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Paper crinkles beneath Janine's feet as she kneels down on the classroom floor. In her attempt to balance her water bottle, lunchpail, and stack of papers as she entered her classroom, she somehow, unsurprisingly, managed to drop them all on the floor. Her resulting shriek was probably louder than the hollow resounding ringing of the water bottle against the desk.
"You scared me!" she gasps, hand on her heart, speaking to no one in particular. She's halfway beneath her desk, trying to reach a paper that's floated to the furthest corner, when she hears a soft knock on the door. No matter how quiet the sound, she still shrieks again, her head shooting up too fast into the underside of the desk.
"Oh hey, I am so sorry, Janine!"
By the time Janine has crawled out from under the desk, Gregory is standing beside her chair, arms hanging by his sides like he doesn't quite know what to do with them. She flushes, holding up paper that slips from her hands and the bottle sideways beneath her arm. "I, uh, dropped these," she says rather intelligently, offering them up as proof.
"Sorry to have startled you," Gregory repeats, nearly stilted, leaning toward her to take the papers from her hands. He straightens them on the desk, placing them in a neat pile beside her computer. "I heard a sound and wanted to make sure everything was okay."
"Yep!" Janine replies brightly, rubbing the back of her aching head, which is probably working against her point. "I just dropped my things while I was trying to set it all down. Tried to juggle too many balls, except in this case, there's no balls, there's just... Paper. And a water bottle, and oh, my lunchpail. That'll teach me not to mess with metaphorical balls."
Gregory opens his mouth only to quickly shut it again. (She thinks she may have just seen him begin to smile, but it was gone too fast for her to tell.) "Glad you're okay," he says with a nod. His arm moves forward, hand open toward her.
She stares at it for a moment too long, tracing lines and veins with her eyes before it clicks that he's trying to help her up. Janine's heart skips a beat even as she tells herself it's ridiculous, he's just being a gentleman, a good person. Ever since he started here a week ago, she's tried to talk with him whenever she gets the chance - to help him integrate into the environment here, of course. Though he's only a substitute, it's still crucial that he feels that he has a place here.
The teachers are like the heart of a school: instead of pumping blood through the body, they pump information and knowledge into the minds of the students. The school can't function without them, just as it can't function without the nurses or aides or even the principal (though truthfully, Janine doubts Ava is always aware of this responsibility). To be a part of this heart in any sense is a sacred duty; no matter how temporary the substitute is, they are still a part of something so much bigger than them.
(It may sound a bit grandiose and dramatic, but Janine firmly believes more people should be aware of the importance of their teachers. If it takes her waxing poetic to get the point across, then so be it.)
"Thanks," Janine finally says, taking his hand and standing. When her hand leaves Gregory's (suddenly a degree colder than it had been a second before), she presses her fingers against the soreness of her head. "Maybe next time, I'll be more prepared for you to knock and won't, you know, cause myself serious head pain."
His head ducks down, now eye to eye with her. "If you need anything today, just knock on the wall, okay?"
She blinks, caught a bit off guard by the gesture, but smiles. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Gregory."
Gregory nods, that little corner of his mouth pulling up and Janine believes she may be witnessing him smile. It's like finally seeing the sun after days and days of unrelenting rain. "No problem."
Her head is still pounding, and Janine is pretty sure there's a crack in what should be her immortal five-buck $5 Below water bottle, but when he gives her a little wave and ducks out of the classroom, it feels like a little victory.
A soft tap-tap-tap sounds from the wall behind Janine's desk, a sound she shouldn't be able to hear over the kids' chatter and the bright music, but of course she does. As usually accompanies the knock, Gregory appears in the doorway. He peers into her room, blinking at the vivid array of pink and hearts strewn on nearly every available surface.
"Nice decorations," he tells her, straight-faced. "Let me guess, Valentine's Day?"
Janine waves her hands in the direction of her second graders who are hard at work with fingerpainting hearts on construction paper. "Great job, Mr. Eddie!" she laughs. "Heart sticker?"
Gregory chuckles. "I think I'll pass this time."
Janine shrugs. "Your loss. I've got some really cool heart stickers."
His mouth curls up at the corners. "Oh yeah? Well then, let me see."
