Archive of Our Own

It’s the first day of Development Week, and Jacob’s already managed to make someone at Abbott hate him.

He doesn’t care, though- Well, no, he does, but he doesn’t care as much as he could, because he’s just met a second-grade teacher named Janine Teagues who he already loves more than anything in the world. But he’s also met the other second-grade teacher at Abbott, and she certainly doesn’t think as highly of Jacob as he thinks of Janine.

Her name’s Melissa Schemmenti, which he had learned after managing a quick peek at the ID attached to her lanyard, since his attempt to ask directly for her name had gone… poorly.

Good morning! I’m Jacob. Jacob Hill. I’m a History teacher for the sixth graders! What’s your name?

Buzz off.

He replays what little of a conversation they had in his head as he treks down the stairs, trying to pinpoint where things went wrong. Darn it, he knew he should’ve used his “living in the present” joke. He’ll have to use it the next time he introduces himself.

He knows that Janine’s somewhere on the first floor with the rest of the elementary school teachers, and so that’s where he’s headed. He knows there’s only two second grade teachers here, but that doesn’t help him differentiate their classrooms from that of the first grade teachers, or the third or fourth or fifth grade ones. It seems his brief panic is over, though, when he spots a piece of paper taped to the door of one classroom, its bubbly font proclaiming Welcome to second grade! A quick peek inside shows Jacob a warmly decorated classroom, complete with a banner of the world flags and a set of cursive sheets already laid out on the desks.

“What the hell are you looking at?”

He jumps back so fast that he bangs into the doorknob, but the ache in his side is quickly forgotten at the sight of a teacher whose glare is as fiery as her hair. “Oh, Ms. Schemmenti, hey-”

“Alright, two questions. How the hell do you know my name, and what the hell are you looking at?”

“I… got your name from your lanyard,” he says slowly, not because what he’s saying is obvious, but because he’s scared she’ll pounce on him if he talks too fast. “And I was looking into your classroom because I thought it was Janine Teagues’.”

“Of course you two are already friends,” Melissa groans, as if being friends with Janine could somehow be a bad thing. “She’s in the room across from me. Now she can talk your ear off instead of mine and Barbara’s.”

“Barbara?” he repeats as Melissa brushes past him. “Who’s Barbara?” But it seems that answering Melissa’s two questions doesn’t earn Jacob the right to have his own two questions answered in turn, since she slams the door shut in his face.

Well. If she didn’t hate him before, she definitely does now.

“Jacob?”

His head swerves, then ducks down to lock eyes with the sudden speaker. “Hey, Janine,” he says, his face already stretching into a smile. “You still want to grab dinner?”

At Bahama Breeze, he watches Janine tuck away a plate of wings as big as her face, and somehow, it’s as impressive as her going to an Ivy. He asks her about Barbara, to which Janine responds, “Oh, Barbara Howard! She’s my mentor! Well, she will be. Well, I asked her if she will be, but she walked off before answering.” With her food finished, she turns her sights on her drink. “I saw you and Ms. Schemmenti talking to each other,” she says in between sips. “Is she nice? I tried to introduce myself to her earlier, but she just told me to buzz off.”

Janine had already gotten a mentor? Man, was Jacob behind. “I don’t think Ms. Schemmenti likes me,” he admits sullenly, lamely twirling the straw in his glass. “Maybe it’s because we’re new?”

“Maybe,” Janine says, but her eyes have yet to dim in even the slightest. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll like us by the end of the year. Anyone can get along with anyone, if everyone’s willing to put in the effort.”

It’s only when the waves of Janine’s optimism crash over Jacob that he realizes how deprived he’s been of it. So, he lets himself sink in it, since he knows that if he were to swim up to the surface, the first thing out of his mouth wouldn’t be a gasp for air, but a question. What if everyone isn’t willing to try?

It’s 6:55 AM, and Jacob has accidentally ambushed Barbara Howard and Melissa Schemmenti.

He hadn’t wanted to, he swears. It was just that he liked to watch Action News before work, but that started at 7, and students started arriving at 7:30, and it was nice to be at school when they arrived in case they wanted to talk to him. So, he figured that he would come in early today, catch the news in the teacher’s lounge, then head to his room. Instead, he’s caught the two veteran teachers in the midst of a conversation, one that peters away as soon as they notice him.

He wishes Janine were with him, or Zach, or- actually, that’s just about all of the people he knows in Philadelphia. But unfortunately, he’s only Jacob, and he’s got no idea how to break into the legion that is Barbara-and-Melissa. “Good morning, Mrs. Howard. Good morning, Ms. Schemmenti.” His face burns harder with every second that passes without a response, and so he continues before he can spontaneously combust. “Um, if you two aren’t using the TV, I was hoping to watch Action News?”

Barbara’s eyes light up, and Jacob realizes with a start that he’s actually done something to make her happy. “Oh, we love Action News,” she gushes. “And Jim Gardner, of course.”

Jacob is… not sure if he feels that strongly about Jim Gardner. But he nods along vigorously regardless, because he’s accidentally stumbled upon an opportunity to make someone at Abbott other than Janine not dislike him, and he’s taking it. Judging by Melissa’s pointed glare, though, there’s no love for Jim Gardner he can exploit to get into her good graces. “No,” she says just as Jacob’s opening his mouth.

“Can I watch-“

“No.”

“Can I-”

“No.”

“Can-”

“No.”

Melissa must feel satisfied when he pauses, since she goes back to sipping her coffee. “CanIwatchActionNewswithyoutwo,” he prattles off.

“No.”

“Oh, Melissa, stop it,” Barbara says with a swat to her shoulder.

“Do you really want to spend your morning with Janine Teagues’ best friend, Barb?”

“Janine Teagues’ best friend?” Barbara says, her hand slipping off of Melissa’s shoulder. “Oh, my.”

“Hey, Janine’s great,” Jacob says, and now both of them are pointedly looking away. “Please? I only came to work early to watch, and I promise I won’t bother you, and…”

He trails off at the sight of their eyes- Barbara’s, so wide that Jacob’s almost worried it’s hurting her, and Melissa’s, which seem to be stuck looking at the ceiling. He’s turning twenty-four this year, but right now, he feels closer to his students’ ages, desperately asking the other kids at the playground to let him play. He can’t quite convince himself that Barbara and Melissa won’t run away like the others did, too.

But they don’t. Instead, Melissa starts groaning, which feels worse. That is, until she finally looks at Jacob, sighs, and tightly says, “Fine. You can watch. But only because you made me feel bad. And I swear to God, you better not talk through the entire thing.”

So he hadn’t been imagining Melissa glaring at him while he and Janine whispered to each other during the Development Week presentations. Which was a lot of Principal Coleman showing off vacation pictures and clothes he wasn’t sure how she could afford on her salary. “I won’t say a word,” he promises Melissa now. And really, he won’t. Jacob isn’t sure if there’s anything more captivating to him than local journalism.

It’s the first day of October, and Jacob’s just been caught smoking by Melissa Schemmenti.

Teachers aren’t allowed to smoke on school property, for obvious reasons, which is why he’s hanging out in the alley next to Junt’s Deli. Judging by Melissa’s face, though, it looks like she’d rather smoke him instead of a cigarette. “Um,” he says, because it’s all he can manage to say.

“Um to you too.” Before he can say something smarter, she’s swiping his cigarette pack from him. “And here I was, thinking your generation had more brains than mine when it came to smoking.”

“I’m trying to quit.”

“And what a good job you’re doing,” she says flatly. Still, she does hand back the pack, although she doesn’t stop glaring at it until he pockets it, and now she’s glaring at the lone cigarette in his hand. When Jacob lifts it up to his face, she starts glaring at him. “You know, your kids are going to be able to smell the smoke on you. Figured I’d tell you, since I can’t imagine a teacher who thinks about their students would be doing this.”

Of course he’s thinking about his students. He’s holding the cigarette away from him so it doesn’t blow onto his clothes, he’s wearing a sweatshirt over his regular clothes just in case it still does, he’s got enough toothpaste and gum in his car to share with the whole school. He used to worry that it wouldn’t be enough, that his students would still smell the smoke on him and not say anything, but considering how they always let him know how they feel about his shoes- and hair- and clothes- and every other aspect of himself- he’s figured for awhile now that they wouldn’t hesitate to let him know.

Still, he doesn’t like that he’s smoking while at work. Judging by Melissa’s face, she also doesn’t like that he’s smoking while at work. But it’s work that’s stressing him to the point of smoking, and it’s smoking that’ll take away just enough of his stress to let him go back to work. “The eighth-grade History teacher walked out today. Principal Coleman reassigned half of their classes to me. I don’t even get a planning break anymore.”

“Tough luck. Barbara’s the only kindergarten teacher at Abbott, but you don’t see her walking out every five minutes for a smoke break.”

“I don’t even take a smoke break every day.” His fingers itch to close the gap between his cigarette and his lips, and were Melissa not standing directly in front of him, he would. “Can I help you with something, Ms. Schemmenti?”

“You can help yourself by going down a block further to smoke. If I was able to see you, so are the kids.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She’s saying it to make him feel bad, but it is actually good advice. Some of his students caught Jacob scrolling through Caleb’s TikTok two weeks ago, and he’s still yet to hear the end of it. Apparently, they don’t know anyone as old as Jacob who has a TikTok. Also apparently, they think twenty-three is an old age to be. “You know, I could give you my number. That way you don’t have to physically come over every time you want to give advice.”

“I’m here for one of Junt’s subs, not to talk to you. Only use I’d have for your number is to block it.”

If she was really only here for a sub, she would’ve gone right inside after getting her dig in about him not caring about his students. Hell, if she was really only here for a sub, she wouldn’t have talked to Jacob at all. But she did, and now the timer on his phone is alerting him to get back to work, now he’s irritated from the unfinished cigarette and from the conversation, and Jacob finally understands why the seventh-grade History teacher walked out today. “Why do you only talk to me when you want to be mean?”

He stomps on the cigarette as he puts it out on the floor, tosses it into the trash can just outside Junt’s before heading back inside. His first batch of seventh graders tells him that he looks annoyed, and also like Squidward.

It’s Caleb’s birthday, and Jacob thinks that he might honestly kill his little brother.

“I don’t know what to do,” Caleb repeats, his voice as shaky as Jacob’s resolve to not run back to Albany at this very instant. “Mom and Dad said it’s fine, but it doesn’t feel fine, man! I don’t know what to do! What do I do?”

“I don’t know, Caleb,” he says, and truly, he doesn’t. 

Caleb sighs, and Jacob’s heart can’t help but break at the sob he can hear him hiding. “Nina’s calling me. I’ll call you back, okay?”

It’s not that Jacob’s happy that Caleb’s hanging up on him, but he’s also been up since Caleb called him at 4 AM, and they’re no closer to an answer three hours later. “Call me back,” Jacob sighs. He raises a hand to wipe his face when Caleb ends the call, except he’s so tired that he forgets it’s the same hand holding his phone. He can’t say the slap doesn’t help to wake him up, though.

Still, he does drag himself over to the teacher’s lounge, taking a careful peek inside to see if it’s unoccupied. He’s been avoiding the lounge ever since his skirmish with Melissa, but it seems that today will be an exception, since there’s no familiar redhead and phone necklace slinger in sight, and so, with one last quick glance of the room, he steps in. His favorite mug is the first one on the rack, which he takes as a good sign. 

“What’s going on with you?”

He wishes he could say that he successfully pulled off hiding his flinch in his spin, but considering how he almost knocks the coffee machine onto the floor, he’s only succeeded in making himself look more scared. And the sight of Melissa unimpressed look certainly isn’t helping calm him down. “Oh, Ms. Schemmenti, hey, what a funny coincidence, just running into you right now-”

“I saw you checking that I wasn’t in the room, kid.”

“Oh. Um, sorry?”

“I’d ask what you’re apologizing for, but it sounds like you don’t know what either.” Her hip bump sends him stumbling, giving her just enough room to squeeze through and grab the empty coffee pot waiting on the dish rack. “How are your new students? Eighth graders, right?”

His mouth is open, ready to pour out a list of defenses and apologies he may or may not have been rehearsing in the case that they ran into each other again, but now he’s just gaping, trying to make sense of what he’s heard. Melissa Schemmenti’s just asked him a question. Melissa Schemmenti’s just asked him a question about himself.

Melissa Schemmenti’s looking at him again, looking every bit as annoyed as she always seems to be. “What?” she snaps. “You still think I’m mean? You think I can’t be nice to you?”

“What… question should I answer first?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she mutters under her breath. “Just forget it.”

She turns back to the coffee machine, slapping its sides with more force than necessary. Personally, Jacob is of the opinion that it needs no harsh physical treatment at all, but Janine always says that Melissa makes the best coffee out of all of the teachers, so maybe there’s something to it. Finally, the machine thunders to life, seemingly spurting out coffee at random. When he sinks into the nearby couch, Melissa looks over at him again, and as caught as he feels her in gaze right now, he doesn’t feel particularly inclined to escape it.

“I think you can be nice. But I… still think you can be mean.” Melissa doesn’t respond with a hot pot of coffee in his face, and so he dares to finish. “And my new students are great. Excited to learn. I don’t think their old teacher was really trying with them.”

The last of the coffee drips out, and Melissa grabs the pot with one hand, grabs her own mug with another. Sinking into the armchair next to Jacob, she shoots him a look only when she’s done pouring herself her coffee. “You still didn’t say what’s going on with you.”

She sets the pot down on the table, the handle facing Jacob, and he realizes with a blush as hot as the coffee that she’s handing it off to him. He waits until he’s in the midst of pouring his own cup to answer. “My brother’s an idiot.”

“I’ve never met a brother who wasn’t,” she says with an eye roll. “What’d he do?”

“He and his girlfriend got pregnant on accident.”

“That’s not too idiotic.”

“They’re juniors in high school.”

“Never mind.”

As much as he wants to be angry at Caleb, there’s a part of Jacob that feels wrong for letting Melissa imply that Caleb’s an idiot, feels even wronger for letting himself say it. Not that he’s not thinking that Caleb’s an idiot, because that’s exactly what he’s thinking, but Caleb’s also a kid, and kids should have the grace to be idiots. God knows Jacob didn’t get that grace as a kid.

“What do I do if they end up keeping the kid?”

“Shit, you think I have the answer to that? I never had any kids, what the hell am I supposed to know? I certainly don’t know what to do about kids having kids.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” Or, at least, it’s what he wants to say, but even with the three hours Caleb spent blubbering to him, the opportunity to speak always felt ill-timed. “My parents said it’s fine, but he’s a baby, and now he’s having a baby, but he’s not…” Jacob sighs into his mug, no phone on hand as he rubs his face this time. “He’s not ready for this.”

“Then tell him that,” Melissa says. “And tell your parents that if they’re willing to tell two kids to have a kid, that they sure as shit better be willing to help all three of those kids out.”

“But how? How do I tell him that?”

“How the hell do you think? Just tell him like you told me.” He’s lost track of time, but judging by how Melissa reaches for the remote, it must almost be 7. “Look, unless your brother and his girlfriend broke the news to Jim Gardner, too, I’ve got a show to watch. You staying?”

He knows he doesn’t need his coworker’s position to be in a lounge named after both of their jobs, but he also knows that Melissa wouldn’t have asked him before if he was staying. If anything, she would’ve asked if he was leaving. “I’ll probably just head back to my room and wait for my brother to call me back,” he says as he rises regretfully.

“Well, don’t be a stranger. And good luck with your family.”

His heart pounds, almost as if he got back from running a 5K- or maybe as if he finished walking up the stairs to his classroom, which certainly felt like running a 5K- yet somehow, this is the calmest Jacob’s felt all day. “Thanks,” he says. “For chatting with me.”

“Shit, you did most the talking. Go thank a mirror or something.”

Yeah, she could still be mean.

In the end, he ends up being the one to call back, not wanting to risk Caleb calling while he’s teaching. There’s one, two, three rings, and then his brother’s voice crackles over the line. “Jacob? You there?”

“I’m here. Hey, Cakey.”

Caleb sighs, and somehow, Jacob can hear the smile on his face when he speaks.  “Hey, Jakey. Nina took a pregnancy test. It came back negative.”

“Oh.” Jacob’s fingers, once clutched around the edge of his desk, now loosen. “Is she okay?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s great! She was so scared to be pregnant, she refused to take the test all day yesterday.”

At least she’s happy, Jacob wants to say, and he almost does. Then, he takes a single second to think through what Caleb’s just said. “Are you telling me,” Jacob says slowly, “you told Mom and Dad that you and your girlfriend were pregnant before she even took a pregnancy test?”

Yeah, Jacob’s not thinking that he might kill Caleb anymore. Now, he’s thinking that he definitely will kill him.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and Jacob’s just spotted Melissa at the bar.

Her eyes catch his a second later, and although she doesn’t return his wave, she does gesture him over with a jerk of her head. Zach’s still waiting for the bartender to hand off their drinks, and so Jacob slips away from the bar and to her booth. “Hey, Melissa.”

“You don’t get first name privileges until you’ve been teaching for a year.” Clinking his glass of water with her beer, Melissa turns it up for a long swig. “Spending your Valentine Day’s drunk and alone too?”

Drunk, eventually. Alone, no. “I’m here with my boyfriend, actually.”

It’s only after he says it that Jacob realizes he hasn’t told anyone at Abbott other than Janine that he’s gay, hasn’t told anyone at Abbott at all that he even has a boyfriend. He waits for Melissa to tense the way he did, but all he gets from her is a raised eyebrow. “Really? No shit. Didn’t know you were seeing somebody.”

