Chapter Text
I haven’t seen Ryland Grace since I graduated from my master’s program five years ago. Or, I should say, the day after I graduated from my master’s program five years ago when he asked me to meet him at the diner down the street from my apartment where he then proceeded to break up with me out of nowhere. Everything had seemed fine up to that point. Even the night before when he came out to dinner to celebrate with me and my parents. I never got a real explanation, just a lot of excuses. So that night I went out with my friends, got completely messy, blackout drunk, cried my eyes out and threw up outside the bar while we waited on our cab, and had to be carried back into the apartment. Most nights for the next couple weeks all went pretty much the same, until my friends had an intervention where I finally agreed to block him, delete all of our photos, and forget that he ever existed.
Except I didn’t forget he existed. Not even close. I unblocked his number as soon as my friends went home, drank an entire bottle of wine (or maybe it was two), stalked his social media where all of the photos of us from the past three years still existed, and drunk dialed him. Sixteen times. He never answered. I can’t remember what the voicemails I left him said, only that I hope he never listened to them.
Another week later, I actually blocked his number when I noticed that he’d deleted any proof that we’d ever existed from everywhere on the internet. I gave myself a haircut in my bathroom with the kitchen scissors, booked the soonest appointment I could get for a hairdresser to fix the mess that I had made, and finally went on with my life. Until I unblocked the number again a week later.
Now, I’m not necessarily saying there was never any internet stalking, crying on the phone to my friends, hooking up with guys from dating apps that I wished were Ryland, wondering what went wrong and how I didn’t see it, and a lot of nights wishing that it could have been different. But that was a long time ago. I’ve had at least a couple more failed relationships since then. None of them were as long or as good as my relationship with Ryland, but they were relationships nonetheless.
Now I’m standing in the office of the new school that I just got a job at. I didn’t go to college to be a teacher, but I didn’t really know what my career plan was at all, so my first job post-grad was as a substitute teacher. After a few years of that, I realized that I wouldn’t really mind doing it full time. So I applied to every single teaching position within an hour of me and I ended up here. Grover Cleveland Middle School.
I’m waiting on the principal to get here to show me to my new classroom. The students haven’t actually started school yet, it’s just the teachers and staff here getting everything ready for the school year. It’s still early August, so I have a couple more weeks until I have any students in my classroom, but I’m happy to be starting work now. I could really use the paycheck. Life as a substitute teacher has been a nearly endless cycle of getting paid, paying my bills, putting money into my savings, and then taking all of that money back out of my savings over the next couple of weeks to afford to eat and drive to work whenever they needed me to come in. This job was actually the one with the highest salary of all the ones I applied to, so I was thrilled to be offered the position. It’s really still not much money, but it's full-time, and compared to what I’ve been living with for the past few years, I’m going to feel rich. I’ll at least be able to pay my rent on time.
“Ms. Stratt!” the woman says when she walks into the room “I’m Mrs. Hughes, but you can just call me Janet. It’s so good to finally meet you in person.” I stand up from the chair I’m sitting in across from the secretary’s desk to shake my new boss’s hand. “Yes, Ma’am, it’s great to meet you. I’m very grateful for this opportunity,” I tell her.
I get a full tour of the school from the woman who is now officially my boss. The cafeteria, the copy room, the teacher’s lounge, and finally my classroom. The school isn’t huge, so I feel confident I’ll be able to remember where everything is, but this is what I’ve been most excited about. This will be my first time with my own classroom, and I go to bed every night thinking about it. The room is quaint, but has good natural sunlight making it feel so open and nice. This is really all I could have hoped for.
“Oh, and I should introduce you to the other teacher you’ll be sharing this end of the hallway with,” she says as we walk back out into the hallway. She knocks on the door of the classroom right across the hall from my own and a man’s voice comes from inside, “Coming! Just a second!” It sounds like whoever this man is runs into something large and things go crashing to the floor. Finally the door opens to reveal a man who definitely just picked himself up off the floor, and is sweating and seemingly a bit out of breath from whatever it was that he was doing in there.
