest reassuring smile seeping through.
Li-Jie rested a hand on his other shoulder, giving Ryland a nod.
They didn't say anything. They didn't have to.
A lump built up in Ryland's throat, but he thankfully managed to keep him in.
The people he'd worked with for years who knew the whole situation had thrown him straight under the bus and washed their hands of him.
These people he'd known for two days who only knew the awful sounding basics were firmly in his corner.
~~~
"Ow! Fudging... heck!"
Watch your profanity, Ryland, there's a toddler living next door!
The man struggled to get his bike into his apartment, repeatedly banging his shins against the peddles.
Just because this apartment was bigger than his Toronto one didn't mean it was big, but at least it had a separate bedroom.
Finally, he managed to maneuver the bike through the door and pull it shut behind him, leaning the bike against the wall and taking off his helmet, hanging it off of the handlebars.
"Alright," Ryland muttered to himself, clapping his hands together and tossing his work bag onto the couch on his way to the fridge.
It wasn't exactly bountiful; a container of hummus, some celery and carrots, milk, coffee creamer, ketchup and mustard, cheese and lunch meat. The freezer was a bit better, at least containing several microwave dinners.
Ryland grabbed one of these- Mac & Cheese tonight -and opened it up before popping it in the microwave. He set a minute on the timer and watched the square dinner spin around.
The microwave beeped and Ryland opened it up, grabbing the dinner. Though steam rose from the food, the bottom of its container was still cold to the touch. Normally Ryland would just eat it anyway; grit his teeth and deal with the sensory Hell of contrasting temperatures and cold pasta. But after today? A day of solidifying friendships, admitting to his sins, the pure joy of riding his bike with others who enjoyed it just as much...
...why not continue to treat himself? Let this be a good day all around.
He grabbed a plastic fork, stirred up the pasta and popped it back in for another forty-five seconds.
He plopped himself on his couch with his fully-heated dinner, digging in while he grabbed his phone out of his bag and turned it on (he'd shut it off for his afternoon activity, to keep himself "present").
He'd received several memes from Rocky, most of them drawing a chuckle out of him and the others at least getting a fond eyeroll.
Simon had reacted to the first of the (rambling, in hindsight) messages Ryland had sent him the day before:
"Hi! So, want to meet in the park around 12 on Sunday?"
"It's fine if that doesn't work, just lemme know a time and place!"
"Just figured I'd make a suggestion, lol, since this was my idea"
The only response was a "thumbs-up" reaction to the initial message.
Though Ryland felt butterflies rush through his chest at getting any reaction, part of him worried; was he really going to scare Simon off before their first... non-specific outing? He really needed to reign himself in.
Finally, he found a text from Marissa, requesting "Proof of life pls".
Chuckling lightly, Ryland took a selfie with his dinner to send to her.
"Thank God" his friend replied, "you remembered sustenance"
Ryland rolled his eyes- he hadn't forgotten dinner in years, thank you! -asking her how her husband and daughter were doing.
Marissa's response was to send a picture of her three-year-old, Maisie, colouring a picture of stars and planets at their coffee table.
"for 'uncle rye-bread' lol"
"Aww," Ryland chuckled, sending a spam of various heart emojis, though something ached in his chest.
There were definitely things he missed about Toronto; his students, his friends and their families, that little coffee shop he'd gone to every morning since it opened five years ago, to the point that the staff knew him by name.
A message from Rocky distracted him from his wallowing, and he clicked over to their conversation:
"Hope you had fun in 'nature', meanwhile we're riding REAL bikes XD"
A photo quickly followed: a selfie of Rocky, Simon and Tony on a couch behind him playing Mario Kart. Simon was winning, and Tony was trying to clinb on top of him to distract him.
Ryland can't help but laugh, sending a matching emoji.
Marissa messages him again (dang, he's popular tonight!): "howre your babies?"
Oh shoot!
Ryland shot up from the couch, carefully placing his dinner on the coffee table and beelining to his bedroom.
"I'm sorry, guys!" He quickly apologized, approaching the tank that held his two tetra fish, Armando and Mary, and picking up the can of food to shake into the water. "Still not used to having you behind a door."
He didn't really have much to apologize for; he'd fed them before going to work and he was really only twenty-minutes late for their dinner, but he wanted to be a good fish Dad. That meant remembering to feed them before getting his own food.
Once the two were chowing down Ryland sighed in relief, snapping a picture of them to send to Marissa, who responded with a thumbs-up.
Another picture came through from Rocky: Tony laying on the floor, clearly having fallen off of Simon/the couch and Simon flipping off the camera as his character- Luigi -celebrated his victory.
Ryland marvelled at the guy, a million questions flashing through his mind: did he have to re-learn video games after losing his arm, or were they strictly a post-prison hobby? Were they even a hobby for him, or was he humouring Rocky and Tony by playing? Did he have an adapted controller, or did he learn a way to use a regular one? Was he really good, or was Tony just terrible?
Questions for Sunday, he supposed.
The butterflies returned at the thought.