“Well, you did also ban me from sharing fun facts about myself for a year.”

“And I’m glad I did. If I have to hear Janine talk about how she went to an Ivy League one more time, I’ll explode.”

“If I went to an Ivy, I’d probably bring it up all the time, too.”

“Hey, telling me where you didn’t go to college is just as much of a fun fact as telling me where you did go.” She shoots quick glances around the bar, making a face as bitter as her beer. “Jesus, is it only couples here tonight?”

“Well, it is Valentine’s Day,” Jacob says as he gives the bar a look around of his own, also unable to find any single people loitering around. “Maybe some people are just sitting with a friend.”

“You try to call me by my name, then tell me a fun fact, and now you say we’re friends? You’ve got some nerve, kid.” But she ends up taking another sip of her drink instead of throwing it at Jacob, so she’s probably not actually upset with him. Probably. “Knew I should’ve gone to Barb’s place to celebrate. At least I’d be alone with family instead of alone with strangers.”

Jacob would rather the opposite.

A loud buzz from Melissa’s phone, lying face up on the table, grabs both of their attention. He doesn’t let himself look at it- partially out of respect for Melissa’s privacy, partially because the text would be too hard to read upside down- but he does watch how Melissa’s face soften as she reads the text. “It’s Barbara,” she says. “Think she heard us talking about her?”

Janine reveres Barbara like a god, so Jacob won’t be entirely surprised if Barbara does turn out to be one. “Do you think you’ll go to her place?”

“Shit, I don’t think I have the option not to. She’s already outside. Apparently, she and Gerald just happened to be passing through here to pick up some drinks.”

“It’s nice that she cares.”

“I can take care of myself.” With that, Melissa pushes herself up and out of the booth. “Well, I’m heading out. Have fun with your boyfriend, Hill. See you later.”

And just like that, she’s out of sight, but not out of mind, because on his mind is the dark and icy sidewalk that she’s meant to navigate after having had a drink. “Wait! Melissa, wait.” His hands slip on the table as he stands, his feet slip on the floor as he catches up with her. “Can I, um, can I walk you to the car?”

She doesn’t turn, but she does pause, her hand clutched on the doorknob. Her eyes catch his in the reflection of the door window, and he can’t make out what it means when they narrow. When she finally opens the door, she holds it open for just one extra second, enough time for Jacob to snake out before it can close behind him.

He recognizes Barbara’s car from the teacher parking lot, spots it at the end of the block, but he still treks behind Melissa, one hand raised slightly so just in case she slips on the ice. She doesn’t, though, and he’s made grateful for the cold air blowing on his face, which becomes increasingly hot with every step he takes. “I know you don’t need someone to take care of you,” he blurts out. “It’s just that it’s dark outside, and you were drinking- not that you had a lot to drink! But I still… wanted to be… careful…”

Melissa sighs, and in the second in between her stopping and her turning around, Jacob regrets following her out here, regrets coming out tonight at all. Her eyes, still narrowed, scan him now, and he has no idea what she can see. Whatever it is, though, it makes her step forward and squeeze his shoulder. “Thank... you,” Melissa says slowly, looking as if she has to actively pull the words out of her mouth, “for walking me to the car. Just because I didn’t need help doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it.”

The hand on his shoulder slips away, but Jacob can still feel its warmth. She doesn’t return the smile growing across his face, yet he finds that it doesn’t upset him. “Well, if you ever do need help, I’m here,” he finally settles on.

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Go back inside, kid.” She’s already sliding into the car before he can wish her a good night.

It’s his first last day of school as a teacher, and Jacob is one of four of the new teachers left at Abbott.

That is, until right now, when Mr. Reinick shoulder checks Jacob on his way out, a box of belongings on hand and a sour look on his face. Now Jacob’s one of three.

“Well, there goes our seventh-grade History teacher,” Ava says with a clap to Jacob’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about saying goodbye to the sixth graders, Jake. You’ll be seeing them next year.”

“I go by-” Ava’s office door slams shut behind her. “Jacob,” he finishes lamely.

Janine’s shoulder brushes against his. As best as it can with the height difference, at least. So, really, Janine’s shoulder brushes against his arm, just above his elbow. “You okay?” she whispers.

He’s not. He’s stressed, scared, seething that a grown adult would abandon the children they’re responsible for like this. But there’s nothing Janine can do about that, as sure as Jacob is that she wishes she could. “I’m great,” he says with a weak smile. When Janine responds with her own one in turn, echelons brighter and wider, it almost makes him forget about the mess of the year he has ahead of him.

Only almost, unfortunately, since it’s just his luck that virtually every teacher left at Abbott was here to watch the storm out, and now they’re all watching him, as if they’re waiting for him to walk out with the other History teachers, too. But he won’t. Well, actually, he will. But he’ll come right back inside, once he’s made use of the cigarette pack in his briefcase upstairs.

The hallways are long abandoned, the students having had a half-day of school today. But they’ll be back in August, the sixth and seventh and eighth graders, and now, they’ll all be Jacob’s students. His hands start to tremble at the thought, so much so that he can hardly manage to take down the posters around his classroom. What should’ve been a three-minute job ends up being a ten-minute one, the trembling advanced to full-blown shaking at that point, and so he reaches for his briefcase, reaches for the quickest fix he can think of.

“Jacob.”

He pulls his fingers back just as they brush against the cigarette packet, slams his briefcase shut just as a familiar pair of high heels clack their way into his room. “Hey, Mel.”

“Alright, we’re at first name level, not nickname level.” She leans against his desk with him, sighing as she crosses her arms. “If I were nicer- or dumber- I’d try to reassure you by saying that Ava’ll try to find some new History teachers over the summer. But we both know she’s not going to do that.”

They really did both know it. Jacob couldn’t help but hold out hope that she might, though. “So, how will you reassure me, then?”

“I won’t. Just stopped by to say you’re in a shitty position now, and you shouldn’t be.”

“It’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, but it’s not just happening to me. I don’t think there’s a single school in America right now that isn’t having a teacher shortage problem.”

“So the entire country’s in an education crisis. That’s great.”

Just nine months ago, he had been so hopeful about what he could do for that crisis, so convinced that he’d be able to help resolve it. Never mind him helping to fix the country, he bitterly thinks now, when he can hardly help his county. “I don’t know if I’m ready for next year.”

“You are.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“When have I ever said anything to be nice?” He certainly doesn’t plan on sharing his answer- which is never- but he ends up being spared the obligation when Melissa asks another question. “You want to know why Mr. Reinick quit? Your eighth graders blew his eighth graders out of the water on that mock Civics Test you two gave them, and it pissed him off. Everyone on the first floor could hear him ranting about it to Ava all morning.”

“So it’s my fault he quit?”

“Kid, do you really not see it? You were so good that you made another teacher quit out of frustration. If there’s any teacher here who can handle what you’re about to be given, it’s you.” The only reason he’s in this position is because there are no other teachers to handle it, but Melissa says it, she doesn’t make it sound like the obligation he knows it is. She makes it sound like it’s a privilege he’s earned. “Look, these kids need you, and the last thing you need is to feel like you can’t deal with it. So make sure you relax this summer, kid. Lord knows you won’t get to next year.”

Her heels click and clack down the empty hallway, at the same tempo of the heart Jacob hadn’t realized had fallen back down to its resting heartrate. His fingers itch for the pack again, but once it’s wrapped in his hand, he realizes that he’s not itching to pull a cigarette out. He’s itching to throw all of them out.

A craving sets in as soon as he does, the still-full pack clattering in his classroom trash can. Oh, well. He’s been meaning to switch to an herbal vape anyways.

It’s the heaviest rain of the entire year, and Jacob’s really regretting not buying a better umbrella.

He’s also really regretting carpooling with Janine, since carpooling with Janine means carpooling with Tariq, who’s currently in the midst of using the car as an impromptu recording studio. Janine’s still in the shotgun seat, wearing a painted smile that’s beginning to crack, but Jacob had stepped out after having to hear Tariq’s fourth attempt at rhyming Janelle Monae and overtime pay. His phone dings in his hand, displaying a text from Janine, which makes him sigh with relief, then informing him that she has no idea when Tariq will be done, which just makes him sigh.

“You really don’t see us as your work family?”

He looks away from his phone and up to the sight of Melissa squeezing under his umbrella. “Good afternoon to you, too.”

The umbrella’s not quite big enough to fit two people, and so he shifts his arm just slightly, letting his shoulder get soaked in favor of fully covering Melissa. “Gregory, I get,” she continues. “He hasn’t even been here a semester. Ava makes sense, too. Shit, her family tree’s probably just three photos of herself labeled Me, Myself, and I. You, though? Really?”

“I mean, it’s possible that I was lying-”

“I knew it!” He’d seen the punch coming, but Melissa must be hiding more muscle than he realized under her blazers and leather jackets, since it nearly knocks the umbrella out of his grip. “My bad, my bad,” she says, helping him hold it upright again. “But also, I totally knew it. How on Earth could Janine ever think you only thought of her as a work friend?”

“I mean, I did hide the fact that I have a boyfriend from her for two years.”

“So what? We’d all be better off if we knew less about each other. Certainly didn’t need Tariq telling all of our students that Janine’s the only woman he’s ever been with.” Melissa catches sight of Janine’s boyfriend now, her face scrunching at the sight of him. “What the hell is he doing in there?”

Whatever it is, it’s making Janine dig her face into her hands. “I knew I should’ve taken my bike to work,” he sighs. “I’d probably be home by now if I had.”

“Biking in this weather? What, are you crazy? Only place you’d be is the hospital.” A clap of thunder makes it way through the sky, bringing down another curtain of rain with it. “Tell you what,” Melissa says over the booming echoes. “I’ve got dinner with the family tonight. Can’t risk my hair getting messed up. If you walk me to my car, I’ll drop you off at your place.”

If he wasn’t holding his umbrella, he’d jump for joy. If Melissa weren’t here, he’d drop his umbrella, then he’d jump for joy. “Sounds good to me,” he says.

Unsurprisingly, Melissa’s car is as red as her hair. She manages to slide inside without getting a single drop of water on her, but the three seconds Jacob needs to shut his umbrella before getting in are enough to soak through his jacket. Still, he decides as Melissa turns up the heat for him, it was worth it.

It’s Open House, and Jacob’s just beaten Melissa at poker.

He’s also signed his own death sentence, which she made very clear after the game, but still. It’s an accomplishment.

He ducks into the teacher’s lounge to grab the briefcase he accidentally left behind in there, finding his phone after a blind dig through it. There’s one missed text from Janine, sent just a minute ago. You’ll never guess where I’m going!!!

to dinner?

Oh hey you did guess

But you’ll never guess who I’m going with!!!

That, he really can’t guess. The only person that comes to mind is Tariq, but Janine said she was going out to dinner, and Tariq doesn’t have the money for that. Tariq doesn’t have the money for anything.

with who?

With Barbara!!!

He blinks rapidly, turns his phone back on and off, but the words he’s sure he’s misreading don’t change. Janine really is going to dinner with Barbara. oh my god??? he sends back. how???

“Earth to Jacob Hill!”

His phone slips out of his hand, but it also drops onto his lap, so he doesn’t count it as him dropping it. “Melissa?”

“Oh, good, he speaks. Was starting to worry I’d scared you to death or something.” In one smooth motion, she tugs the chair across from him free and sits herself down in it. “What’s going on? You need a ride again or something?”

“I’m good. I drove myself to work today.” Besides, it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t get into a car with Melissa right now. The last thing he should give her is the chance to take him to a secondary location. “Just responding to a text from Janine,” he says. “She and Barbara are going out for dinner.”

“Ah, I knew Barb was warming up to Janine.” They’re the only people left in the lounge, but Melissa still beckons him forward, and he still leans in, sat on the edge of his chair now. “Between you and me,” she says with a low voice, “Barbara always acted annoyed, but I knew she loved how much Janine loved her.”

Jacob certainly didn’t know it. “So, you can tell when someone’s just acting annoyed instead of actually being annoyed?”

“Of course. Don’t tell me you can’t.”

“I… can?”

“You’re very clearly lying.”

“You said to not tell you if I can’t.”

“Melissa! Jacob!” Mr. Johnson pairs each of their names with a knock on the door he’s standing by. “I’m turning off the lights. Now’s your time to scram, unless you’re planning on spending the night here.”

“Was just heading out, Mr. J.” Melissa slides out of her seat and towards the door, then stops and turns, as if she’s waiting for something. “What, are you actually sleeping here tonight or something?”

Oh. She’s waiting for him. “I’m coming.”

It’s an eerie feeling, walking down the empty hallway and empty stairwell. He remembers believing as a kid that his teachers lived at school, and now that he’s one, the idea only makes more sense. It’s strange to think of this building as empty, stranger to actually see it as such. Walking alongside Melissa, though, he definitely doesn’t feel alone.

Melissa’s car is only a few rows down from his, but he still walks her to it anyway. “You know, I’m starting to think you just like following me around,” she says over the beep of her car unlocking.

“Just looking out for you,” he says, tracing a foot along the paved floor. “Hope you don’t find it annoying.”

He says it quietly, but judging by how Melissa’s hand freezes on the door handle, she hears it regardless. Slowly, she looks back at him, her head tilted, almost as if in curiosity. “I don’t,” she says.

He’s long learned how to handle people finding him annoying, of course. But he can’t say that it’s not nice to find someone who doesn’t.

“I love you,” he blurts out, which is true, but which is also the worst thing he could’ve said in response. “Um. I mean, goodnight.”

“Oh, yeah, because I mix up saying goodnight and I love you all the time. It’s why me and my ex-husband took so long to get a divorce.” With a snort, she slides into the front seat. “Goodnight, kid.”

“Is that a goodnight goodnight or an I love you goodnight?”

“It’s a get the fuck out of the road before I run you over goodnight.”

It’s his first day back in Philadelphia, and Jacob knows he’ll never return to Albany again.

He overswings on his next shot, sending the baseball up into the top net. Watching it drop down to the floor as quickly as his hopes for reconciliation, Jacob grits his teeth, digs his front foot back into the ground, and hits the last ball right into the middle of the back net.

He hasn't been to the batting cages in months, hasn't ever gone to them alone. He feels his chest tighten with every group of friends he passes by, but when he struggles to put his bat back, he realizes the tightness might not just be emotional. With as good of a sigh as he can manage, he fishes his inhaler out of his jacket pocket and administers a puff.

His chest has loosened by the time he makes his way over to the bar, but he still knows that it’s a bad idea to grab anything other than water. A bartender makes their way over to Jacob as soon as he sidles up, and he can’t help but notice the firm line their mouth is pressed into. “Good evening. Could I have a glass of-“

“Don’t walk away from me, jackass!”

The bartender turns around with a groan, and Jacob catches a look of the not-so-mystery heckler over their shoulder. “Mel?”

Melissa’s head snaps over to him, her balled-up fists unclenching. “Jake!” He catches up to her just as she stumbles, catches her just as she falls into his arms. “You came back from Doctors Without Borders to tell the bartender they’re being crazy, right? I mean, me, drunk? Come on!”

He’s not supposed to leave for Teachers Without Borders for another week, but judging by the bartender’s face, they don’t need that piece of evidence to prove that “Your friend here is wasted. I’m cutting her off.”

“Like hell you’re cutting me off!” The bartender walks off to attend to another patron, and Melissa slams her foot down, narrowly missing one of Jacob’s. “Who the hell do they think they are, calling me drunk? I don’t see a Brushameasurer on them!”

“Breathalyzer?”

“What are you, a cop?” she says, and she sounds so drunk right now that Jacob honestly can’t tell if she’s asking in earnest. “Seriously, what’s their problem? Half the fun of going to the batting cages is getting a drink.”

Maybe it’s because they have to save some drinks for the other patrons. “Come on. I’ll grab you some water.”

“I don’t need water, you need water.”

“Everyone needs water.”

“Quit being a smartass.”

“I’ll stop being a smartass if you stop being drunk.”

“I’m not drunk, you’re drunk.”

Yeah, this is going to be a long night.

For her claim of not needing water, Melissa chugs down the glass Jacob hands her almost immediately. He hops onto the stool next to her, careful to keep his own glass clutched tightly in his hand as he does. With a yawn, Melissa props her elbows up on the table, resting her hands in how open palms. “How was Puerto Rico?”

“I haven’t gone yet.” He can’t help but be impressed that Melissa remembers he’s going there, can’t help but be pleased. “I was in Albany. My brother just graduated high school.”

“Albany?” Melissa repeats, her nose scrunched. “You’re telling me this whole time you’ve been from New York?”

“The state, yeah. The city, no.” He dimly remembers how much he used to wish that he were from the city, how convinced he was that getting to live there would solve all of his problems. He’d wished it all through his childhood, all through his time at Oberlin. Never once in Philadelphia, though.

“Well, congratulations to your brother,” Melissa says. She grips his shoulder with one hand, which could almost distract Jacob, were her other hand not currently creeping toward his water. “Same one with the pregnancy scare?”

“Same one,” Jacob repeats, pulling his glass back when Melissa makes an uncoordinated lunge for it. “He’s my only sibling, actually.”

“Shit, he is? Didn’t realize the pregnancy scare brother and football player brother and ClickClocker brother were all the same person.”

“Nope. All Caleb.” He would clarify that it’s actually called TikTok, but judging by how her next swipe for his drink only meets air, she’s too drunk to remember anything she hears tonight.