Right in front of me stands my new fellow teacher. “Ms. Stratt, this is Dr. Ryland Grace, he teaches eighth grade science here at Grover Cleveland” my boss says gesturing between me and Ryland, “Dr. Grace, this is Ms. Eva Stratt, she’s our new eighth grade history teacher.” but I stand there frozen, my eyes glued to the man I’ve spent five years of my life comparing every sexual or romantic interest to. He looks even better than the last time I saw him, his hair is a bit longer and I see muscles peeking out from the sleeves of his G.C.M.S. t-shirt that looks just like the one they gave me when I got hired, only his looks older, like it's been worn a lot since he got it. He looks just as shocked as I feel, which is at least a tiny relief to know that this isn’t just a one-sided thing.
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, opening and closing his mouth as if searching for the right words to say in this awkward situation. I always wondered if I’d run into Ryland again someday, but I never imagined it’d be standing in the hallway of a Bay Area middle school while being introduced by our boss like we're total strangers. In a sense, I guess we are. I know next to nothing about the man standing in front of me, and the same could be said for him. All of the information I have about him is about five years out of date, and we're both in our late twenties now. A lot changes in those years while you figure out what the hell you're supposed to do after college and how to actually be an adult without getting crossfaded with your friends every weekend. Well, maybe that's not what everyone was doing, but I know for a fact that's what both of us were doing. We're two completely different people than we were the last time I saw him.
I take a deep breath and reach my hand across the distance between us with the most convincing smile I can muster, offering a civil handshake. “Nice to see you again, Dr. Grace,” I say, and when his hand touches mine I use all of my strength to keep my knees from shaking. The touch sends a wave of heat and painful nostalgia over me that I hope doesn’t show on my face. He nods in return, still not able to find the words he’s looking for.
“Oh, you two know each other?” Janet asks, "That's great!"
“Oh, a little bit. It’s been years. We went to college together,” I explain, “Isn’t that right, Dr. Grace?”
“R-right. Yes. Yes, we went to college together,” Ryland says, looking visibly flustered.
Either Janet doesn’t notice or can’t be bothered to care, just responds “Wow, small world! Well I’m sure it’ll be nice for Eva here to have a familiar face around. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend. I will leave you both to catch up. Good luck, Eva! Find me if there’s anything you need that Dr. Grace isn’t able to help with.”
Janet disappears down the hall, leaving me and Ryland standing alone in the hall. Neither of us say anything for a few moments, both of us still stunned by the situation. He’s slowly disappeared from the internet in the years since I’ve seen him last, so I had no idea what he was up to these days, and certainly not that he worked at one of the schools I was applying to.
“What the hell was that?” he asks when he’s absolutely sure Janet is out of earshot. His tone is weird, a mix of uncertainty and anger.
I’m totally caught off guard by this reaction from him, “What do you mean?” I ask.
“‘We went to college together’ really, Eva?”
“What did you want me to say?” I ask, “‘Oh, yeah, we dated for three years and he broke up with me out of nowhere the day after graduation and then pretended none of it ever happened and I never saw him again until right this second.’ Would that have been better?”
“No, obviously that would not have been better.”
“Well I didn’t see you offering anything better to the awkward conversation, so I did the best I could. Sorry that didn’t meet your expectations, Ryland.”
“Whatever, just forget it. Good luck with the new job.”
He turns around and shuts the door in my face. Ryland was right about one thing, what the hell was that? Obviously we broke up, but that was five years ago. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not exactly over it either, but that seemed a bit intense. Especially considering he broke up with me, and it’s not like we really ended on bad terms. We just ended.
Back at my apartment after a mostly uneventful first day at my new job, I change into pajamas and pour myself a glass of wine before sitting down on my couch to continue what I’ve been doing since nine o’clock this morning: overthinking every second of my interaction with Ryland. If you could even call it that. More of a weird, intense confrontation than anything.
