Spellman Ch. 14

"Evidence? What kind of evidence?"

"I don't know, Amanda, They wouldn't say. It doesn't matter though, because whatever they think they have, it isn't anything real. I would never do something like that. Not with a student, not with anyone. I have always been and will always be faithful to you."

"I know, Ryan, but..."

"But nothing, Amanda. Seriously, I can't believe you. I came home hoping to get some support from my fiancée and instead you're just as suspicious as the fucking principal!"

"Ryan, I'm sorry, it's just, if they say they have evidence and they're taking it seriously..."

"I'm telling you, absolutely nothing happened. That's all the evidence you should need!"

"Ryan..."

"I can't do this with you right now. I'm going for a drive." I stood up and left the apartment. How could she not just take my word on something like this? I drove in circles around the neighborhood for half an hour, my thoughts a complete jumble. After sorting things out a bit in my head, I gave my friend Marco a call to ask for some unofficial legal advice. He wasn't an employment or a criminal lawyer, but he had at least been to law school, unlike me.

Marco told me that as of right now everything seemed pretty straightforward—they were within their rights, and in fact probably just doing their legal duty, to investigate the claim. They hadn't suspended me from my job, just strongly suggested that I take some time off, but even then they would probably be within their rights to suspend me with pay while this thing shook out, but he reiterated that he wasn't an employment lawyer. He suggested that it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world to look into finding one, just in case, but didn't think it was absolutely necessary until things progressed a bit more. And to have a number for a criminal lawyer, just in case things went worst-case scenario. I didn't even want to think about that possibility. There was no way it was going to happen.

I didn't want to go home and face Amanda right now. How could she not believe me? For how long had she been harboring all of these doubts about me, about us? Was she just planning on letting them fester and grow? We're supposed to be getting married in a few months. I checked my phone to see if she had called or texted, to tell me to come back home, to apologize, to...anything. But she hadn't.

I avoided going back to our apartment for as long as I could, grabbing myself some pho for dinner at a little Vietnamese restaurant nearby. Still no communication from Amanda. It was after eight before I finally decided to go back home. When I got back I was surprised to find that she was already asleep in bed. Amanda wasn't a night owl, but this was still very early for her. I didn't have anything better to do and I was feeling emotionally exhausted, so I just stripped down and climbed in as well. Even sharing the same bed, I had never felt so far away from my fiancée.

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

I woke to my usual alarm. Apparently I had forgotten to turn it off. Sometime in the night Amanda had rolled over and snuggled up with me. Pulling her closer, I breathed in the scent of her hair, hints of orange and coconut lighting up my senses. I loved having her close, loved the moments every morning when there was nothing in the world except for the two of us.

"I'm sorry, Ryan," she whispered. Amanda looked up at me, her head still resting on my chest. Tears made her green eyes shine like emeralds.

"I need you on my side. This is driving me crazy, and I need to know that at the very least you're with me right now."

"I'm trying. I really am. It's a problem with me, not with you. It's just...I love you so much, Ryan. I feel so lucky to have you. Sometimes I still can't believe it."

"I feel just as lucky to have you, babe. I wish you could understand that. I love you, Amanda. I chose to be with you, only you, for the rest of my life. You know how seriously I take that."

She nodded. "I do, I do...I'm sorry. I know you love me. My brain just gets dumb about this stuff sometimes."

"Do we need to go couples' counseling or something? This is a big deal, Amanda. I need to know that you trust me."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's okay. I trust you. I'm sorry for freaking out yesterday. It just really surprised me. I know it's ridiculous."

"Okay," I said. "I'm serious, Amanda. I really need you right now."

She scooted up to give me a kiss. "I love you and I trust you Ryan. I'm sorry."

"Thank you." I gave her a kiss back.

"I need to go into the office for a bit today. I'll probably be home around three. What are you going to do today?"

I exhaled sharply. "I don't know. I need to do something to keep my mind occupied. I can't just sit around the apartment all day dwelling on this. I'll probably go to the gym, maybe go for a run. I still have some essays I need to finish grading. Might as well get those done. I want to act like this is just a silly speedbump and I'll be back in the classroom tomorrow once everyone comes to their senses."

"All right." Amanda sat up and stretched, the old t-shirt of mine that she often wore to bed as a nightgown lifting up to show more of her bare leg. I reached over to run my hand along the exposed skin. "I'm going to go take a shower."

"Okay."

"Do you want to join me?" she asked. I immediately perked up at that. An offer to fool around in the shower was not very common, so she didn't need to ask me twice. I chased her into the bathroom.

Once we were in the shower, Amanda was quick to drop to her knees and take my cock in her mouth. She really did not like giving blowjobs, so this was a big deal. I guess she really was doing her best to apologize for yesterday. After a few minutes I was hard as steel. Amanda stood up and turned around, placing her hands on the wall and pushing her ass back at me.

"Show me how much you love me, Ryan."