The realization gives him pause, just enough time for Melissa to make another pass at his glass, and he ends up handing it to her before she can spill it on both of them. As much as he’s trying to force down what happened in Albany, it keeps on rising back up. Maybe, he thinks to himself, this is the solution. He gets the relief of talking about it without the mortification of someone remembering it.

“He graduated magna cum laude. My parents were happy for him.”

“Hey, good for him. Back when I thought he was three people, I was worried none of them would make it to graduation.” Her second glass of water finished- or, technically, Jacob’s first glass- she slides it back and forth between her hands. “You happy for him?”

“I am. Magna cum laude’s a huge accomplishment. But…”

“But?” she repeats, her hands stilling. “But what? You not actually happy for him?”

“Of course I’m happy for him, but why couldn’t somebody have been happy for me!” He hadn’t meant to yell it, but he did, and he ducks his head down when he sees how the scattered patrons look over at him. “Caleb graduates magna cum laude in high school, and it’s something worth celebrating,” he whispers. “But I graduate magna cum laude in high school, and I get called an idiot.”

The bartender’s staring at Jacob like he’s grown a second head, but Melissa’s staring at him like she doesn’t know who he is at all. And she doesn’t, not really, not when he’s just gotten back from seeing his family. He can’t say he becomes a different version of himself around them, because that implies he’s still himself. When he’s with them, he becomes every bit of the disgrace, reject, idiot that they say he is.

“So what?”

A shoulder nudges against his, and he dares to look back at Melissa. “So what, so what?”

“So what, they think you’re an idiot? You’re obviously not one. Hell, I’m even tempted to say you’re smart. Probably just had too many drinks, though.” She definitely has, but before he can tell her that, she’s nudging a full glass of water towards him, a glass that he realizes it meant to be for him. “Your parents sound like assholes. Don’t pay them any mind.”

If only were that simple to pay them no mind. Still, he knows that getting to talk about them tonight did help him take them off of his mind, if only for a little bit. With a small sigh, he takes the glass, fiddles with the straw inside. “Thanks, Mel.”

“How about saying thanks with a drink?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I take back what I said about you being smart.”

It’s the first night of winter break, and Jacob’s waiting outside for Zach to pick him up.

He had hung up their call with a promise that he’d be at Abbott any minute now, but it’s been close to twenty minutes since then. Still, Jacob waits outside, partially because Zach really can be here any minute, partially because his mind is giving him a very detailed rundown on everything he did wrong with Melissa and Barbara today. Crashed their get together, ruined every conversation, got mad at them for being happy-

He grits his teeth together, presses his face into the palms of his hands as if he can force out the memory of tonight from his brain. But he knows he won’t, that this shitty Christmas celebration will join his mental Rolodex of every other shitty Christmas celebration he’s ever had. Only this time, it’s his fault things turned out the way they did.

The exit doors of Abbott slam open, paired with a loud whoop. He recognizes who it is, of course, but he still turns back. “Hey,” Melissa says. “Still here?”

Her feet struggle to make sense of the floor, which may or may not be because of the drinks that she may or may not have been slamming back because of Jacob. “Still here. Just waiting for Zach to pick me up.”

“Hope he doesn’t expect you to wait too long. It’s already been sixty minutes.”

“Twenty.”

“Same thing.”

“Those two times are very much not the same thing.”

“How about you give me the Christmas gift of not being a smartass?” Finally, she manages her way next to him, fixing the hastily buckled belt of her jacket. “Noticed you didn’t drink anything tonight,” she says. “I promise, we’ve got something a lot better than your eight dollar wine.”

Were they not buried under an inch of snow, he would cricket his feet together. “I just don’t like to drink in December. That’s all.”

“Here we go,” Melissa says with an eye roll. “What evil reason do people drink in December? What, do they make wine out of baby’s tears? Do they sell-”

“My parents drank a lot on Christmas.”

He didn’t know he would say it until he already did, and now the both of them are standing in frigid silence. His eyes dart to the floor, school, parking lot, anywhere but Melissa. He wishes they could go back to the batting cages, back to when Melissa was drunker than she already is, drunk enough for her to not remember anything he says. But she isn’t that drunk, and she will remember. Now, the only way out is through.

“They could get mean when they were drunk.” Meaner than they could when they were sober, and that was already mean enough. “We don’t talk anymore.”

They send him messages through Caleb, sometimes. When they do, it always feels like December.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.”

“As opposed to two hours ago, when you were?”

She’s not wrong. She tends not to be, as he’s known for quite some time now.

A car rolls into the parking lot, the wheels crunching under the snow. Jacob makes himself wait until he sees it under the lamppost light to let himself get excited, which turns out to be for the best, since it’s not his and Zach’s car. “There’s my Gary,” Melissa says, and if Jacob didn’t know any better, he’d be tempted to say she sounds morose from it. “Enjoy your break, Jacob.”

“You enjoy yours, too.”

Her steps falter as she walks off, and he’s just about ready to ask Melissa if she needs to be walked to the car when she suddenly turns around. “Come here,” she sighs, and before Jacob can brace for impact, she’s hugging him.

He’s always been aware of the fact that he’s taller than Melissa, but it’s only now that it hits him, his back already straining as he leans down to hug her back. It makes him feel old, too old to need his coworker to hug him while he mulls over his sad excuse of a childhood. Yet somehow, it makes him feel young, too, younger than he was when he met her.

There’s a honk of a horn, and when the two pull apart, it’s to the belated sight of Zach waving through their car window. “There’s your Zach. Was starting to worry he’d never show up.” She squeezes his shoulder, something that he can’t feel through the padding of his coat, but he appreciates it regardless. “Now, fuck off to Pittsburgh and have some fun for once in your life, okay?”

He’s not sure if Pittsburgh will be any fun. In fact, he’s sure of quite the opposite. But he’ll try.

It’s 5:30 PM, and Jacob’s getting his first-ever call from Melissa.

He drops his phone when her name flashes across the screen, then picks it up with a blush, then realizes that he doesn’t need to be embarrassed since Zach is out with his friends, then wonders when he started being worried about being embarrassed around Zach. But the question makes him worry even more, and so he answers the call before he can answer himself. “Hello?”

“6 o’clock. Bring those stupid cookies. Tell no one or I’ll kill you.”

The call’s over as soon as it began. Were it not for his phone displaying the timestamp of it, Jacob could convince himself that it hadn’t happened at all.

He finds her address in his messages with Janine, finds his way over there with five minutes to spare. She’s already pulling open the door when he steps out of his car, already pulling him inside when he steps onto the front porch. “Hey, Mel-Mel.”

“Never call me that again.”

He kicks off his shoes, the same way he did when he and Janine came over for their cooking lesson. “So, do you want me to leave the cookies in the kitchen, or…”

“What, you think I made you all the way come out to South Philly just to drop off some cookies?”

“I mean, you kind of did.”

“Yeah, I did,” she says with a chuckle that soon makes way for a sigh. “How about this? I’ll trade you some cookies for some dinner.”

“What?” It’s not that he doesn’t want to eat her cooking. Believe him, he really does. She’s the best cook Jacob’s known since, well, ever. But it’s because of that that he’s hesitating, because Melissa trading her cooking for his baking means that the two are somehow on equal level, and they are most certainly not. “Why would you do that?”

“One, because no one will believe you. Two, because I tried one of those goddamn cookies as a joke and they actually tasted delicious. Three, because no one will believe you.”

No one really will, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t make Jacob upset the way Melissa seems to expect him to be.

She’s already got two plates set on the dining room table, and he’s got just enough sense to know that the plate at the head of the table isn’t meant for him. “Where’d you even find that cookie recipe?” she says as they settle into their seats. “So I can avoid it, of course.”

“I’ll text it to you. That way, you can be really sure to avoid it.” He waits for Melissa to take the first bite before he even so much as lifts his fork, cutting himself a quick piece of the lasagna that he pops into his mouth, and of course, it’s the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. “No way you think the cookies are as good as this.”

“Don’t talk with food in your mouth.” Melissa’s hand snakes across the table, wrenching a cookie free from the Tupperware. “And don’t tell my mom I’m eating dessert with dinner.”

“You know, serving dessert with dinner can actually be a good idea. At least, it helps kids learn to self-regulate-”

“You saying I need to self-regulate?”

“You tell me. You’re the one eating dessert with dinner.”

“And to think you used to be scared of talking back to me,” she says, snapping the cookie in half. Which is really more pulling it, since the cookies are too soft to snap. “Hardly saw your kids with the firefighters on Thursday. What, somebody kill their firefighting dreams, too?”

If someone did, it happened before the students became his students. He’s got aspiring doctors, YouTubers, lawyers, TikTokers, engineers, Instagram influencers, writers, Twitch streamers- sorry, but when did kids start becoming obsessed with becoming social media stars? Even Caleb had been trying his hand at TikTok virality for years now- but no firefighters. “If one of my kids ever does tell me they want to be a firefighter, I’ll be sure to send them your way,” he says.

“You better. Especially if they’re a girl. I’ll beat that ‘Women can’t be firefighters’ crap out of them. Figuratively. They’re still kids, after all.”

Figurative or not figurative, he’s not sure if he’s a fan of this metaphor. But he is glad there’s someone like Melissa for the students, sad that there wasn’t someone like Melissa for Melissa. “I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t become a firefighter.”

All day of the fire drill, her dashed dream was all Melissa could speak about. He doubts she’s found peace with it in the two days that separate them from then and now, but she does find it within herself to let out a sigh. “Don’t be,” she says, her voice quiet. “Really, don’t. It’s not like you were alive to try to tear down the patriarchy for me. I just got dealt a shitty hand. Plenty of women did. Plenty of women still do.” Her fork finds its way into her plate again, doing more picking than pulling. “I like to think I played my cards well, though.”

“For whatever it’s worth, I think you did.”

“I’m going to pretend you think I’m actually talking about poker so I don’t have to deal with you being sappy.”

She holds out the second half of her cookie to him, and even though he still prefers his dessert after dinner, he takes it. “Do you ever still think about becoming a firefighter?”

“I don’t plan on it, if that’s what you’re asking. But, yeah, I do. It’s hard not to, when you’ve got a family whose history is as intertwined with fires as mine is.”

“Starting them or stopping them?”

“Exactly.”

It’s his and Zach’s four-year anniversary, and Jacob feels like his heart’s just been ripped out of his chest, stomped on until it shattered into microscopic bits, then shoved back down his throat.

Which is honestly how most days with Zach have begun to feel, if he’s being honest.

Jacob usually can’t remember what starts their fights anymore, but he remembers what started tonight’s one. Because Zach had taken them to a bar for their anniversary, a bar, and not just any bar, but some shitty dive bar in South Philly, and Jacob had told them that the bar was shitty, had told him that it felt like Zach could only stand him if he was drunk. And then Zach said he couldn’t do anything about Jacob being upset by the truth.

What Jacob can’t remember is how he got out of that bar and into this one, but he doesn’t care. Now, the only screams he has to listen to are the ones in his head, which are daring to ask themselves if these past four years have been a mistake.

“Jacob?”

He hadn’t come here knowing she would, hadn’t texted her to come, yet somehow, he’s not surprised that she’s here. “Melissa.”

It’s a two-sided booth, but she slides in next to him anyway. “Thought you were going out with Zach tonight.”

“We were out.”

“Don’t tell me he left you here.”

“Technically, I left him.”

“You mean, left him, left him?”

“No,” he says, and he can’t tell if the swoop in his stomach is from dread or relief. “We were at another bar. I left him there.”

“Oh.” She’s looking at him the way she did at the batting cages. “Wouldn’t have expected that from you.”

“Yeah, well, tonight’s just been full of surprises,” he mutters.

He goes back to stirring his straw- he’d told the bartender to give him a glass of their strongest drink, which he learned the hard way was too strong for him to drink- but he can still feel Melissa’s eyes on him. “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this,” she sighs, “but do you want to-”

“Hey, Mellie, there you are. I got our…” Jacob knows he’s heard the man’s voice before, but he trails off before Jacob can place it. He catches a glimpse of the man’s face right before Melissa shoos him away, though, and flashes of frisbees and firefighters play through his mind.

“Is that… Captain Robinson?” he finally places. “I didn’t recognize him without the hat.”

“Don’t blame you. He’s way hotter with it on.”

“I’m starting to think you have a type.”

“What, for firefighters? You bet I do. Only got better once women started getting into it, too.” Melissa snatches the glass Captain Robinson left for her, a glass of the same drink Jacob ordered. He’s just about to warn her when she knocks it back in one go, without so much as a flinch. “So. Why are you and your boyfriend spending your anniversary in two different bars?”

“We got into a fight,” he sighs. “We keep on getting into fights. About marriage, mostly.”

“Marriage,” Melissa repeats. “Because every good marriage is built on fights about it.”

“I am not a bad person to get married to.”

The words come out rushed, harsh, accusatory. He turns away before he can see Melissa’s face, brings a hand up to his face before Melissa can see is.

“That’s not what I was saying at all, Jacob.” The hand over his face gets pulled down to his side, but he doesn’t turn back around, not yet. “Is that what Zach’s been saying?”

“He hasn’t been saying anything. That’s the problem.” His voice breaks on the last word, and God, he’s crying to his coworker at a random bar while her date waits up for her. “He loves me,” Jacob chokes out. “Or, at least, he says he does, but then I’ll bring up getting married, and then he just shuts down, and I don’t... I don’t know if Zach doesn’t want to get married at all, or if he just doesn’t want to get married to me.”

He’s not sure what he’s waiting for. Maybe for Zach to burst through the door and propose. Maybe for the bar to go silent. Maybe for the world to stop spinning. But Zach doesn’t appear, the bar doesn’t quieten, and the world doesn’t stop.

There’s a wad of napkins pressed into his hand. With a shaky sigh, he finally turns his head back to Melissa, wiping his face clean under her watchful eye. “You know who you are?” she asks. “You’re Gary.”

“Hey.”

“Hey, it’s not an insult. Gary was a sweet guy. Who ended up with a sweet girl. Super hot girl, too. But he wanted to get married, and she didn’t. Didn’t matter how much they loved each other, didn’t matter how much he wanted it. At the end of the day, he wanted to take a step that she didn’t want to take, and it tore them apart.” She lays a land on his shoulder now, patting it lightly. “I know it hurts, kid. Believe me, I really do. But sometimes, you have to lose what you think you wanted in order to find what you really did.”

It’s the first time Jacob’s been both tobacco- and nicotine-free in close to a decade, and he feels like he might die from it.

The cravings only last three minutes, which would be fine, if they didn’t repeat every three minutes, too. He’s got just enough sense left to know he’s thinking illogically- using tobacco and nicotine is what kills you, not not using it- but his body won’t stop aching, his head won’t stop spinning, so if this isn’t him dying, he’s not quite sure what it is. Shakily, he opens his phone, but if there’s any response from Gregory on grabbing Jacob the extra nicotine gum in his lunchbox, Jacob can’t read it.

The door to the janitorial closet opens and shuts, and Jacob’s head jerks up at the sound. “Greg?”

“Mel.” He only sees the hand she’s got fumbling for the light switch after she already flicks it on, and he squeezes his eyes shut at the punch of the bright lights. “Jesus. You’ve seen better days, huh?”

He’s certainly not sweating and shaking and sat on the ground during his better days. “Do you have the gum?” he asks her.

“Gum?”

“Melissa, please. If you have it, just give it.”

“Jacob, kid, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What are you-” he starts, cut off by the shiver that runs down his own spine. “What are you doing in here, then?”

“Gregory said you were here. Told me it might help if I talk to you.”

He bundles his knees into his chest, turns towards the wall. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

He watches how her shadow bends across the floor as she kneels in front of him. “I’m going to assume it’s the withdrawals making you mean.”

“Is that what makes you be mean to me?” he asks through another shiver. “Can withdrawal last ten years?”

“You still think I’m mean after all this time?” She doesn’t sound upset when she asks it, but Jacob still regrets ever saying it, ever saying anything at all, and it makes him want to pull his hair out. “Don’t do that.” Hands grab at his own, now, declawing the fists he’s made in his hair. “Jacob, seriously, don’t. You’re going to pull all of your hair out. Not that you have much left, since your barber keeps on shaving the sides clean.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes, the fuck, you can,” she grits out, every fragmented sentence paired with sharp squeezes of his hands. “You’re already three days in, okay? Your body’s just going haywire because you’ve been poisoning it for ten years, and now it’s confused by you going clean. It just needs time.”

And he just needs his body to hurry up. There’s an itch just under his skin, just behind his eyes, an itch that he knows only nicotine can scratch, and it makes him want to claw his body inside out. When he pulls his hands free, though, he finds them reaching for Melissa, wrapping himself tightly around her.

“I’m sorry for saying you’re mean to me,” he whispers, since it’s all he can manage. “I know that you’re not a mean person.”

“I know, kid. Trust me, I remember what it looked like when you thought I was mean.” She brushes away the limp curls on his forehead, wraps her arms around his shoulders so tight he’s worried she’ll break them. “You’ve got this,” she says. “You’ve got this, okay? You’re going to make it through this. I know you will.”

He’s not sure if he’s going to make it through with quitting, but he is able to make it through this craving, his head laying limply on her shoulder when he does. If he keeps on hugging her long after it’s gone away, though, he’ll never tell.

It’s his first time being single in four years, and Jacob’s just run into Melissa at Marshalls.

Literally run into her, since he had turned a corner while in the shoe section and stepped into the direction of her shopping cart. He can’t say he’s happy about the bruise he can already feel forming on his thigh, but he is happy to see her. “Hey, Mel-Mel.”