The last time I saw him he was totally calm, like he’d built a wall between us while I sat in the booth across from him, crying into my coffee. I was devastated that he could so easily pretend that none of it mattered when what we had was so incredibly important to me. I had thought it was that important to him too, but he sat there and broke up with me like it was something he’d seen coming all along. I never saw a single tear threaten to fall. His voice didn't even shake, it was as if he'd rehearsed this a hundred time and knew exactly what to say. I wanted to talk about it, see if there was anything we could do to fix whatever problems he was seeing in our relationship that I had been oblivious to. He told me there was nothing to talk about, and that he had somewhere else to be. He sat some cash down on the table to pay for breakfast and walked out of the diner without another word. I sat there for an hour, just playing it over and over again in my head. Eventually I left, making the short drive back to my apartment in complete silence.
I decide to download a dating app for the first time since my last failed fling with some engineer whose name is currently escaping me, possibly due to the third glass of wine that I just finished. I swipe through a lot of guys that are trying way too hard to look hot, or cool, or smart and I resist the urge to match with them just so I can tell them how stupid I think they all really are. I’m about to give up already and delete the app again, thinking that maybe I will become a nun instead and never worry about getting laid ever again, until I swipe one last time. And who do I see but Ryland fucking Grace.
Of course. Of course I find Ryland on this god-forsaken app while I’m looking for someone I think might be tolerable enough to go out with for a night, let them buy me drinks, and if I’m lucky maybe be competent enough to give me an orgasm.
I throw my phone down on the couch and groan as I walk back to the kitchen. Choosing to skip the unnecessary step of pouring it into the glass, I drink the wine straight from the bottle. I’ve had enough to feel more than the buzz I was initially hoping for, but the warmth in my chest feels just good enough to make me stupid.
I pick my phone back up off of the couch and unlock it, his dating profile still opened. I scroll through the photos, all pretty standard. Picture of him at a friend’s wedding, picture of him doing karaoke at a bar, picture of him on vacation in Florida at the JFK Space Center, picture of him, wait, the next photo is an old one. It’s a photo of him in college with a group of friends. The picture is very familiar, because I used to be in it. The photo has been cropped, but if you zoom in (which I do) you can still see my hand wrapped around his waist. What the fuck, Ryland? I mean, seriously, why the hell of all photos would he need to include this one on his dating profile? He hasn’t taken a single other photo of him having fun with his friends in the last five years that he didn’t need to crop me out of? Whatever.
I scroll back through the photos, stopping on the first one again. It’s the one from one of his friend’s wedding, and by the looks of it he was a groomsman. He’s wearing a plain white button-down shirt, his suit coat forgotten and his green tie hanging loose around his neck. His sleeves have been rolled up to show his very toned forearms. Seriously, when did that happen? I hate that he’s gotten even hotter since we broke up. I think that I have as well, but it still isn’t fair. I wanted him to get ugly and bald before he turned thirty, but instead he grew his hair out and got ripped. Fuck, life isn’t fair.
The longer I look at the photo, the more the wine starts to give me that warm, tingly feeling everywhere. I sit my phone down again and lay down on the couch, deciding to turn on a movie to distract myself from thinking about this stupid situation that I’ve gotten myself into. I only last about three whole minutes before I pause the movie and pick my phone up to look at the photo again.
It’s my own fault, I know wine makes me horny. So it’s no surprise when I find my hand sliding down the front of my pants and toying with the waistband of my underwear. I slide my fingers down a bit further to find what I already knew to be true: I’m unbelievably wet. Like, pathetically wet, and all this from looking at a photo from my ex-boyfriend’s dating profile. But fuck, he looks so good. I stare at the photo for a moment longer before my eyelids flutter closed at the sensation of my middle finger rubbing slow, lazy circles around my clit. God, this is so dumb. I have to see him tomorrow, and I’ll have to remember that I did this. With any luck he’ll avoid me much like he did today, and I’ll forget all about this by the time I see him next.