She beckons him over to her desk, where she spreads out the variety of heart-shaped stickers she bought for this week. When Janine promised cool stickers, she really means it. She's got scratch-and-sniff strawberry hearts, shimmery pink and red hearts, ones with smiley faces or cute sayings on them, and - her personal favorites - the puffy 3-D ones with little pieces of silver glitter inside them.
Valentine's Day can be a tough holiday for some people. This is, for example, Janine's first single Valentine's in what feels like forever. It would have been far too easy for her to wallow in the feeling of being alone, unmoored and drifting in the arduous process of what Internet psychologists call "finding yourself." But Janine has been proactive and has simply decided to not feel that way! Just focus on the kids and her love for them and the rest of those empty feelings will just... disappear.
She'd hoped the new heart stickers would speed up the whole 'self-pity' process. It's... kind of working.
"Which sticker would you recommend?" Gregory asks solemnly, standing over her desk.
Janine tries desperately to ignore how much she likes the way he smells - like crisp cologne and fresh spring air (though it's still winter).
"Well," she replies, equally as solemn, "you can't go wrong with a classic plain pink heart. But I will judge you big-time if you take a boring one like that, considering I have the coolest fricking 3-D stickers!"
He considers, rubbing a finger along his chin. "They're a little too flashy for my taste but I also don't want to be judged by you. What's it say about me if I choose... this one?"
Gregory points to one on the scratch-and-sniff page: a pale pink heart with a simple gold outline and 'LOVE' stamped in the middle. Simple but to the point; it's sweet. It's perfect for him.
Janine smiles, peeling it off the sheet slowly. "I think it says you're - it's perfect. And that it hopes you have a good Valentine's Day."
He raises an eyebrow even as he takes the sticker from her. "That's an awfully specific thing for it to be saying."
"Told you they were the coolest fricking stickers."
"Yeah, I guess you did." Gregory looks at her, his eyes meeting hers, and it pulls a breath from Janine's lungs (why why why). He smiles and places the sticker carefully on his shirt, right above his heart. "Thanks, Janine. I hope you have a good Valentine's too."
Janine watches his gaze sweep over her, the room, the kids, her. He slips from the room as easily as a shadow and her heartbeat slows to match his footsteps as he leaves. As she peels off a matching sticker, she lifts it to her nose and breathes in the papery strawberry scent and realizes Gregory never told her why he came in here in the first place.
But she's glad he did.
Mo is nice. He's funny and smart and interesting, and Janine can honestly say she enjoys spending time with him. Maybe she's being too unrealistic, though, because it feels like something is missing. A heartbeat that doesn't skip when he kisses her, butterflies that don't flutter in her stomach when he smiles.
But when Gregory leans in to kiss her, flowers from the Living Classroom exhibit filling the space around them with their sweet smell, then she feels it. The world seems to pause for them, for the realization of what is actually happening to sink into her body. Her skipped heartbeat sounds in her ears, the butterflies' wings erupt to life in her stomach.
Gregory pulls back, leaning back on his feet. They blink at each other. Janine wonders if he is feeling this too, the way the room has shrunk to fit just them and their breaths and the flower between them. If he knows too that even knowing something is a bad idea doesn't mean it's easier to ignore.
She knows it's a bad idea. She knows that as soon as whatever this is is over, she's going to face all the consequences. But she still wraps her fingers around Gregory's lanyard and pulls him in.
Janine has never wanted to know where her often ragged breaths come from, whether that can be traced to something in her heart, deep enough in her chest that she'll never get to see it. She wants to think of her heart forever as a beautiful thing, a part of her that keeps her alive and feeling and loving. She doesn't want to think of it as something that can slow or ache or break.
(She had sunk to the floor, the corner of her desk digging into her back, but she couldn't make herself move. Her whole chest burned, but she couldn't make her breaths even out or come any deeper.)
It's the first day back after summer break, the beginning of Development Week at Abbott. She hadn't thought a time she'd looked forward to so much in weeks past could send her to the floor, frozen. Sure, she went a whole summer without talking to Gregory, and that was... Hard. (She wishes it wasn't so hard to be selfish, to finally step back and choose herself for once. But she also wishes it would be easier to have him in her life without remembering how it had felt to have his lips on hers, to admit to him in the blue light that she's always had a thing for him.)