“Only reason I’m letting you call me that is because I feel bad.” When Melissa leans on her handlebars, Jacob steps out of the way, clearing the cramped path for her. He only realizes she wants to talk when she actually starts talking. “I heard you’re staying with Gregory now.”

Translation: I heard you broke up with Zach. “Yeah, yeah, I am. Just until I find my own place.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find something soon,” Melissa says- with the sureness of someone whose owned their house for decades and has no idea of how helpless the housing market is now. “What do you look so lost for? Did you come here looking for a new apartment instead of new clothes?”

If only finding his own place was that easy. “I’m just here for some…” He takes mental stock of his wardrobe, then remembers that, thanks to Zach, he’s got no wardrobe to take stock of. “Just some everyday stuff.”

“More flannels? Please don’t say more flannels.”

“I mean, if I see a nice one-”

Melissa groans, tilting her head back towards the fluorescent lighting of the store. “Why? Why do you refuse to wear anything else? What, were you wrapped in a flannel the day you were born?”

“Says the woman who wears the same blazer and pants combination every day.”

“Hey, that’s just for work, and that’s just for convenience,” she says with a pointed finger, which is directed at the flannel Jacob’s wearing now. “What’s your excuse?”

“I have a refined fashion sense?”

“Well, unrefine it. I’m tired of you looking like a lumberjack.” 

The finger pointing at him turns into five wrapping around his arm, and now he’s being pulled along by Melissa. “Where are we going?”

“To find you some clothes. Where else would we be going?”

She leads them to a rack of clothes that Jacob’s already looked through, yet no matter how many times he tells her that, she doesn’t stop her search. “Melissa, this is too much work for something that’s definitely going to be a dead end,” he finally says. “I’ll just find some clothes online.”

“Like hell you are. If you goddamn millennials weren’t so impatient, we could’ve stopped malls from dying. I’m not letting you take department stores, too.”

“The internet killed malls, not millennials.” He’s tempted to clarify that he was born just outside of the cusp of being a millennial, but then he remembers the Sock Puppet mural that will forever hang outside of his classroom, and he knows in his heart that he’s certainly not Gen Z. “And I’m sure you’ve seen at least one twenty-seven year old in a Marshalls before.”

“Twenty-seven,” she says with a scoff. “Quit bullshitting me. How old are you, really?”

“Twenty-seven,” he repeats. “I’m turning twenty-eight in December, though. How old are-”

“Don’t.”

“Right.”

She finally pauses with her search, her eyes as wide as Jacob’s ever seen them when she looks at him. “You serious?” she asks. “You’re actually twenty-seven?”

“What’s so hard to believe about that?”

“Because…” She fidgets with a hanger, the same way Jacob fidgets with his hands when he’s confused. “I don’t know. I remember feeling like such an adult at twenty-seven. Shit, maybe you feel like that, too. But when I look at you, I just see a kid.”

Maybe she means it as an insult. Maybe he should take it as an insult. But the warm feeling in his heart makes him think otherwise.

Finally, Melissa reaches back into the rack, pulling out a sweater Jacob swears he didn’t see before, that Melissa must’ve somehow magically placed there. “How about this?”

Their fingers touch briefly as Jacob takes the hanger from her. It’s a striped rainbow sweater with a blue collar and cuffs, and even though the material looks itchy, it isn’t. He holds the sweater up to his chest in front of a nearby mirror, blushing when he catches Melissa’s eyes through it. “It’s really nice.”

“No need to sound so surprised. I know my way around my stores.” She slaps a hand against his shoulder, then pushes him forward. “Now, get in line, quick. TJ Maxx refreshes their stock every Thursday. If we’re quick, we might be able to find you some nice stuff there, too.”

It’s the end of the latest episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Jacob is officially Melissa’s roommate.

Melissa yawns as the credits begin to roll, setting her now-empty bowl of popcorn next to Jacob’s on the coffee table. “I’m heading to bed. You staying up?”

“Probably not.” He’s not sure how he can sleep, now that he’s officially living with Melissa. Not that the thought makes him too scared to sleep, though. It’s excitement that thrums through his body. When the move was first finalized, back when he was still Lester and she was still Mildred, Jacob had promised to himself that he would find his own apartment as soon as possible, a promise he already knows he’s going to break in the one hour he’s spent fully moved in.

He swipes the bottle of wine they were sharing when Melissa grabs the bowls, holding the kitchen door open for her. She’s already managed to wash them both by the time he gets the bottle corked and stored away, pulling off a pair of hot pink dishwashing gloves. It feels weird to already feel so at home. It feels weird to know that he’ll have to say goodbye to this home someday, too.

“So…” Clearing his throat, he leans against the table. “Um, how long do you think this having a roommate thing will last?”

“You asking how long I think it’ll take for me to kick you out? Two months, max.”

“Very funny, Melissa.” He’s tempted to leave Melissa to dry the bowls, leave the conversation to die, leave things to be. But if there’s one person in the entire world that can’t leave things be, it’s Jacob Hill. “I mean, how long do you think you’ll need a roommate?”

Melissa turns, a half-dried bowl in one hand, a dish towel in the other. “I’m not sure,” she finally says. “However long it takes me to readjust to losing my vending machine plug, I guess.”

His hands have run out of ways to twist themselves together, and so he drops them down. “Sounds good.”

“Relax, kid. I’m not kicking you out the second I get my budget sorted out again.”

“When will you kick me out, then?”

“Jacob…” Melissa sighs, then sets down the bowl, leaving it to air dry. “Look, unless you really do annoy the shit out of me, I’m not kicking you out at all. You need a place to stay. I need some extra cash. Don’t start thinking you’ve got to worry about me throwing you out onto the street.”

She squeezes his shoulder, and Jacob takes a second too long to realize that she’s not pulling away. There’s no reason for her to. They have no work left, have no curfew, have no time they need to get back home, now that they share one. Now, they have all the time in the world. “Good to know.”

He dares to put his hand on top of Melissa’s, giving it a squeeze of his own. With a chuckle, she pulls hers free, if only to ruffle his hair. “You want to know something funny?” she says. “I almost asked you if you wanted to move in before I put the room up on Craigslist. What are the chances you would still end up here, huh?”

The chances were small, overwhelmingly small, infinitesimally small, so small that it’s honestly just easier to say that there were no chances at all. Yet somehow, either by sheer fate or sheer coincidence, Jacob’s found himself in Melissa’s home anyway.

It’s Mother’s Day, and Jacob is currently struggling to get a very drunk Melissa through her own front door.

“So did you-” he starts, wincing as he knocks against the doorframe. “Did you have a good time with your family?”

“Oh, the best. You know, when they’re all drunk, they can actually be almost tolerable.”

Only almost? “That’s good,” Jacob says instead, kicking the front door shut behind them. “Ready for bed?”

All Melissa offers to that question is a groan. So, yeah, Jacob thinks she’s ready.

Melissa’s feet slip on no less than five stairs, and Jacob feels his heart stop with it every time. Still, he manages to get her upstairs after a few minutes, and now the walk is a straight line down the hallway to Melissa’s room. Well, as straight as a very hammered Melissa can walk, at least. Which is to say, not at all. It’s all he can do to stop Melissa from ramming into every single photo hung on the wall, which unfortunately means letting Melissa ram into him. “How was your Mother’s Day?” she asks as she steps on his feet for the tenth time.

“It was good. I had a fun time with Janine and Erika.”

“Your mom’s not annoyed you didn’t spend the day with her?”

Now it’s Jacob bringing them to a sudden stop. “Um…”

“My brother, Tony, he couldn’t make it today. He’s locked up,” she says, popping the p. “But with how my mom was acting today, you’d think he’d gone to prison to avoid her.”

Jacob certainly can’t say that he’d rather go to prison than Albany. But he can say that he understands the extremes someone would go through to get away from their parents.

“You call her today?” Melissa asks. “Send a text, a letter, anything?”

“No.” Were he not the only reason she was standing right now, he’d leave Melissa in the hallway and never look at her again. Because of the multitude of emotions Melissa has gotten him to feel, never once has anger been one of those emotions. But he is, he’s so fucking angry, he’s angry at Melissa for getting this drunk and he’s angry at Melissa for still talking to a family that doesn’t like her and he’s angry at Melissa for making him talk about a family that doesn’t like him and he’s angry at Melissa for making him angry at her.

“Seriously? Your mom doesn’t give a shit that you didn’t talk to her today?”

“My mom doesn’t give a shit about me in general.”

They’ve finally reached her room, and Jacob finally lets his arm slip off of her shoulders, turning to leave when she sits on the bed. But then Melissa’s hand circles around his wrist, and now it’s Christmas Jacob is thinking of, not Mother’s Day, because Christmas was the one holiday his family would spend getting drunk together, but it was also the one day where his parents’ attacks could become something other than verbal.

Melissa’s grip doesn’t tighten like his mind is screaming at him that it will, though. Instead, she pulls him forward, insistent enough for Jacob to know she wants him to stay, light enough for him to know he can leave if he wants. “What’s wrong?” she asks him.

He wants to run to and from Melissa right now, something only two people in the world have ever made him feel before, and today’s supposed to be a day to celebrate one of them. “I just…” He sighs as he sits down, his eyes dropping onto his lap. “I don’t like talking about my family, Melissa.”

“That’s fine. I don’t like talking about mine, either.” And with that, she leans forward and falls asleep on his shoulder.

His hands shoot up just in time, stopping Melissa from slipping off of his shoulder and onto the floor. It turns out that a sleeping Melissa is even harder to guide than a drunk Melissa, unfortunately, and it takes a whole minute of scooting and sweating until Jacob can get her properly settled. He wraps an arm around Melissa, feels how his tension melts in the relaxing shoulder that Melissa’s laying on.

If she were awake, he’d admit to her that while he hadn’t called his mom today, she had called him. Or at least, an Albany number he didn’t have saved in his contacts called him. He doesn’t care enough about her getting a new number to block it, doesn’t care enough about her knowing his number to change his own one. Maybe he should’ve picked up, he bitterly muses. It didn’t take too many Christmases for Jacob to realize the best gift he could ever give his parents was the opportunity to talk about how much they hate him.

His breath hitches, but it’s too late, he’s finished the thought, and now he’s seventeen and leaving home, he’s a baby being born to parents that will never love him, he’s seventeen, he’s a baby, he’s seventeen, he’s a baby, he’s a child, and he’s alone, he’s so alone, because the adults that were supposed to make him feel safe were the ones that made sure he never did. He runs a hand down his face, the rainbow sleeve of his arm glinting in his eye, and that’s when he remembers that Melissa picked out this sweater for him. It only makes him feel more like a kid, one that still needs an adult’s help to get dressed, but it doesn’t burn the way thinking about his childhood usually does. 

His heart pounds anew as he searches for the child he forced himself to keep inside once he left Albany, burying him under college papers and Teachers Without Borders contracts and Abbott paychecks. But there’s no screaming or crying of an abandoned child anymore. He’s found himself. Or maybe somebody else found him. But regardless, there’s no more sound left to bury.

It’s Janine’s second day officially back at Abbott, and Jacob’s ready to kill a complete and total stranger for her.

She had ordered a Nichols School Supplies’ warehouse worth of classroom goods, being gone almost a full year meaning that she wasn’t around to do it sooner, but everything had come in one large box, too large a box for her to carry on her own, at least according to the text she sent in the group chat. Jacob and Gregory had come downstairs from the teacher’s lounge, just in time to catch Janine in the midst of a conversation with a man they’d never seen before- that is, if conversation could be defined as two people yelling at each other as they fight over a package. “I’m a teacher at Addington,” the man snarls. “These supplies are mine!”

“No, they’re not!” Janine fires back. Her arms are curled around the oversized box, but Jacob can see how it’s slowly slipping out of her grasp. “The delivery driver said the package was for Abbott!”

“She made a mistake!”

“Hey!” Jacob’s voice is sharp, sharper than it ever got in arguments with Zach or his parents. Maybe it’s because he’s arguing for someone he cares about, not with them. The man finally looks away from Janine, and it’s almost enough to placate from how the stranger’s angry glare is now directed towards him. Almost. He shakes himself free from the hand Gregory grabs his wrist with, stalks over to the stranger. “If she says the package is for her, then it’s for-“

His hands scratch against the asphalt, his cheek stinging. He hears padded footsteps run off, but he can’t bring himself to look up from the sight of his scraped palms. Slowly, he raises one of his hands to his face, tender flesh meeting tender flesh, and he realizes he’s been slapped.

“Oh my God,” a panicked voice says, and the realization that it’s Janine’s voice makes Jacob feel even worse. She kneels down in front of him, taking his face into her hold. “Oh, God,” she whispers. “Jacob, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Jacob’s hands smart as he pushes himself off of the floor, his head spins as he stands back up. He stumbles backward, but before he can fall back down, a hand on his shoulder steadies him, the same hand that was just trying to hold him back a few seconds ago. “It’s okay,” Jacob repeats. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Janine says, but if she were fine, her voice wouldn’t be shaking. “Jacob, your face-“

“I’m fine,” he interjects, because he doesn’t want to be one of the reasons Janine is ever panicking, not now, not ever. “The guy ran off with a huge box, he won’t get away fast on foot. I’m going after him.”

“The hell you are,” Gregory says.

“Fine, then. We both can go after him.”

“No, we’re not, Jacob. I mean, look at yourself.”

Gregory swipes on the screen of his phone, holding it up to Jacob when the camera is open. Three inflamed lines curve across his right cheek, stretching up to the ends of his eyes. “But- but it doesn’t even feel that bad,” he stammers.

“Well, it looks it.” Gregory’s hand slips from Jacob’s shoulder to his arm, pulling him back towards Abbott. “Come on. We’ll get you an ice pack from the nurse’s office.”

“And I can see if Melissa has any makeup to cover up the mark,” Janine adds.

It’s a good idea. Really, it is. If there are any students in the building, he’d certainly rather that they didn’t see him with a slap mark on his face. But then he thinks of Melissa seeing him like this, and for whatever reason, that feels worse. “Don’t. Don’t tell her, okay? Please? Let’s just try to get rid of the mark first,” he tries to reason. “Maybe the ice will help it go away.”

“Maybe,” Gregory says, the same way he’d respond whenever Jacob asked to hang out his first two years in Philly. But it had worked in the end, so Jacob has faith that this’ll work, too.

Nurse Makiah gives Jacob a worried look, an ice pack, and some alcohol wipes to clean his hands off with. When a student comes in looking for a bandaid, she pulls the curtain shut behind her, leaving the three teachers alone. He holds back his grimace as he cleans his torn skin, bites back his wince as he presses the ice pack to his face. Gregory’s looking at Janine, but Janine’s looking at Jacob, her hands twisting around nervously. “Are you okay?” Jacob asks her again.

“I’m fine, Jacob,” she says, her voice finally settled. “I mean, I’m a little upset about the package-”

“Don’t be!”

The three of them startle at the booming voice through the intercom, so much so that Jacob drops the ice pack. “I don’t get it,” Gregory says as he reaches down for it. “How does she always know where we are? Does she have secret cameras in all of the rooms or something?”

“No comment,” Ava replies, her voice now coming from just outside. She tears the curtain open before Jacob can reapply the ice back, but that doesn’t end up mattering, since she’s only got eyes for Janine, who’s only got eyes for the package they all thought she had just lost.

“Oh, Ava!” Janine rushes in for a hug before her head can catch up with her heart, and now she’s just wrapping herself around the package instead of Ava, giving the principal the chance to dump it into Janine’s arms. “How did you-” she says, straining to not drop the box, “how did you find it?”

“I can’t tell you. I went to some dark places to get it back, Janine.”

“Ava, you didn’t find shit.”

Jacob shoves the ice pack back against his face just as Melissa steps into frame, and now he’s staring at the recovered package, too. Gregory steps forward, a dopey smile on his face as he takes the package for Janine, and God, why aren’t these two just dating already? I mean, everyone sees it-

“Alright, everyone that didn’t get the shit slapped out of them, clear out.” Ava’s already leaving before Melissa finishes her sentence. Janine and Gregory shoot uncertain looks to Jacob, but when he shoots a shaky smile back, they make their exit. Melissa pulls the curtain shut again, and Jacob finally dares to look at her. “Let me see it.”

There’s no point hiding it from Melissa, of all people. He carpools with her, takes his meals with her, lives with her. But it’s for those reasons that he doesn’t want to show her his face. Eventually, her hand reaches for his, pulling away the ice pack and revealing his inflamed face to the world.

“Jesus. That doesn’t look good.”

“Doesn’t-” he starts, jumping at the fingers that dance along his cheek. “Doesn’t feel good, either.”

The ice pack finds its way out of Jacob’s hand and into Melissa’s, and now she’s the one holding it into his face. She presses it harder than Jacob was, though, and while he’s not surprised that a Schemmenti knows how to administer aid to an injury, he’s also not able to help the wince his face twists into. “Sorry, hon.” Melissa’s free hand comes up to blanket his other cheek, holding him in place. “Just trying to limit the swelling, that’s all. You’ll feel numb soon.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he asks, his words muffled by his squished face. “I can’t teach like this.”

“There’s not enough time to put makeup on the bruise. Besides, I’m sure as shit not going to teach you how to hide this from me.”

“If there’s not enough time to hide it, there’s definitely not enough time for Ava to find a sub.”

“You can wear a face mask. Tell your kids you got a cold or something.”

“That would work, actually. They ask everyday if I’m sick or if I’m really just this pale.”