I dip one finger inside myself and moan much louder than I mean to. The second finger causes a similar reaction. The walls in this apartment are thin, which I happen to know quite well due to the fact that my neighbor’s sex life is obviously much more fulfilling than my own. It’s only fair that I’m finally the one with obscene noises coming from my side of the wall, even if it is from my own hand.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had sex with Ryland, but as much as I hate to admit it, I think about it often enough that the image comes to me easily, immediately adding to the dizzying feeling of my fingers slipping in and out of myself. I bite down on my bottom lip as I grind into my own hand in desperate search of more friction. I finally resort to dropping my phone completely and using my now free hand to give my clit the attention it’s begging for. I’m way too tipsy to have the dexterity to do both with just the one hand no matter how much practice I have. The touch immediately makes me let out a moan that comes out sounding a lot like the name of the person I’ve spent the last five years trying to forget.
Damn him. He was never selfish, always ensuring I got exactly what I needed before he even considered himself. I was his first, but you know what they say about how practice makes perfect. I was always doomed to compare every sexual partner to him. Of course it was never going to be any of those other guys that I’d be thinking of while I bring myself closer and closer to my blissful drunken orgasm. It had to be Ryland fucking Grace that happened to show back up in my life after half a decade and then show up on my phone while I was searching for someone to help me forget him.
I remember exactly how it felt with him, every little detail down to the sexy noises he would make. I loved that he was never afraid to be vocal with me. I’m especially grateful now as I replay those sounds in my head all these years later and I inch closer and closer to the release I desperately need. I can’t see the picture on my phone anymore since I decided this should become a two handed job, but it’s still clear behind my eyelids as I use my imagination to make the image more indecent. He was always attractive, don’t get me wrong, but picturing the things I remember about him on this newly muscular frame is something that is very much worthy of the kinds of thoughts I’m having right now.
I’m breathing heavily into my otherwise silent apartment, more and more moans and barely-comprehensible profanities leaving my mouth the closer I get. If I focus hard enough, my hand is almost him. Oh, this is a horrible idea. Am I really about to come to the thought of my ex-boyfriend-turned-coworker? I’d be lying if I said this was the first time he’d come to mind during nights like this, but never to this extent. It was never just him. But the biggest difference is that now I have to see him. I thought that was out of the question before, so it didn’t matter if he was the last thing to pop into my mind as I finished. Now I can practically feel the heat rising to my cheeks when I have to pass him in the hall already.
I wonder if he ever thinks of me like this, when he’s all alone at night with nothing better to do.
Oh. That’s certainly a thought.
And it’s that thought exactly that makes me fall apart, shaky and whining and soaking wet. It lasts longer than it usually does when I’m alone, images of his biceps peeking out of his t-shirt today and the look on his face seeing me for the first time in so long playing on a loop in my mind.
I lay there for a moment after the final wave has washed over me and stare at the ceiling with my hand still in my pants. It must be a pathetic image, but the wine mixed with the orgasm has left me too blissed out to care about that. All I’m thinking about is Ryland, and some of the thoughts are much fonder than he deserves, though I try my best to push those ones away.
It hits me suddenly that he may not spend his nights alone at all, he may have someone to go home to. Someone to love. That dating profile could be long forgotten, and just never deleted. For all I know he could be married, I didn’t think to look for a wedding ring. And now I feel even more pathetic than I already did. I pick up my phone and the bottle of wine, drinking the last of it in one long drink. I’m going to be pissed at myself for that in the morning, but it’s too late for that now.
I decide it’s probably time to get some sleep before my brain can make any more bad decisions. I unlock my phone to make sure all of my alarms are set for me to wake up for work tomorrow, but when it opens the photo is still there. “Fuck you,” I say out loud, closing out the app and vowing to delete it forever.
Which I will do first thing in the morning. Probably.
I close my eyes, falling back onto the bed as I feel the room spin around me. I curse myself for the stupid decision to drink on a work night, but I fall into a deep drunken sleep before I get too wrapped up in the regret. I have one of those weird dreams that isn’t really a dream, and more just a series of memories. It’s beautiful and exciting and nostalgic. I wish I could live in it forever, but the painful reality is that I have to wake up in the morning and pretend I'm not still completely fucked up over Ryland Grace. That was a much easier task when I could imagine that he had disappeared off the face of the Earth, but not so much now that he works in the classroom directly across from mine.