But focusing on herself shoved her forward, stumbling, while everything else slows around her. Has the world always been this immeasurable and large and indefinite? It's not just the situation with Gregory that's thrown her off. It's as if everything, every feeling she's ever pushed off to feel later, has come back for her to feel with a vengeance.
(I know it's for the better I know it's for the better I know it's for the better I know it's for the better, she reminds herself like a chant, like a prayer.)
Tap tap tap. The sound and its significance fall into her mind like stones in a pond.
"Janine?"
She doesn't have the energy to stand, to respond. Instead, she swats her phone, beside her on the floor, so it skids across the floor.
Gregory appears in her vision, kneeling beside her, Janine's phone in his hand. "Hey, Janine," he says quietly, "whatcha doin' here?"
She shivers in response.
"Can I sit with you?" he asks, his voice soft in the empty room.
Janine nods. Feels his shoulder just spaces from hers. This is the first she's seen him in what feels like forever. He hasn't changed. He is still painfully familiar.
He seems apprehensive, his arms folded and legs pulled up like he's afraid of taking up more space. "Can I do anything for you?"
"Just sit," Janine tells him slowly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him nod. "I can do that for you."
They sit, nearly arm to arm, silent. Outside the room, Janine can hear chatter of teachers, the building waking up around them. Barbara is singing some hymn Janine doesn't know the name of; Ava is pestering someone about letting her use their classroom for a clothing sale she's holding; Melissa is cursing out a bird sitting outside her classroom window for making the room smell bad; and Jacob is eagerly detailing his summer reads to whoever will listen. It's like they've never left.
"I just got a little overwhelmed, that's all," Janine finally says at least five minutes later, as if continuing a conversation they'd already started. "Sorry for bothering you with-"
"Hey," Gregory interrupts firmly, "you are not bothering me. You could never bother me, Janine. Please don't think that."
She blinks, turning her head toward him. Her chest is aching but his words are cool air inside her lungs. "Yeah?" she asks, hating how feeble her voice sounds.
"Yeah." Gregory shifts over, almost imperceptibly, but she feels the skin of his arm meet hers like a whisper. It's a few moments before he adds, "If you want to tell me what was bothering you, I'll listen. But you don't need to, alright? Only if you want."
She hasn't had someone sit with her during or after a panic attack in years, not since she lived at home and Ayesha would sit with her after a teetering pile of college assignments and housework threatened to collapse on her. Even then, it had felt like an embarrassment, like she had done something gravely wrong and horribly inconvenient by making someone sit with her till she could breathe again. It's been a while since she's even had one, but sitting here with Gregory of all people brings back all the same feelings. After not seeing him for months and leaving their friendship where she did, she's surprised he had even come around to see her.
But this time, even more to her surprise, she finds that of all the people that could have found her here, she's glad it's Gregory. That no matter the situation they found themselves in at the beginning of the summer, she still feels comforted by his presence.
"I've missed you," Janine admits, her words falling out in a painful fumbling rush. "That's not... all of it, but it's still true. I'm... I'm sorry."
Gregory breathes out, a nearly-sad smile peeking out from the corner of his mouth. "There's no need to be sorry, Janine. The timing just wasn't right. But that's okay - it will be okay. You're still-" he pauses, his head turning so his eyes meet hers, "you're still an incredible person who I'm so lucky to know. It's not a burden to know you and care about you. It's a privilege."
His voice is even, his words calm and assured. Tears prick Janine's eyes, even as she offers him a watery smile. "I'm really, really glad to see you again, Gregory," she tells him quietly. It's all she can manage, but it fits.
The smile pulls more at his lips. His arm is now pressed against hers, a steadying warmth. "I'm glad to see you too," Gregory answers.
Janine knows that she's an optimistic person. It's one of her favorite things about herself, if she's being truly honest: her ability to look at a bad situation and find something that indicates that it really will get better. It's a practiced art, certainly, but it seems to come more naturally sitting beside Gregory.
He seems to steady her heart, her breaths, her mind. It will be okay. It will, it will, it will.
Janine wakes up with her eyes closed, the air conditioner sputtering like an old man with a debilitating cough. The room is cool around her, her blanket pulled halfway off her shoulders, but she's still warm. This, she assumes, has less to do with the blanket than with the one in bed beside her.