He had said it to lighten the mood, but if Melissa finds it funny, he’s not sure why her huff of laughter sounds so shaky. “She acts like she doesn’t care about Janine, but Ava called me down to the office when she first saw that guy fighting with her for the package. I just got down there when you got slapped.” Both of her hands press harder against his face now, pure cold on one side and pure warmth on the other, just like he knows Melissa can be. “You shouldn’t have confronted him, you know.”

“It’s not like I knew he was going to slap me.”

“If he didn’t look dangerous, why’d Gregory try to hold you back?”

The back of his neck starts to burn, the way it always does when he knows he’s been proven wrong. “Better me getting hurt than Janine,” he says.

“Better no one getting hurt at all.”

The three-minute warning bell for class rings. He knows he should get up, give the ice pack back to Nurse Makiah, grab a face mask, but Melissa doesn’t make a move to leave, so he doesn’t, either. “I can hold the ice pack.”

“I know.” Still, she doesn’t hand it to him, and still, he doesn’t reach for it.

It’s the first Friday of August, and Jacob is swimming in a sea of Schemmentis.

Learning that Melissa’s family had dinner together every Friday in the summer was a fun fact, until it was time for Melissa to host it, and also a sweet fact, until it was time for Jacob to experience it. Now, the eating’s progressed into drinking, the bickering into yelling, the dinner into Christmas. Melissa’s sat on his right, gripping her knife tightly enough that Jacob has to dimly worry about the safety of everyone else at the table. He wishes he could just hide away with her in his room, the same he would do with Caleb every Christmas until he moved away, and maybe it’s seeing Melissa’s own siblings be so awful to her, but Jacob remembers with a shaky breath how much he loves his little brother, realizes with a pang how much he misses his little brother, resolves to call him once this disaster of a night is over.

“Hey, Jason.”

“It’s Jacob, Kristen Marie,” Seamus slurs around his drink. He’s the drunkest sibling here tonight, but he’s also the nicest one, so Jacob’s mind can’t decide if he should be scared of him or grateful for him.

“He never says shit when I call him Jason, so I’m calling him Jason.”

“I’ve told at least a million times that my name is-”

“Jason. Heard you’ve been living with my piece of shit sister for a few months now. What’s that like?”

He can see how Melissa tenses out of the corner of his eye. Slowly, he snakes a hand under the table, blindly grasping around until he the fist he knows Melissa’s hiding. Setting his hand down on top of it, he gives it a gentle squeeze. “It’s the best.”

“Sure,” Kristen Marie scoffs. “Now tell me, how much did she pay you to say that?”

“I didn’t pay him shit,” Melissa says sharply. “Hell, he’s paying me to be here.”

That’s not so much a testament to their bond as it is a reflection of their landlord-tenant agreement, but it is still true, and so Jacob nods along. Finally, her fist unfurls, taking Jacob’s hand in her own and squeeze it back.

“Why’s he even here, anyway?” one of Melissa’s sisters asks- Tony, or is it Toni? He hasn’t spent enough time with the Schemmenti family to learn all of their names, and he’s not particularly sure that he’ll want to after tonight. “I’ve been renting out my basement to college kids for years, and I sure as hell never ate dinner with any of them.”

“What the hell do you care? It’s my house!”

“And it’s our family dinner!”

“Come on, Toni,” Kristen Marie says- or maybe she says Tony- knocking back the rest of her drink. “We all know why he’s here.”

The group oohs at him and Melissa, the same way Jacob’s students do whenever one of their classmates is called to the office, and much like then, Jacob has no idea what the big deal is. “We do?”

“Well, of course you don’t know,” Kristen Marie scoffs. “Honestly, Melissa, does that public school of yours only hire dumbasses?”

“He’s not a dumbass,” Melissa snaps. “Not that you give a shit, since your goddamn charter school only hires assholes.”

“Come on now, guys,” Seamus says. “Can’t we play nice for just a few hours? It’s Melissa’s birthday tomorrow, for Christ’s sake.”

The rest of the group waves off the proposition, but Jacob can’t wave his arm, can’t move at all, because after years of asking and years of her dodging the question, he knows Melissa’s birthday. It’s hard to be happy about it, though, when he watches how her face hardens. “Jacob,” she says tightly. “You mind getting started on cleaning up?”

It’s phrased like a question, but really, Jacob knows she’s telling him to get out. The hand holding his has completely unfurled, and so he pulls himself up regretfully, shutting the kitchen door just as another Schemmenti sibling squabble starts.

There’s countless pots and pans Melissa had left soaking, endless plates and cutlery he knows she’ll want him to scrub off before he puts them in the dishwasher. He squeezes his hands into Melissa’s dishwashing gloves, not wanting to risk the lecture on hand hygiene he’ll receive otherwise, reaching for the stack of dishes closest to the sink.

Even through the gloves, he can feel the warmth of the soapy water, and he quickly settles into a rhythm of washing and setting aside. He’s almost done with all the dishes when he hears the kitchen door open and shut, not needing to look to recognize the footsteps stomping through the room. “Your brother as big of an idiot as my siblings?” Melissa asks. She rips the fridge door open- Whether to serve her siblings the tiramisu she made for tonight or throw it in their faces, Jacob has no idea.

“I mean… he hasn’t had another pregnancy scare since the last time we talked about him.” The last of the plates washed off, he loads them into the dishwasher one at time. “I didn’t know it was your birthday tomorrow.”

“You weren’t supposed to know. Only my family knows when my birthday is.”

“Does Barbara know?”

“Of course she does. I just told you only family knows, didn’t I?”

And now Jacob knows it, too. “We can pretend that I don’t know when your birthday is. I don’t mind.”

“I highly doubt the man who drove to Baltimore last summer to be with Gregory when he turned thirty is capable of pretending he doesn’t know when my birthday is.” There’s a clatter behind Jacob, and he scoots over just in time for Melissa to take his spot by the dishwasher, loading the rest of the plates within seconds. “I don’t want to do anything special tomorrow, okay? Matter of fact, I don’t want to do anything tomorrow at all.”

“So, you’re just going to treat tomorrow like any other day?”

“A birthday is any other day, Jacob. Me being born fifty-four years ago tomorrow doesn’t mean shit to anyone that doesn’t know me.”

“But it does mean something.”

“Which is why you’re hiding your birthday from me, too?”

He doesn’t realize how his hands have frozen until he feels the water running onto his arms and into the gloves. They make a squelching noise as he takes them off, and he turns them inside out to get the rest of the water out. “That’s different.”

“I’m sure it is.”

She says it dryly, too dryly for Jacob to convince himself that she actually believes him. When he turns to explain himself, though, he finds Melissa on her tiptoes, reaching in vain for those fancy circle plates she uses whenever she serves dessert. He wants to tell her that it’s not worth the effort, that she can never reach the plates on her own no matter how much effort she puts in, that her family’s not going to see how thin she’s stretching herself because all they care to see are the plates. But he knows that if he does, she’ll know that he’s not really talking about the plates.

He has to stretch to reach them, too, but he manages it, pulling the pile free and to his chest. He turns back to the sink as soon as he hands them off to Melissa, hand washing gloves long forgotten as he scrubs at the bottom of a stubborn pot. What had once felt like pleasantly warm water now laps painfully at his bare skin, but he doesn’t stop to put the gloves on, because stopping means taking longer to clean the pot, and he needs to clean it, needs to put in this ridiculous effort no one else but Melissa will care for so she can see that he can see the ridiculous effort she’s putting in, too.

A hand lightly brushes against him, so lightly that had it not settled onto his shoulder, Jacob wouldn’t have been sure that it had been there at all. It tugs now, not strong enough to pull his arm away, but insistent enough for him to understand she wants him to stop. He drops the sponge into the pot, watching it sink like his heart into the water gathered inside.

“You want to know what my best birthday was?” Melissa asks quietly. “Joe and I had finally called it quits, but we didn’t want to tell anyone until after the divorce was done. So, my family thought I was with Joe, and Joe thought I was with them.” Jacob feels the weight of Melissa’s head on his shoulder, the brush of her hair on his arm. “I was born twelve minutes after midnight. I stayed up until 12:12, had a drink, and went to bed by 12:30.”

The voices in the kitchen swell again, loud enough for Jacob to know Melissa’s siblings are getting impatient, but not loud enough for him to hear the insults he’s sure they’re slinging her way. For as much as he could resent Caleb, at least Jacob knows that his brother loved him at the end of the day. He has no idea if Melissa can say the same.

“Wear the gloves. You don’t want to dry out your skin.”

She balances the dessert in one hand, the plates in the other. Before tonight, Jacob would’ve thought that it was too much for any person but Melissa to handle. He sees now that it is still too much for her.

His arms are exhausted by the time he sets the last of the pots and pans onto the drying rack, although his hands are still dry, thanks to the gloves he peels off now. He grabs his phone with one of those hands now, checking his messages with a sigh. He’s got a missed text from Gregory asking if he wants to watch some football game with him and Janine on Sunday, a missed text from Janine asking if he wants to watch a movie on Sunday so she doesn’t have to watch football. No text back from Avi, he can’t help but notice. His fingers itch to unlock his phone and send a fourth message that’ll more likely than not go unread, but they still when they see that it’s just past midnight.

He hadn’t seen them leave, but judging by the abandoned plates on the dining table and the complete silence in the house, Melissa’s siblings must be gone. Meanwhile, she’s over from the couch, drinking intermittently from a water bottle while watching a Housewives episode Jacob’s sure they’ve watched before. “Mel-Mel.”

“The only birthday gift I’ll take from you is a promise that you’ll stop calling me that.” Still, turns her head, stopping at the sight of the two glasses clutched in Jacob’s hand. “What’s this for?”

“It’s 12:12. Well, it’s actually 12:10, but I figured I’d give myself some time to pour the drink.” He’s worried that Melissa will hear how hard is heart is hammering if he sits down next to her, and so he leans against the arm of the couch, placing the glasses on the table. “The alcohol’s yours,” he adds.

“Thank God for that.”

He doesn’t understand alcohol well enough to know what drinks are good, but he knows Melissa well enough to trust what she chooses. He pours her drink first, then his, using his glass to scoot Melissa’s closer to her. “Happy birthday, Mel-Mel.”

Her eyes, squeezing shut as she swallows the drink, are glassy when she looks back up at Jacob again. “Thanks…” she murmurs, then sighs. “…JJ.”

It’s the weekend, and Jacob is really starting to hate this guinea pig.

“Apologize.”

“No.”

“Apologize.”

“No.”

“Apologize.”

“No.”

“Apologize.”

“No.”

“Melissa.”

“Just a minute, Barb.”

“You’ve been saying that for the past five minutes.”

“I only need one more minute to break him.” When Melissa holds up Sweet Cheeks to Jacob’s face, it really is almost enough to break him. “Apologize,” she enunciates carefully.

“No.”

“Goddammit, Jacob!”

“I didn’t do anything that I have to apologize for!”

“You scared Sweet Cheeks!”

“He would’ve eaten his own poop either way!”

“Don’t say it out loud,” Melissa hisses, covering Sweet Cheeks’ ears. “Let the guy have some privacy!”

“Let me have a break!”

The coffee machine dings back in the kitchen, and Barbara makes her escape with quick steps and a loud sigh. Meanwhile, Melissa bundles Sweet Cheeks to her chest, her eyes increasingly narrowing at Jacob with every hand she runs through the rodent’s fur. “Apologize, or I won’t let you watch Housewives with me anymore.”

“Fine. Atlanta doesn’t even hold a candle to New Jersey, anyway.”

“For fuck’s sake, Jacob, just apologize!”

“I’m not apologizing to a guinea pig!”

“Fine! Then I’m not letting you watch Real Housewives of New Jersey with me when it comes back!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“Melissa!” With her refilled thermos in hand, Barbara takes a deep breath when Melissa finally looks over at her. “Are you ready to go to dinner now?” she asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m ready. Let me just put this ungrateful brat to bed. Jacob, go to your room.”

“Hardy har.”

Melissa’s certainly not laughing as she swipes Sweet Cheeks’ cage off of the coffee table and stomps her way upstairs. It leaves behind stray pieces of hay, and he resolves to just clean off the entire table. He’ll make sure Melissa’s home when he does it, too.

“You know, it really would’ve been easier for you to just apologize.”

“There is no way you’re on that thing’s side.”

“That thing has a brain the size of a walnut. Meanwhile, you’re supposed to have the brain of an adult.”

“Oh, because Melissa’s not acting childish at all.”

“Because you saying that makes you seem like less of a child.”

If he purposefully sits in the middle of the two cushions when he plops onto the couch, he’ll never tell. Unless Melissa asks. Then he will tell. “I don’t get it. All her life, she says she doesn’t want a pet, but then she ends up being forced to have one and she loves it?”

“It’s not the first time Melissa thought she didn’t want something that she ended up loving.” He scoots down the couch when Barbara sits down, sinks down when she gives him that look, the same look she gives whenever he asks where the story she’s telling is from and she says it’s from the Bible. “When are you going to give Sweet Cheeks a break?” she asks exasperatedly. “It’s not like Melissa loves you any less because of him.”

“I am not jealous of a guinea pig.”

“I never said you were.”

“You never…” he trails off, his face turning as red as the miniature wig Melissa just bought for Sweet Cheeks’ costume. “You implied it.”

“I promise, Jacob,” Barbara says with a hmph. “I never thought that you were a person who felt that he had to compete with a pet.”

It’s Wednesday afternoon, and Jacob is convinced that Melissa is trying to break his heart.

“Let me take you to the hospital.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jacob. I just took a tumble outside. it’s not like I’m dying.”

“If it’s not life threatening, then let me take you to urgent care.”

“I will not be letting you take me, because it’s not urgent, and it’s not something that needs care. It’s nothing, okay?”

“You took my pain meds,” Jacob says, his teeth gritted as if he’s in pain, but he’s just worried, he’s so worried and Melissa won’t let him help her. “That expired-”

“A decade ago, yeah, yeah, I get it.”

“If you got it, you’d-”

“Let you take me to the hospital?” Something in his face must harden, since Melissa’s softens, if only for a moment. “Look, Jacob, I know you care, alright? But I just really fucking hate doctors.”

“Well, I really fucking hate seeing you in pain.”

“Well, I guess we’re at a standstill.”

“You can’t even stand still.”

“You really think wordplay’s going to convince me to go see a doctor, Jacob?”

He doesn’t. But three days straight of him begging for her to go wasn’t able to convince her, either, so he’s just throwing stuff at the wall now to see what sticks. A metaphorical wall, since he’s pretty sure Melissa hurt her hand, too, so she can’t throw anything.

The phone in his hand vibrates with a message from Gregory, and Jacob knows that he’s running out of time to go help him with Jabari’s dad, running out of time to help Melissa. “I know you hate doctors, okay? But they’re the only people that can help you right now.”

“Go away, Jacob.”

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

She spins in her desk chair, her back to Jacob now. “Jacob,” she says slowly. “I swear to God, get the fuck out, right now.”

He really should get the fuck out. He was supposed to get the fuck out minutes ago. But instead, he circles her desk until he’s facing her again. “If I had been the one to get hurt-“

“Don’t you dare fucking go there.”

“If I had gotten hurt-“

“I would’ve left you alone.”

“Yeah, after you dragged me to the hospital. You wouldn’t have let me go to work. You wouldn’t have let me be in pain for three days.”

“I am not an idiot for not wanting to go to the doctor.”

“I didn’t say you were,” he says tightly, his hands balling into fists. “But if I had gotten hurt, you would’ve said I was being one.”

“Well, you’re not hurt and you’re still being an idiot, so there.”

His hands unfurl at the statement. Really, his entire body does. The invisible string between them hasn’t been snapped, but it’s stretched tighter than it ever has been, pulling sharply at Jacob’s heart. She turns around again before Jacob can catch her face, but for the first time in three days, he doesn’t want to see Melissa right now.

“That was really mean of you to say, Mel.”

She doesn’t follow him out of her classroom, and he can’t help but feel grateful for it.

Miraculously, the thrill of Gregory and Darnell’s nonviolent conflict resolution manages to get Jacob back in a good mood, for just enough time for him to change into his original outfit, at least. It falters, though, when he steps back into the hallway, his eyes naturally drifting back to the room of the woman who told him to leave him alone. The string tugs again, but now it’s tugging him out of Abbott and to the bus stop, tugging his SEPTA pass out of his wallet. It would be so easy for him to just walk out of here, walk the two blocks to the nearest bus stop. He’d probably be home before Melissa could even pull herself to a stand.

But then he looks up at Melissa’s classroom again, feels how his heart finally rests at the sight, and he knows he’s not leaving without her.

She’s still facing away from the door, so he knocks before letting himself in. He feels his energy drain with every step he takes, and he can’t help the way his body leans against her desk for balance. “Fine. We don’t have to go to the hospital. We don’t have to go anywhere. We can just go-”

“Jacob.”

Something’s wrong.

He knows it even before she turns around, knows it from how her voice sounds airy, restrained, wrong. Her hair’s always been a rich red, her eyes a glowing green, but they look even brighter now against the backdrop of her pale face. “Jacob,” she repeats, sounding even shakier than before. “Remember- remember when we saw each other at the bar? When you said you’d be there if I needed help?”

He does remember. He remembers everything about her. And he knows he’ll always remember how terrified she looks right now, how terrified he feels to see it. Slowly, shakily, he nods.

Melissa nods along with him, and then her eyes squeeze shut, forcing out the tears gathering in them. “I need help,” she gasps, and it’s the worst thing Jacob’s ever heard anyone say.

