You Told Me To Walk So I Walked Right Out Of Your Lives Chapter 32
The wind chime rang again as the door closed.
Leo poked his head out of the classroom.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Hand out the next set of exercises.”
He looked at me for two seconds, then nodded.
“Okay.”
He didn’t curse them out for me, and he didn’t ask why I wasn’t sad.
I walked back into the classroom and picked up a piece of chalk.
The fingers on my left hand started to tremble.
I switched to my right hand and wrote the final problem of the day on the blackboard.
That night, Leo didn’t mention a date.
He stayed to help me arrange the desks and chairs, then placed the insulated food container outside the front door, untouched.
Only after he’d finished did he ask, “Want to go for a walk?”
“Is this an application?”
“No.”
He handed me my coat.
“Tonight is just a walk.”
We walked slowly along the street.
When we passed a restaurant that was still lit up, he suddenly stopped.
“Can I apply now?”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“How do you still remember that?”
“Of course I remember. You promised me that first meal.”
We sat down by the window.
Halfway through the meal, Leo pulled out a thin sketchbook.
Inside were drawings I’d made over the years.
The way he’d looked asleep at his desk the first time I tutored him.
Miller holding up her badge, smiling, on the day she was promoted.
Princeton’s old stone buildings, the tin box by the studio window, and the classroom full of students from today.
Every drawing was mine.