She wonders if when she opens her eyes, Gregory will be watching her. She can feel the rise and fall of his chest beside her, but she doesn't know whether he's awake or not. Janine knows he tends to wake up very early, but his presence rests like an anchor on the left side of the bed. He doesn't seem to be a heavy sleeper (or a loud one, thank goodness), and her mind offers her the memory of his arm slung over her chest in the early hours of dawn when they finally sank into sleep.
She is cataloging details of him she's never had the opportunity to before and hungrily, like she'll never have the chance to again.
His heart is beating under her fingers; she can feel it through the fabric of his shirt. Her whole body aches with the memory of him, all over, from the night before, but still this feels alarmingly intimate. This is the heart that has chosen her, that sounds beneath her fingers as if to remind her that he's still here. It's unbelievable that he's really still here.
Janine opens her eyes. Gregory is looking at her, a smile across his lips. "Good morning," he says, his voice a low murmur that ripples across her skin.
She smiles too, unable to say much more than, "Good morning" in response. Words fizzle and melt on her tongue at the sight of him.
Gregory leans over, lips meeting hers softly. It's simple and caring and everything she could have wanted. Janine's eyes flicker shut until he pulls away.
"You snore," he tells her solemnly.
Janine's eyes fly open and she gasps. "I do not!"
But Gregory is grinning as he kisses her again. "I'm kidding," he replies easily. "But I wouldn't care if you did, you know."
She pushes herself up onto her elbow, peering over at him, nearly stumbling over the unabashed sincerity in his eyes as he watches her. "Really? You're sure that wouldn't be a dealbreaker or anything? Like, if I snored, you wouldn't want me to be your -"
Janine hardly catches girlfriend between her teeth, an anxious chill slipping down her spine. Her eyes widen. Can she really ask that yet? They didn't really get to do much talking last night, but the unsaid idea hangs between them now.
Gregory's hand rests on her jaw, fingers tracing lightly over her cheekbone. "Nothing you could do could make me not want to be yours."
To say she's never been happier doesn't feel like an exaggeration here (that's counting her first PECSA conference and everything). They have the summer ahead of them to figure it all out. This morning, she can simply kiss him again, open and wanting, curling her fingers into his hair. The future lays before them in blue sky and they'll just have to get there when they get there.
"Miss Teagues! Look! The whale heart is bigger than you!"
Janine looks carefully at the sign her second graders are pointing to. "'A blue whale's heart is about five feet tall and can weigh up to 400 pounds, which is the largest heart of any animal on earth,'" she reads, crossing her arms and feigning a frown. "What do you mean that's bigger than me? I'm tall."
"No you're not!" they cheer in gleeful unison, dissolving into giggles and moving on to the next sign at the Baltimore Aquarium, where they're visiting for their end of the year trip.
Gregory's quiet laugh comes from behind her. "How many times do you try to convince them that 4'11 is tall, no matter how right they are?"
"As many times as it takes," Janine answers with a grin, her shoulder bumping his.
Gregory peers at the sign, eyes skimming the information she just read to her kids. His finger traces the picture of a whale heart, of its dramatically large arteries that a child could fit inside.
"Imagine having a heart that massive," he muses. "It weighs about 400 times as much as ours do. And it beats so loud you could hear it two miles away. That's wild."
And for a moment, Janine does imagine it. Imagines occupying so much space that her heart is as big as a small piano, that the sound of her survival travels miles through the water around her. How much love could fit inside a heart that big?
She thinks of the way she sometimes falls asleep with her head on Gregory's chest, his heart beating steadily in her ear. If the room is quiet enough, she'll strain to listen to the sound of her own heart, to see if they match.
Janine looks over at Gregory, feeling an overwhelming feeling of affection rush through her. It smells like salt water and Sour Patch Kids (though that's almost definitely from the aquarium and kids around her). I love you fits so perfectly on her tongue with him - how can it not? Her heart may not be as big as a whale's, but someone could probably feel this all the way back at Abbott.
"Miss Teagues! Charlie's trying to jump into the tank!" one of the kids calls with pure excitement.
Janine gasps and immediately begins to sprint toward her kids. That's what she gets for following only ten steps behind them. But Gregory is right behind her, as always, steady as a heartbeat.