It’s Wednesday evening, and Jacob is holding back every muscle in his body that wants to leap at Melissa and help her into the car.

But he doesn’t, and eventually, she does manage her way into the shotgun seat, if not without a lot of grunting and grimacing. “There we go,” he says over the sound of labored breathing. “You’ve got it.”

Her eyes meet his for just a second, and then she’s turning away and slamming her car door shut behind her. Tucking her crutches in the back, he takes the long way around to the driver's seat, giving his hands just enough time to stop shaking before he slides inside.

Melissa’s breath has settled by the time he buckles in, but judging by her clenched fists, the pain hasn’t. “Do you want to stop anywhere for anything?” he asks. “Really, anything.”

“I just want to go home.”

He had wanted to go to the pharmacy to pick up some proper pain medication, but he knows going to the hospital was already enough of a push for her today. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Let’s go home.”

Neither of them say anything as he pulls out of his parking spot, drives out onto the road. He’s tempted to turn the radio on, but he knows that if he does, he’ll forever associate what he hears with this day, and he never wants to be reminded of today again.

Finally, Melissa sighs, knocking her head back lightly against the headrest of her seat. “Sorry for being an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“Idiots don’t get a wrist bruise and knee abrasion.”

“Well, lucky for you, you don’t have a wrist bruise and knee abrasion. You have a wrist bruise, a knee abrasion, and a grade two ankle sprain. I remembered because it’s also the grade you teach.”

“Great. Now I’m also going to remember it like that.” The hand she hasn’t got wrapped in gauze settles on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I called you an idiot.”

He can taste the venom of resentment pooling inside of his mouth, on his teeth, along his gums, and he longs to spit it out. But he knows that if the does, the aftertaste will linger on his tongue, and so he swallows it down. “It’s fine,” he says. It tastes as bitter as he expected.

“I still remember how your parents called you an idiot for graduating magna cum laude.”

It’s a good thing they’re at a red light, because he would’ve slammed down on the brakes otherwise. His vision becomes laser-focused on the road, his grip becomes impossibly tightened on the steering wheel. All this time, he thought that he didn’t remember what he told her at the batting cages. She wasn’t supposed to remember what he said to her at the batting cages. But she does, and he’s not sure if it’s that night or tonight that’s making her voice shake. “Mel…“

“You’re not an idiot. You’re smart, Jacob. You’re so fucking smart that I feel like you’re going to Flowers for Algernon me one day and never talk to me again. They’re the idiots for thinking you’re the idiot. I’m the idiot for calling you one.”

The light turns green before he can respond, which works out well for him, since he has no idea what to say. All that comes to mind when he tries to formulate a response is how much every part of what she said hurts. Her remembering what he said. Her knowing how awful his parents could be. Her thinking he would ever leave her behind.

He can’t bring himself to look at her as he parks the car, can’t bring himself to look at her as he turns the engine off. He only looks at her when he’s physically forced to, her uninjured hand turning his face towards her. “I really am sorry, Jacob,” she whispers.

“I know.” The hand on his face slips away, but not before Jacob can capture it in his own and give it a squeeze. “I forgive you.”

“Starting to think there’s nothing I can do that you wouldn’t forgive me for.” The hand in his squeezes back, then pulls free. “What’ll it take to finally scare you off?”

That’s certainly not to say that Melissa hasn’t scared him before. Hell, it was the first thing she had done to him. But it didn’t scare him away then, and it didn’t scare him away today. There’s his answer, he realizes. “Nothing.”

It’s the middle of the night, and Jacob’s woken up with Caleb on top of him.

When they were kids, it wasn’t uncommon for Caleb to trudge into Jacob’s room after a nightmare, cuddle against his big brother, and fall back asleep. Not that the closeness isn’t nice now, because it is, but it was a bit more bearable when Caleb was a child and not the retired high school linebacker turned personal trainer that he is now. “Caleb,” Jacob whispers, but that only seems to make his brother furrow deeper into him, and now he’s really regretting on insisting to Caleb that his bed was big enough to share. So, he does what he did back in Albany when he woke up to his then-pint-sized brother on top of his chest. He sighs as best as he can, grips his bedsheets, and slowly maneuvers his way out.

He’d forgotten to bring up a glass of water up to his room tonight, something he regrets as he finally pulls himself free. With one last glance at his sleeping brother, he treks out of his room and down the stairs, careful to skip the step that always creaks. Melissa always keeps a light on in the kitchen at night, but Caleb must’ve turned it off before he went to bed, since there’s no light to be found now. Still, Jacob keeps it off for the time being, familiar enough around Melissa’s house now to find her cabinet of glasses.

He hears the creak of the floorboards just as he turns the sink off. There’s only one person in this house who wouldn’t know to skip the step, the same person who didn’t know to keep the light on. He allows himself a sip of his water as he hears unsure footsteps pad over, setting down the glass as the familiar stranger steps into the kitchen. “Hey, Cakey,” Jacob whispers.

“Hey, Jakey.”

Caleb pairs the greeting with a smile, but it’s far too shaky to convince anyone of the joy it’s supposed to present. “Everything okay?” Jacob asks.

He knows that everything isn’t, yet he can’t help but hope for the plausible deniability he would get if Caleb responded otherwise. But with how firmly Caleb is pressing his lips together, Jacob knows that there’s no stopping the incoming word vomit. “I know you don’t like Mom and Dad knowing your business,” Caleb finally blurts out. “But, um, I told them I was staying with you in Philly? And I also told them you live with a coworker? And then they called last night to ask how things were going, and then…” Jacob can just make out how Caleb lifts up a hand and rubs at his neck. “They were wondering what your deal with Melissa is?”

“My deal with her?” The question brings a blush to Jacob’s own cheeks. “What does that even mean?”

“That’s what I asked!” Caleb exclaims, and before Jacob can remind him of the house’s thin walls, he’s running off with his speech, tripping over his words in his haste. “But before I left, they asked for Melissa’s name, and I wasn’t thinking, so I gave it-“

“Caleb.”

“-and then they found her on FaceBook-“

“Caleb.”

“-and they found a bunch of photos of you two on there-”

“Caleb!”

He had only wanted to tell him to talk quieter, but Caleb’s mouth clamps shut before he can. The only sound in the kitchen now is Jacob’s regretful sigh at the fallen look on Caleb’s face. It’s the same look Jacob would get after their parents yelled at him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Caleb. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Caleb says shakily. “For- for telling Mom and Dad all of that.”

Caleb’s got half an inch more height and God knows how much more muscle on him, but he still bundles easily into the arms Jacob holds out. “I don’t care what you tell them about me, Caleb.” And really, he doesn’t. So what, their parents have proof of how Jacob’s living a better life without them? If anything, that made Jacob’s life even better. “I don’t understand what Mom and Dad are expecting me to tell you. Melissa and I are just…”

Coworkers is how he wants to end the sentence, since that’s the word Caleb had used, but he knows that it’s not a good enough word. Roommates, then, except that doesn’t work, either. Both words are just slightly too formal. Friends? But that doesn’t capture the fact that Jacob does work with Melissa, does live with Melissa. Family could work, yet at the same time, it doesn’t, because Jacob doesn’t feel for Melissa what he feels for Caleb, or what he feels for anyone else in his family at Abbott. What he has with her is something he’s never had with anyone for as long as he’s been in Philly, for as long as he’s been alive.

Maybe there isn’t a label for what they are now. Yet for whatever reason, Jacob can’t help but feel like there is.

“It’s… complicated.” It’s the weirdest and worst answer Jacob can give, but really, it’s the only one he can think of.

“Complicated,” Caleb repeats, his voice muffled in Jacob’s shoulder. “Why do I feel like Mom and Dad would hate to hear that?”

If they did, Jacob wouldn’t be surprised. They hated to hear anything he said.

It’s December 12, and Jacob’s turning twenty-eight.

There’s thirteen days separating his birthday and Christmas. He’s never been one for superstitions, but as he watches the clock tick closer and closer to his time of birth- only thirteen seconds, now- he can’t help but sink into the pool of dread into his stomach, can’t help but think of the thirteen days of hell that are sure to follow.

The clock strikes 8:03 PM. Jacob’s twenty-eight.

“Heads up, oldhead.”

He looks away from his phone and up to the sight of Melissa with two cupcakes in hand. He notices how how they’re both frosted with vanilla before he sees the numbered candles affixed on each of them- 2 on the cupcake held in Melissa’s right hand, 8 on the one in her left- and he feels his face begin to turn as pink as the cupcake liners they’re wrapped in. “You were baking today because of me?”

“I was baking today for my family dinner. Just so happened to be your birthday today, too.”

Preparing for Christmas Eve she is, but baking cupcakes for it she is not. He’d flipped through the binder of recipes she’s picked out for her family dinner, and the only dessert in it was her nonna’s cannoli. Considering that he’s still technically on the waitlist to attend the dinner, though, it’s probably best if he stops pushing Melissa on that day and starts on this one. “How’d you even find out my birthday?”

“Not telling you. What good are my connections if everyone has them?”

“So, Caleb told you?”

“I already said that I’m not snitching.” Melissa leans against the dining room table, sets the cupcakes down, pulls out a box of matches from her jacket pocket. “My source also told me that you don’t like to celebrate your birthday.”

“Which is why you waited for your source to go downstairs to workout before doing this?”

Melissa strikes a match in lieu of answering. “I get it. I don’t like making a big stink of my birthday, either,” she says. She lights the 2 candle, then the 8, then blows the match out, then nudges both cupcakes further towards Jacob. “But it’s your first birthday since moving in with me, and I’d feel like an asshole if I didn’t at least mention it. Besides, you’ve been down about Avi-”

“He could still text me back.”

“-and your students using TalkGTP-”

“ChatGPT?”

“-and the golf course-”

“It’s destroying the city!”

“-and I know that you’re only going to be more down after Christmas, so sue me for wanting to see you be happy.”

That’s what birthdays always felt like they were about. Letting others see him be happy, when there was no other time of year that he felt it less. It’s how all of his birthdays with his parents had gone, all of his birthdays with Zach. But watching Melissa fiddle with her hands, uncharacteristically flighty, he can tell him being happy isn’t just something she wants to see. It’s something she wants him to be.

He wonders if he can blame his watering eyes on the fickle flame fanning from the candles. He blows them out lightly, blinking away his tears in time for Melissa to squeeze his shoulder. “Happy birthday, Jacob,” she says quietly.

He can’t say that his life is the happiest it’s ever been. But he can say that this the happiest birthday he’s ever had.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Jacob is officially convinced that Christmas is the worst holiday to ever exist.

The last of the craving leaves his body, leaving him shaking on the stairs of Melissa’s back porch for reasons other than the cold. He was too stressed for the Bref to work, but he only gets cravings when he’s stressed now, meaning that the two hundred dollars he spent on it are officially wasted. He rolls it around in his hands now, watching how the inscription bearing its name beams under the moonlight.

“My dead uncle coming back to life freaking you out that much?”

He processes the words before the voice, unable to stop how he flinches. But it’s just Melissa, the sight of her helping him relax, until it almost feels like it’s any month other than December. “Just taking a breather,” he says. “Like your unfortunately alive uncle.”

“Speaking of Uncle Archie, if you don’t get back inside soon, he’ll inhale the cannoli Caleb’s saving for you.”

Right. He’s supposed to be helping Melissa deal with the fallout of their not-actually-death scheme being revealed, supposed to be shielding Caleb from the legions of Schemmentis probably each planning a different way to kill him over his comments on the Rocky movies. But the same reasons he’s supposed to be inside right now are the same reasons he’s outside.

“Jacob Henry Hill, I swear to God-”

“Not a vape. Just my Bref.” He already knows to hold up the pen to her inspection, thanks to the multitude of other times she’s caught him with it, snatched it away, told him she’d kill him, realized it wasn’t a vape, handed it back and walked away without saying anything. “And Henry isn’t my middle name,” he adds, because he knows the one thing Melissa hates more than anything in the world is a smartass, and he wouldn’t particularly mind if she killed him for it right now.

But she doesn’t kill him, which he supposes is a relief. Instead, she grabs onto the porch railing, then eases herself down to sit next to him, careful of bending the knee he knows has been weaker since her fall as she does. “What are you doing fake-smoking out here instead of being inside with your brother?”

“I told you, I just needed a breather. Literally.” He’s sure Melissa can definitely use one too, what with how she’s been running herself ragged all night for this God forsaken dinner celebrating a God forsaken holiday. “Your family is very… opinionated.”

“You can say they’re assholes, you know.”

“Can I actually say that, or are you trying to test my loyalty to them?”

“We’re the Schemmentis, kid, not the Corleones. You can say whatever the fuck you want. It’s your house, too.” Her eyes land on the Bref again, and she gives it a stern finger wag. “I’ll kill you if you start smoking again, though. And then I’ll evict you.”

When it’s clear she’s not going to stop staring at the thing, he pockets it. There’s nothing in his hands now except the glow shining down from the moon, and he looks up at it. There’s no time difference between Philly and Albany, he remembers. He wonders if his parents are staring at the moon and thinking of him right now, too.

“It’s quiet out here,” Melissa says suddenly. “Peaceful. I like it. Christmas isn’t usually like that with my family.”

Didn’t Jacob know it. “Christmas with your family kind of feels like Christmas with my family. I don’t know how I feel about that.” It was the one day of the year where his parents’ yelling wasn’t exclusive to Jacob, where estranged relatives and alcohol finally loosened their lips. He thinks of how he would hide away with Caleb in his bedroom when the fighting started, even before either of them could even finish their dinner, because if they were willing to yell at Caleb the way they yelled at Jacob, they were willing to hurt Caleb the way they hurt Jacob, and he couldn’t risk that happening to anyone, least of all his little brother.

In a way, it was why he was in Philly now. Without Jacob to yell at, there was no one in the house for his parents to yell at. Caleb would forget why they had to hide away, Jacob had reasoned. Caleb wouldn’t have any reason to hate Christmas.

And he did forget, and he doesn’t have any reason. Caleb’s brought nothing with him to Philly but a smile as golden as the child that he was and a suitcase that was woefully underpacked. Any ghosts from Albany tonight are entirely Jacob’s own.

As much as he can feel those ghosts tonight, though, he can’t help but think that Melissa’s got it worse. It’s one thing to be haunted by the living. It’s another thing to have to live amongst the haunting. He’d taken off from his family the second his foundation of adulthood started, but Melissa had built her life around hers. She’d never left Philly, never even left South Philly. Her house had turned into a prison tonight, her own visitors the jailers, and his hands squeeze at the thought of how everyday could’ve been like that for him, how everyday could very well be like that for Melissa.

“You deserve better. You shouldn’t have to prove that you don’t need a husband. You deserve- You deserve to be not surrounded by assholes on Christmas.”

He doesn’t realize that his fists have unclenched until Melissa takes one of them into her hold, and now it’s her squeezing his hand as tightly as possible. Whatever ghosts are possessing her tonight, they’ve given her infinite strength. Maybe that’s how she was able to survive tonight. Maybe that’s how she’s been able to survive all of her life. “I know,” she sighs, and Jacob’s not sure if that makes him feel better or worse. “But they gave me a chance to prove them wrong by letting me host tonight, and I had to take it. Even if they don’t end up remembering. Or caring.”

“I’ll remember.” He’s never had any forgettable Christmases, that’s for sure, and that’s certainly not changing this year. But this Christmas will be memorable in a way the others weren’t, because this is the Christmas that came closest to making him happy. “I’ll care,” he continues. “If that means anything to you.”

Melissa looks at him, her eyes glimmering brighter than the moon, and Jacob can’t help but think to himself that maybe, he got to make this day as happy as it could be for her, too. “It means the world,” Melissa says, and that makes his world glow all the more brighter. The hand in his squeezes one more time, Melissa’s nails scratching lightly against his skin. “What’s your middle name?”

It takes him a moment to realize why she’s asking it. It can’t have been more than five minutes since she’s come outside, yet it feels like it’s been an eternity. Time was supposed to fly when you were having fun, or so the saying goes, but that’s always proven to be the opposite when he’s with Melissa. Maybe the reason being with her feels like forever is because he knows he can spend forever with her. “Alexander,” he finally tells her.

“Well, Jacob Alexander Hill. You ready to go back inside and face the passive aggressive judgment of no less than fifteen Schemmentis?”

“Ready whenever you are.”

“Eh, I’m never ready.”

“Neither am I,” he says, finally squeezing her hand back.

It’s the Sunday after Christmas, and Jacob’s just gotten back from sledding with Mr. Johnson.

He’d worn virtually all of his snowing gear in preparation, but even then, Melissa still seems unimpressed as she opens the door for him. “I told you to wear snow pants,” she says in lieu of a greeting. “And put your boots in the garage if they’re still wet.”

Snow pants aren’t as much of a necessity for Philadelphia winters as they are for Albany ones, but explaining that means talking to Melissa about living in Albany, and he’d rather dive back into the snow with no clothes on than do that. So instead, unwraps his scarf, unzips his jacket, undoes his bootstraps. “Mr. Johnson says hi.”

“He still think I’m in love with him?”

“He did express disappointment over Captain Robinson coming over on Christmas Eve.”

“Hey, I didn’t want to see either of those men that night, yet they dropped in anyway. Tell Mr. Johnson to take it up with Robbie himself if he cares that much.”

“Robbie, huh? Didn’t know you two were in nickname territory.”

“Eh, it’s been over a year. He’s earned it.”

Jacob drops his shoes down in the garage, grumbles at the box of chew toys he finds inside. The only thing Sweet Cheeks chewed on for fun was people’s fingers, but whenever Jacob tells Melissa that, she says that he only does it to Jacob, and that he only does it because he dislikes Jacob.

Whatever. He dislikes Sweet Cheeks right back.

He finds Melissa again in the kitchen, staring intently at the world’s largest pot she’s got cooking on the stove. “That’s not for Sweet Cheeks too, is it?”

“Believe me, I’d feed Sweet Cheeks your dinner every time you pissed me off if I could.” But Sweet Cheeks is with one of her students for the break, meaning that Jacob doesn’t have to worry about their incoming rodent infestation for another week. She grabs a wooden spoon from the drawer, stirs the pot with a precision Jacob’s able to recognize, if not replicate in his own cooking. “I’ve got to say,” she says suddenly, “I know you love Mr. Johnson, but I never thought you two were that close.”

“Of course we are.” They weren’t loyal subscribers to each other’s newsletters for nothing. “Although…”

“Although?” Melissa only spares him a quick glance away from whatever she’s got cooking, but it’s enough for Jacob to see the sparkle in her eyes. “Shit, don’t tell me you actually hate the guy.”

“Hey!”

“What? You’re allowed to hate people. I hated you when you first showed up at Abbott.”

“Hey…”

“Fine, I didn’t actually hate you. Now, you going to tell me what’s going on between you and Mr. Johnson?”

“Nothing’s going on between us. That’s the problem.” She doesn’t give him another look, but Jacob can picture Melissa’s furrowed brow. “He told me once that he loved me like a son.”

“Oh.” Now, Melissa’s stirring seems jerky, uncoordinated. All part of her master skill, Jacob supposes. “What’s the problem with that?”

“Because I don’t know if I see him as a parent back.” The thought makes his skin crawl, the way it did when Mr. Johnson had first told him that. Or maybe that was just from the ringworm infection unknowingly going around. “I mean, how does that happen? Is it even possible for someone to see me as their kid if I don’t know if I see them as a parent?”

Melissa just keeps on stirring, and Jacob’s just about ready to convince himself that she didn’t hear him when she turns the stove off. Her face turns to stone when she looks at Jacob, the same way it did when he first started working with her. She claims she didn’t hate him then, but he’s got no idea what else the look she’s giving him can mean. “Yeah,” she finally says. “Yeah, it is.”

She turns back to the stove before Jacob can ask how she knows that, turning up the heat to a level Jacob hadn’t even known was possible.

It’s the SEPTA strike, and Jacob is perhaps having his most unproductive day as a teacher ever.

“Did you all do your assigned reading from yesterday?” Those of his students that have their cameras on shake their heads. “Did anyone do it? Press the button to raise your hand if you did.” Either no one did the reading, or no one can find the button to press. He hopes for the latter, but he knows it’s the former. “Listen, I know online school is a whole different beast, but we’ve got to try to-”

There’s a sharp knock at his door, but it’s already swinging open by the time Jacob turns his head. “Hey, Mr. Hill.” Leaning over his desk, Melissa tilts his computer just enough to let her enter the frame. “Hey, kids. Remember me?”

“Hi, Ms. Schemmenti!” Jacob’s students ring out, a chorus so sweet that it could move Barbara to tears. Or maybe just him, since it’s the first time he’s heard any of his students speak all day.

“How’s class going? Is Mr. Hill a fun teacher?”

“No!”

“I’d rather be a good teacher than a fun teacher,” he mutters to Melissa.

“Is Mr. Hill a good teacher?”

“No!”

“Yeah, you should’ve expected that,” she whispers in his ear. Pulling back, she tells the kids, “Well, he’s good with technology, so I’m going to need to borrow him for a bit. Is that okay?”

“Yeah!”

“What? Wait, Ms. Schemmenti, we just started-“ But Melissa’s hand is already wrapping around his arm, pulling him out of his seat and into the hallway. “Do the reading while I’m gone!” he yells at his computer, knowing fully well that whether or not the kids heard them, they’re not going to do the reading.

They’re not going any faster from it, but he lets Melissa pull him along anyway, their footsteps echoing down the eerily empty halls. She all but forces him into her seat when they reach her classroom, and her students must catch the movement, since they all start waving excitedly through the computer. Some of their mouths are moving, and it takes Jacob a second to realize that they’re speaking. “Hey again, everyone,” Melissa says, folding her arms over the top of the chair and leaning over. “Can you all still hear me?”

Yes, Jacob can see the kids saying, but he can’t hear it. A quick glance shows that none of them have their microphones off, so that can’t be it. He quickly finds the solution once he checks the computer’s sound control panel, though. “Your computer’s on mute.” With one click, he quickly reverses that. “Hey, kids,” he says aloud now, and either he’s somehow turned off Melissa’s microphone or her students are wary of the sudden stranger, since they stay silent. “My name’s Mr. Hill. Can you all say good morning to Ms. Schemmenti?”

“Good morning, Ms. Schemmenti!”

Melissa lets out a huff of laughter at the sound, slipping back into her seat as soon as Jacob slips out of it. “Good morning, kids.” He’s just about to step out of frame when a hand circles around his wrist and jerks him back. “Mr. Hill’s a middle school teacher at Abbott, so a lot of you probably haven’t seen him before. Can we all say thank you for him helping us out?”

“Thank you, Mr. Hill,” a few uncertain voices say. Most of the kids go back to not paying attention. Looks like Jacob’s students and Melissa’s students were more similar than he thought.

He’s only been gone from his class for five minutes, according to the clock on Melissa’s wall, five minutes that he’s hoping his students are using to skim the reading. Melissa’s hand slips off of him when he steps back, but her eyes don’t. “Thanks for the help, kid,” she finally says. “I, uh, I needed it.”

Her knee and wrist have long healed from her fall, but Jacob’s heart can’t help the way it pounds from hearing those words. Still, he was there for her then, much like how he’s here for her now, and he hopes she knows that he’ll be here in the future, too. “Anytime.”

It’s the 100th day of school, and Jacob thinks Melissa might actually kill him.

She probably won’t. But she might.

(But she probably won’t.)

(…But she might.)

He’s standing at the entrance of the gym, watching as she cuddles with the rodent he almost accidentally lost for good. Her day long promises of killing Jacob have thankfully been replaced with assurances to Sweet Cheeks that he’s getting microchipped. Still, he’s careful not to catch her eye as he slips out and away for Golf Club.

Only a ten-minute walk separates Abbott from Girard Creek, and so Jacob sets out on foot, knowing that the last thing Melissa would want to give him right now is a ride. Besides, she’s probably going to take ten minutes of her own getting Sweet Cheeks into her car. He knows it’s stupid to hate the guinea pig as much as he does, but he can’t help it. A light in my life when I needed it most, Melissa had called Sweet Cheeks earlier today- What the hell was Jacob supposed to be, then?

His parents had said something similar when Caleb was born, he dimly remembers. Something about him being the child they had been waiting for. Man, were his parents assholes. He was just about to turn seven when Caleb was born, though, so he certainly hadn’t had the emotional intelligence to make that conclusion then. Said lack of emotional intelligence had made him hate the then-newborn Caleb instead, refuse to smile in any photos his parents tried to take of the two of them. He’s not sure what makes him hate Sweet Cheeks like that now.

He thinks it over as he takes an excursion into a random corner store, mulls it over the Diet Coke he grabs himself. It’s easy for him to see now that he had been jealous of the preferential treatment Caleb got. Sure, he’d always been the scapegoat, but  the appearance of a golden child hadn’t made that any easier. Sweet Cheeks was just some rodent Melissa got for her classroom, though. With Sweet Cheeks, Jacob wasn’t jealous, he was…

He stops in place, the way his mind stops contrasting the two situations. Not because it can’t think of any, but because there aren’t any.

The can is cold in his hand, and he knows he won’t finish the carbonated drink he’s barely sipped at, what with the flips his stomach is making. There’s still another five minutes worth of his walk to complete, but there’s also fifteen minutes until Golf Club is meant to meet, and so he sinks onto the steps leading up to a nearby apartment building, resting his drink on the stairs as he rests his face in his hands.

Jesus Christ. Or, as Melissa would say, Jesus fucking Christ.

Jacob really is jealous of a guinea pig.

It’s the first day of spring, and Jacob can’t breathe.

He’d left his scarf at work today, something he only realized when he got off of the bus. Cold, dry weather did not tend to pair well with his lungs, but the walk from the bus stop to Melissa’s house was only ten minutes, so he figured that it wouldn’t have been that risky for him to trek back home, and for eight minutes, it wasn’t. But then at the ninth minute, he’d started to cough, and then he hadn’t stopped coughing, and now he’s just about ready to hack up his lungs when he finally manages to stumble through the front door.

He catches himself on the wall, and it takes all of what little energy he has left to stay standing. The air inside the house is warm, so delightfully warm, and it would be wonderful for him to breathe in if he could somehow manage to do that. Not that he doesn’t try, but with every wheeze, he feels his throat tighten, like a Chinese finger trap that only gets tighter with every pull for freedom. The metaphor falls apart there, though, since the opposite of pulling is pushing, and the opposite of breathing is not breathing, but Jacob needs to breathe to get out of this trap, but he can’t, he can’t fucking breathe, can’t fucking breathe, can’t fucking breathe-

A heavy weight settles at the base of his spine, the way it always does when his overcompensating muscles start losing this battle, and he knows that he’s gone from needing his inhaler to really, really needing his inhaler. His eyes begin to mist over, and he can’t tell if it’s because he’s in pain or because he’s scared, but he doesn’t want to be either of those things, he just wants to breathe. Try as he might, though, his legs can’t afford to move, with what little energy he has left currently being used to not collapse. If he can’t go upstairs, the inhaler tucked away in his drawer will have to find a way downstairs.

“Melissa,” he calls out as best as he can. He wants to scream it, but he’s beaten by the screaming of every cell in his body begging for oxygen, and his voice comes out so weak, so strangled. He can’t remember if he saw her car in the driveway, can’t remember if she said when she’d be coming home today, can’t remember if she’s still pissed at him for almost losing Sweet Cheeks, but he needs her to bring his inhaler and he needs her help and he needs her, he needs her, he needs her. “Melis…”

The ripple of pain that runs down his back finally silences Jacob, his hand sliding down the wall as he slides onto the floor. Somehow, he manages to stay upright, the side of his face pressed into the cool paint of the wall, but he can feel his body slipping into a slump with every second. It feels like someone is sitting on his back and it feels like someone is sitting on his chest and it feels like someone is turning him around and-

It’s only when his back slams against the wall that he realizes that someone really is turning him around, and that that someone is Melissa. Jacob, she mouths, or maybe she says it, but he can’t hear anything over the blood roaring in his ears. When she kneels, it feels like she’s towering over him, feels like how it felt when his parents found him having an asthma attack. Then, she drops the inhaler into his lap, and for a terrifying second, Jacob thinks she’s going to walk off and leave him like his parents would, too.

But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she balls her hands into fists, brings them up to her face, then unfurls them while breathing out exaggeratedly. It takes him a moment to realize she’s signing, another moment to realize what it is she’s signing. Exhale.

He manages another cough, which makes him feel like his lungs are on fire, but before he can feed the flames with more oxygen, Melissa’s grabbing the inhaler again, forcing it into his mouth and pressing down on it for him. Somehow, his shaking hand finds a way to Melissa’s shoulder, not to hold her in place, because he certainly doesn’t have the strength to do that, but just to hold her. She’s got the same wide eyes he had all day when she fell on the steps of Abbott, and Jacob realizes that she’s as scared for him now as he was for her back then.

His throat finally loosens, and now it feels like he’s breathing through a kazoo instead of the world’s thinnest straw. When he manages to take in a deep breath, Melissa lets out her own one, one that Jacob can hear. “Thank God,” she whispers, but she looks so worried that it makes Jacob want to hate God for making her see Jacob like this, not thank Him. Melissa pulls the inhaler back, and in the ten seconds Jacob has to spend in hell holding his breath, his hand slips off of Melissa’s shoulder and down to his side. When he tries to clench it into a fist, though, he finds another hand in his grasp. It’s Melissa’s, guiding him towards the inhaler. She’s finally handing it off to him, or so he thinks. But when his pull for the device only makes her tighten her grip on it, he wraps his hand on top of hers, pressing down on the inhaler with her when it’s time for his second puff.

His ability to breathe comes back to him by the fourth and final puff, and he lets his hand drop down again as he takes a proper gasp for air now. A light sob leaves him as he does, letting out the last of tears he hadn’t even realized he was crying. Melissa’s hand meets his face, wiping off the wetness. “You okay, JJ?” she asks quietly.

He’s not. His back is killing him, his legs are deadweights, his hands can’t stop shaking, and he knows that he’s going to crash on the couch for no less than five hours before he feels like some semblance of a human being again. But when he looks at Melissa, looks at the inhaler she’s still gripping, all he feels is relief. She’s literally holding his life in her hands right now, Jacob realizes. And he wholeheartedly trusts her with it.

It’s Laundry Day, and Jacob’s just caught Melissa dyeing her hair.

He’d seen the light coming from the laundry room, sure, but he hadn’t heard the washing or drying machine, so he had just assumed that one of them had left the light on by accident. But then he walked into the sight of Melissa bent over the sink inside, a ratty towel wrapped around her shoulders and a red-tipped brush in her hand. “Tell no one or I kill you,” she says simply.

There’s no one else in the house, but Jacob still closes the door behind him. “And here I was, thinking that it was raccoons who were putting those boxes of hair dye in the trash.”

“You used to get scared whenever I told you I would kill you,” Melissa hums sadly. “Now you’re desensitized to it.”

Even back when the primary emotion Jacob felt around Melissa was fear and not love, he had never actually believed she would kill him. But as of last week, when Melissa actually had the power to kill him but didn’t, he knows for sure now that she never will. “I’m just going to throw my clothes in the washing machine. I’ll be out of here soon.”

The machine roars to life, then settles into rhythmic mewls. Melissa’s back to looking at nothing when Jacob looks back at her, as if she’s too focused to remember he’s still in here. She’s parted her hair into four sections, with the back two secured in clips. She’s making quick work of it, too, quickly grabbing and coating half-inch sections of her hair before flipping it over and moving onto the next section. But he has the advantage of seeing, and he can see that there’s still spots she’s missing, spots that are barely noticeable, but barely noticeable is still noticeable. “I know what you want to ask,” she says suddenly, turning around and shooting him a wink. “Just do it already.”

“Do you need help?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you did the back of my hair for me.”

He takes the brush in one hand, takes out one of the clips in her hair with the other. He won’t let out the nervous sigh he feels building, but when Melissa turns back around, he does allow himself to bite his lip. Fishing the brush through Melissa’s hair, he separates a thin section, so thin that he can still see the brush through it. He’s careful to coat both the front and back with dye, although it’s hard to tell where exactly the growth ends, since Melissa’s hair does seem to be a natural red, if only a little bit duller than what she dyes it. He’s just about to tell her that when he flips over to the next section, revealing the gray roots below.

It’s vibrant against the red of her hair for all the wrong reasons, and he finds his throat closing up at it. He’d already been moving slower than Melissa through the pieces, but now he’s as slow as Sweet Cheeks, nearly well individually coating every strand he finds. He’s knows it’s nothing to be surprised by, that Melissa’s been squarely middle-aged from the day he’s met her. It’s only now that he’s actually had to face the proof of it, though.

“I’m getting old.”

He dabs at the gray hairs vigorously. “We’re all getting older.”

“Yeah, but I’m getting old.”

“Fifty-four isn’t old.”

“Tell anyone how old I am and I’ll kill you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“No, I won’t,” she sighs. “Christ, I backed off from a death threat. I really am getting old.”

“You’re not old just because you have a few gray hairs.”

“I didn’t say anything about me having gray hairs.”

She hadn’t, even though Jacob desperately wracks his brain now to find an instance where she did. “Oops?”

“Just shut up and finish touching up my roots.”

For as hard as his heart is beating at the task, there is something calming about working his way through, section by section, painting over red and gray roots alike. It still feels like a surprise to find those patches of white, but it doesn’t necessarily feel wrong. “Are you scared of getting older?”

“Are you capable of not asking the most loaded questions all the time?” she asks over her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m scared of getting older. Who isn’t?”

Jacob certainly is. He’s no closer to finding a house or paying off his loans or getting married than he was than when he became an adult a decade ago. “What scares you about it?”

He’s fully expecting her at this point to snatch the brush back and kick him out, and he certainly won’t blame her if she does. But her hands only reach for the edge of the sink, clutching it tightly enough to leave an indentation. “I’m not saying I don’t regret having kids, because I don’t. But sometimes…” she trails off, running a finger along the edge of the sink. “Sometimes I wonder what’s going to happen to me when I’m retired and stuck at home all day.”

His hands hesitate when he reaches the last untouched section of her hair, not because he’s surprised by it anymore, but because he doesn’t want this moment to end. It’s strange to think that Melissa may feel the same way about it. “You’ve got your siblings. And your cousins. And your siblings’ kids, and your cousins’ kids. You’ve got your friends.” The last of her roots touched up, he sets the brush down back in the bowl of dye. He can only imagine that he shouldn’t remove the towel wrapped around her, and so he sneaks his hands under it, squeezing her shoulders lightly. “You’ve got me.”

“Only thing I’ve got is my pension,” she says. “Whatever sucker ends up caring for me in my old age is going to get paid for it, at least.”

She’s far off from retirement, even more far off from needing to worry about elderly care. But that’s not what she wants to hear right now, and it’s certainly not what Jacob wants to say right now. “I mean… I never said that you couldn’t pay me.”

He removes his hands from her shoulders when she turns, wrings them together when she looks at him. “Alright,” she says. “Fine. You can be the sucker who ends up caring for me.”

She says it as if it’s a burden, chuckles at it as if it’s a joke. But to Jacob, it’s the best job she’s ever given him.

It’s the end of their karaoke outing, and Jacob’s not sure if he had a good night or bad night.

Good night. He saw Zach. Bad night. He saw Zach. Good night. His pickup line using the wrong name worked on Elijah. Bad night. Now he’s thinking of all the times he used it before and it didn’t work. Good night. He got to hang out with his friends. Bad night. He’s pretty sure he scared them all. Good night. No one cut him off while he was singing. Bad night. Barbara and Melissa checked in on him after he was done singing. But it’s not necessarily the fact that they checked in that he’s including. It’s something Melissa said while they were.

“Uber almost here?”

A very tipsy Melissa is leaning against him right now, and no matter how hard she squints, he knows that the alcohol paired with her lack of reading glasses is making his phone screen impossible to read. “Seven more minutes,” he reassures as he pockets it.

“Seven minutes,” Melissa mumbles. “Just like that one song Barb made Erika and Simon sing.”

And it had been the longest seven minutes of Jacob’s life. That is, until right now.

“Do you want me to move out?”

“What?” For a second, Jacob thinks that Melissa didn’t hear him, which is great, because that means he can pretend he blurted out another question that doesn’t make him look like the child that he feels like right now. But then he turns to face her, and he realizes with a stomach that drops as much as her face that she did hear him. “Of course I don’t,” she says, her voice small. “Why on Earth would you think that?”

He’s hurt her with the assumption. It’s certainly not the first time he’s done it. But the last time he had, all the way back with the Tire Iron, it had brought them closer. Now, he can’t imagine a world where the two of them are closer, because that’s the world he’s living in now. Now, all that’s left is a world where they’re further apart. He can’t help but feel like that’s the world his answer’s leading them into. “Because… earlier tonight, you told me it was maybe time to start looking for my dream apartment, and I thought that…”

“Jacob.” Melissa’s voice is softer than he’s ever heard it, yet it hits his heart the hardest, and he squeezes his eyes shut. “Of course I don’t want you to leave. But you’re not even thirty yet, hon. You’ve got so much more life left to live. I highly doubt that life is in the guest room of my house.”

Why on Earth would you think that? The question rests on the tip of his tongue, but it’s also too heavy for him to ever ask back. So, he forces himself to swallow it down, forces himself to look back at Melissa. “Maybe not,” he concedes. “But it’s with you.”

“You can either only give the world’s most loaded questions or world’s most loaded answers. You’ll make my heart explode otherwise.” She turns her head up with a sigh, showered by the stars shining down on the two of them. “So? Do you have a dream apartment?”

“Not really. I’d like a house, though.”

“Dream house, then.”

“The house is the dream.”

“Oh, come on, I know your dreams are more detailed than that. You tell me all of them on the way to work every morning.”

She’s looking at him the same way she does on the drive to school, too tired to shut Jacob down when he talks and talks and talks, or maybe too tired to pretend that she actually cares to. Either way, it makes him want to talk and talk and talk. “Two floors and a basement would be nice. Like your place.” Also like approximately half of single-family homes in America, but when Jacob thinks of home now, he thinks of Melissa’s. “I’d love to have a home library. And a walk-in closet.”

“Thought you were done with being in the closet?”

“You’re one to talk about closets, Melissa Mostly Straight Schemmenti.” He’s tempted to say something about the joke being low-hanging fruit, but he knows Melissa can turn that back on him, too. “I don’t know if I have a dream neighborhood. I’ve heard good things about Girard Estates, though.”

“Girard Estates?” Melissa asks, tilting her head. “What, are you joking?”

“Why would I be joking about that? Is it not actually a nice neighborhood?”

“It’s in South Philly.”

“I know that it is.”

She’s looking at him like he said a joke, like she’s waiting for him to laugh so that she can, too. “Imagine telling you from five years ago that your dream would be to end up in South Philly,” she huffs.

“Why is it so shocking? That’s where you ended up.”

“Yeah, because that’s where my family is. Why would you want anything to do with it?”

Because that’s where you are.

He doesn’t say it aloud, but it takes all the lungs out of his air regardless. His heart is squeezing, or maybe it’s swelling, but either way, its strings are being tugged so hard that it hurts, and he has to stop himself from pressing a hand against his chest. The feeling only gets stronger when he looks back up at her, and God, he loves her, he loves her in a way he’s never loved anyone on the planet before and will never love anyone on the planet ever again, and he knows that for the rest of his life, he’ll do everything he can to stay in the orbit that is Melissa Schemmenti, the same way she’s doing for her family. “I just want it,” he finally says.

Good night. He gets to be with Melissa.

It’s 1 AM, and Jacob can’t sleep.

For as much as he’s groaning into the pillow pressed over his face, the restlessness isn’t entirely unexpected. He’d been dropping off in the car ride back home from the field trip, only kept awake by the punches Melissa was all too happy to deliver to his shoulder. When they’d gotten home, he promised himself that he’d only sit down on the couch for five minutes, just long enough to text back Elijah about hanging out tomorrow, and then he’d get up and make himself a cup of coffee.

The sun had already set by the time he woke up. So, it had certainly been longer than five minutes.

But it’s not just his ruined sleep schedule that’s keeping him awake. It’s that when he woke up, he woke up with a crick in his neck and his head on Melissa’s shoulder, both things he knew weren’t there before he fell asleep. There was a quilt around his legs, an arm around his shoulders. He could already feel himself slipping off again when a hand began to shake him lightly. “Hey,” Melissa murmured. “You awake?”

The warm feeling in his chest was now paired with the burning in his face, finally melting Jacob’s frozen body. “Yeah, I’m awake,” he mumbled. When he shifted to get up, though, the arm around him only tightened. Finally, when he put his head down again, Melissa’s hold loosened. Slowly, her hand traced its way from his shoulder to his head, lightly brushing through his curls.

With each comb through, Jacob’s eyes drooped more and more closed, the room, the view outside the window, the silent images on the TV all blurring into the shape of home, something that was somehow both abstract and so familiar. And holding the image was the same person holding Jacob, the same person who had taught him what home was by letting him into hers. Even now, lying awake in bed, Jacob can still hardly believe how lucky he felt in that moment, how lucky he’s been feeling for so long that he can’t remember where the feeling started.

He can still hardly believe what happened next, too.

“I love you, Jacob.”

The hand in his hair stopped, just like his heart did. As much as he had warned himself that these past five years were too good to be true, it was still too little a balm for too big a sting. His hands squeezing the quilt, he braced himself for whatever joke or insult or retraction was coming next. “But?”

“No but.” With one last run of her hand through his hair, Melissa brought her head down, resting it on top of Jacob’s. “I just love you.”

And there was what’s keeping him up now.

He’s happy to say that he’s known what unconditional love is like for some time now. He knows it from Caleb, knows it from everyone else at Abbott. But hearing it from Melissa made his eyes sting then, makes his eyes sting now, because all he could think then was, I wonder if my parents ever felt like that about me.

It was hardly the first time he had questioned if his parents had ever loved him. It wasn’t the first time thoughts of Melissa had brought thoughts of his parents, either. But it was the first time he asked himself why it did.

Then, he had looked up at Melissa, looked at the one person he loved in a way he had only ever loved two other people, and he realized that she was the answer.

The time on his phone officially flips onto the next hour. Jacob’s never felt more tired in his life. Jacob’s never felt so far away from sleep in his life.

It’s 2 AM, and Jacob is grappling with the fact that maybe, just maybe, he sees Melissa as a mother figure.

It’s the last day of school, and Jacob’s officially been a teacher for five years.

He’s supposed to getting drinks with Janine to celebrate, and technically, that’s what he’s getting ready to do. But his hands shake in a way he knows putting on his denim jacket won’t fix, his heart races in a way he knows a drink won’t finish. He’s not ready for tonight, not until he has the conversation he’s been gearing himself up all week to have. He’s not ready for that, either, and yet he leaves his room for it anyway.

Melissa’s with Sweet Cheeks, because of course she is, adjusting the mini-mat inside of his cage to achieve some sort of guinea pig feng shui. She raises her eyebrows when Jacob steps in, raises a hand when he reaches inside the cage, but he’s careful to use slow movements as he scratches the pet’s head. “Knew you’d warm up to him,” she says as he pulls his hand back. “You heading out now?”

“In a minute,” he says, knowing fully well he’s going to need longer than a minute for this. “But, I, uh, I wanted to tell you something first.”

“Shoot.”

She’s still looking at Sweet Cheeks, which is probably for the best. When he tried to rehearse this, he could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“More or less embarrassing than the time you dug that old printer out of the trash?”

“More.”

“More or less embarrassing than the time you drank a smoothie out of the trash?”

“More.”

“More or less embarrassing than the time you literally jumped into the trash?”

“More.”

“Jesus,” Melissa says through a huff of laughter, “what’s left for you to do? What, did you take a nap in the-“

“I see you as a mom.”

It comes out rushed, as if he blurted it out, but he really had meant to say it then and there. He’s got a million more things that he’s left to say, but each of those things have broken into a million more pieces, and Jesus fucking Christ, he’s got no idea what he’s doing.

“I’ve really enjoyed getting to work with you, and live with you, and just… know you, these past five years.” His voice, hands, legs are shaking now, but Melissa is still, so still that he wonders if his brain is somehow buffering. “I’ve always thought of you as family,” he says. “That’s nothing new. I think of everyone at Abbott as family. But when I think of the word mom, I specifically think of you-”

To his credit, Jacob honestly hadn’t thought that he’d make it this far into his spiel before his voice decided to stop working. But to his discredit, he wishes he hadn’t said a single word, because Melissa’s finally looking at him, and it’s a look he’s never seen on her face, never seen on anyone’s face, and now he’s feeling levels of mortification he never knew were humanly possible.

“I’m sorry. This is probably so weird to hear. I shouldn’t have said anything. God, I’m so-“

“I knew, Jacob.”

“You- what?” He waits for her face to harden, or soften- preferably soften- but instead, she just keeps on looking at him. “You- what? You- what? But- I- you- how?”

“How? How not? Believe it or not, I’ve gotten to know you pretty well in the last five years, kid. I can tell when something’s up with you.”

Her face betrays no reaction- No, her face is the face of no reaction. “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did, just now, and your brain damn near short-circuited when I said it. You probably would’ve dropped dead if I had been the one to try and bring it up.”

He’s certainly wishing he could drop dead right now. “Okay, well. Now I know that you know. And I started this conversation with wanting you to know, so, I’m going to… go.”

“Jacob, sit down.” He’d much rather run out of the house and never return, but then she gestures with her head towards the edge of her bed, and he sinks down onto it. “I get it. You’re embarrassed. This isn’t exactly a conversation I thought I’d ever have, either. But you really think you’re going to feel any better by telling me you see me as a mom and then running off?”

“Yes?”

“No.”

“You really do know me well.”

“Don’t try and make me laugh now.” Still, he doesn’t miss how the corner of her mouth quirks up, even if it is just for a second.

His entire body thrums with nervous energy, and the shaking hands he balls into fists do nothing to hide it. “I know you never wanted to be a parent. If you decide you want things to change between us, that’s fine.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Five years we’ve known each other, and sometimes I feel like you don’t know me at all.”

Her brow is furrowed when he looks back up at her. “So you don’t care that I see you like… that?”

“What, are you crazy? Of course I care.”

“So you do want things to change?”

“No! Jacob, no! God, what even is this conversation?” Melissa groans into her hands. “Jacob, I care in a good way, okay? So no, I don’t want you to think shit has to change between us.”

That’s good. At least, it should feel good. At least, he thinks it should feel good. But Melissa’s brow is still furrowed, her eyes narrowed, her mouth set. He’s frustrated her, and he has no idea why. Maybe things would be good if they stayed the same. But maybe things would be better if they didn’t. “I know what you don’t want,” he finally says. “But what do you want?”

Sweet Cheeks squeaks from his cage, and Melissa pulls him out with a sigh. “You getting jealous?” she whispers into his ear. Setting him down on her lap, she cards her fingers down his fur. To calm him or her, Jacob can’t tell. “When’d you realize?” she asks.

“After the field trip. When you told me you love me.”

“You serious?” she says, her face scrunching. “It took you that long?”

“Was I supposed to realize sooner?”

“Thought you realized after Christmas.” The hand she’s running through Sweet Cheeks’ fur suddenly freezes. “Or maybe that’s just when I did.”

“You’ve known since Christmas?”

“Christmas? Kid, I’ve known since my birthday.”

Well, great. This is great. Melissa’s known for nine whole months he sees her like a mom. This is just the greatest day of his life. Or maybe just the greatest embarrassment of it. Much like any good embarrassment reel, the moment plays back in his mind over and over again, and he’s got the exchange memorized in a matter of seconds. But through the haze of realizing that Melissa knew for the entire school year that he saw her like a mom, there’s a break in the timeline, one that lines up with their actual break. “If you’ve known since August, what did you realize in December?”

Sweet Cheeks is still chirping, but Melissa sets him back in his cage regardless. They’re back to how they began, with Melissa staring at Sweet Cheeks while Jacob stares at her, but now, her looking away feels purposeful. “You’re right,” she says. “I did never care about becoming a parent. I thought I knew what it felt like, though. Thought I knew it with my students, or with my nieces and nephews.”

“Or with Sweet Cheeks?”

“You’re too old to be jealous of a guinea pig.” She scratches said guinea pig under the chin now, eliciting happy squeals. “Like I was saying, I thought I knew. And then you go on that stupid fucking sledding trip with Mr. Johnson, and you ask me if someone can love you like their kid if you don’t feel like their kid, and I think to myself, ‘What is he, stupid? Of course I do’.” Her voice breaks on the last word, her hand falling to her side. “And then I realized that I didn’t know shit.”

His vision is blurring, but it’s only until he blinks that Jacob realizes it’s from tears. “What are you-” he says, choking on a sob. “What are you saying?”

He knows the answer is right there in front of him, but he can’t bear to say it himself. Because if he’s wrong, he’ll be so wrong, and he won’t be able to handle the fallout of him being wrong. Even now as she looks back at him, her own eyes brimming with tears, he can’t bring himself to say it.

“I see you as a son, Jacob,” she says, and his heart feels like it’s going to burst.

It’s unlike anything he’s felt before, and God, it hurts. The closest he’s ever felt to this was when he told his parents he was leaving Albany for school and never coming back, getting nothing but blank looks in return. But it’s not like that at all, because his parents didn’t love him, and his heart was empty then, so empty that it felt like it could collapse in on itself and kill him at any moment. But now he’s happy, so happy that it makes his heart want to burst, and his heart wanting to collapse and his heart wanting to burst feel so similar, even though he knows they aren’t, and so he lets himself cry the way he did back home, knowing now that it’s because he’s finally, finally happy.

He throws himself at her before she’s even finished turning her body back to him, curling around her so tightly that he can feel how his heart beats against her chest. “I love you,” he sobs into her shoulder. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” she whispers, and his heart swells up again, and it’s only now that he understands why he’s never felt like this before. It’s not because he hadn’t known Melissa saw him as her son, but because he didn’t know what it was like to be seen as somebody’s son. This is what it feels like, he finally knows. It feels like the tightest pair of arms he knows. It feels like his home. It feels like his family. It feels like his mom.

It’s his and Elijah’s sixth-month anniversary, and Jacob is honestly convinced that Melissa is more stressed about tonight than him.

“How the hell can you own so many ties and still not know how to tie one?”

“I’ve never had a reason to learn. I haven’t been to a black tie event since- well, since ever, actually.”

“And you couldn’t have told me that before you needled me into giving you me and Robbie’s tickets to the symphony?” Melissa holds up what must be the millionth tie to his chest now, nodding approvingly at something he’s clearly not seeing. “Here we are. This one brings out your eyes.”

She’s bundling it into his hand before he can say otherwise. He steps towards the mirror on his wall, threading the tie through the collar of his dress shirt. “The way I remember it, you needled me into taking your tickets when I mentioned Elijah and I were looking for a way to celebrate.”

“The way I remember it, you weren’t being such a smartass when you took the tickets.” She wins the battle, but only by way of forfeit when Jacob turns his attention to the tie, or rather, the slip of silk he’s meant to fashion into a tie. “Do you need help?”

“It’s usually me asking you that.”

“Good thing I’ve never needed help tying a tie, then.” She’s got just as much reason to know how to tie a tie that Jacob does, yet he’s not surprised that she does know how to, unable to do nothing but watch as her hands quickly fly through it. “You’re lucky I love you and your dorky sweaters. You would’ve had to learn to do this much sooner otherwise.”

“Hey, Elijah loves me too. Dorky sweaters and all.”

“Don’t I know it. Hear him telling you it on the phone every night. You two really need to learn how to whisper, you know.” With one last tug, she knots the tie. “You love him back?”

“I do.”

“You going to marry him?”

“A bit too soon to tell if that’s the case.” But he does find that when he thinks about marrying Elijah, his heart flutters at the thought, not pounds. “Why?” he asks as he shrugs his suit jacket on. “Should I warn him that he’s going to have to ask for your blessing first if he wants to propose?”

“Please,” Melissa huffs as she smooths down the lapels. “He already knows he’s got to ask me.”