As I slid my cock inside her, Amanda let out a groan of pleasure. The hot water ran down our bodies as I began to fuck her. Her hips thrust back at me while I started to pick up the pace, pounding into her. I took her chin in my hand and turned her head to me, kissing her passionately as I continued pumping her with my cock from behind, doing my best to erase all the thoughts of yesterday from our minds as we made love.

It wasn't long before Amanda came, hard. She cried out as her climax took her. Her legs began to shake and buckle, forcing me to grab her and hold her up. The sounds of her pleasure were intoxicating, sending me over the edge as well. I thrust into her as deeply as possible before my cock erupted, blasting her womb with my seed. She whimpered as she felt my cum shooting into her.

For a moment I imagined this being the morning I got her pregnant. Amanda was still on her birth control, but we had already talked about our plans for her to stop after we were married. We would enjoy the year or so of just us, but we'd already been living together for a few years now, and we both wanted kids. Her company had a very generous maternity leave policy, and we'd discussed trying to time things so she'd give birth in the early summer so I'd be home to help. Of course it wasn't a given that anything would actually go according to our plans, but we made the plans anyways.

Our coupling finished, we got around to actually showering before the hot water ran out. When we stepped out and dried off, Amanda lifted herself onto her toes to kiss me. "I love you, Ryan."

"I love you too, Amanda."

We finished getting ready, ate a quick breakfast, then Amanda was out the door and off to work. I had planned to go to the gym and then shower after, but I certainly wasn't going to pass up the opportunity that Amanda had given me this morning. Oh well, showering twice today wouldn't kill me.

Rather than go hard at the gym I took things slowly, trying to kill as much time as possible. I followed that up with a relatively leisurely ten-mile jog, with a short break in the middle to grab a smoothie and a rice bowl at one of my favorite little food joints. When I made it back to the apartment I was nice and sweaty, so I took that second shower to rinse off.

By this point a couple of my fellow teachers and football coaches had texted me, trying to figure out what was going on.

Dude, what's happening? Hearing some weird shit, my friend and fellow coach Carlos sent.

I can't really talk about it right now. Whatever you're hearing, it's not true. Nothing going on, just gotta wait it out while the admin pulls their heads out of their collective ass.

Carlos wasn't the only one to call or text, though. Over the next hour I had several of my coworkers reach out. I decided to ignore them for now, eventually putting my phone on silent and leaving it in my room so it wouldn't be a distraction. Since Amanda was at her actual office today, I grabbed the stack of essays out of my bag and took them to her home office to start reading and grading.

It was just after two when I heard the front door slam open and Amanda storm in, crying. I raced out of the office. "Babe, what's wrong?"

"HOW COULD YOU!" she screamed, tears streaming down her face.

"Amanda what are you talking about? What's going on?"

"You told me it wasn't nothing to worry about, made me feel like I was crazy! So then what the fuck is this, Ryan!" She shoved her phone into my chest before collapsing onto the couch in a weeping mess. I wanted to go comfort her, but I had to know what had gotten her so worked up. I unlocked her phone to find her Facebook feed. It was a post talking about allegations that had been made about a local high school teacher having an inappropriate relationship with a student. I felt a pit growing in my stomach.

Attached to the post were pictures, clearly taken with a cell phone camera, of what appeared to be a handwritten diary entry. I started to read, and it didn't take long until I felt like I had to throw up.

3/17/23

It finally happened. I'd wanted it for so long. I know he had, too, but he told me that we needed to wait until my birthday. That the waiting, the anticipation, would only make it better when the time finally came.

God, he was so right.

I was nervous. Of course I was, it was my first time. But he was so sweet, so gentle. It seems to me that there are some obvious advantages to having an older man initiate a young woman into the mysteries of sex. If I had given myself to a boy my own age, he probably would have been clumsy, timid, and quick.

Mr. Dillon was none of those things.

My heart stopped. Oh, fuck. I didn't want to keep reading, but I knew I had to.

It was only right that my favorite teacher in school would also be the one to teach me the ways of love. He told me to call him Ryan, that if we could be joined this intimately then surely I could call him by his first name. But there was something sexy, taboo even, about calling him Mr. Dillon as he skillfully plucked the flower of my virginity. I wish I had thought to record the moment he first entered me, his towering manhood slowly splitting me open, so that I could relive the moment over and over, hear myself breathily moaning out his name as he took me.

It hurt, at first. He was—is—large, and I am not. It couldn't be helped. He was as gentle as he possibly could be though, taking me slowly. It wasn't long before the pain faded, replaced with pleasure. No, pleasure is not a strong enough description. Bliss. Ecstasy. Rapture.

I couldn't go on. There were more pictures, showing at least a dozen entries detailing later encounters similar to this one. Encounters that were, of course, entirely fictional.

"Amanda, this is not real. How could you believe any of this? I thought we had gotten through it." She couldn't even respond. The sound of her weeping was overwhelming. I moved to sit next to her, reaching out to rub her back. She flinched away from my touch. "Amanda, talk to me. None of those things are true. You have to believe me."

It finally occurred to me to check my phone. I quickly retrieved it from our room before returning to sit besides my seemingly inconsolable fiancée. My notifications were overflowing with text messages, missed calls, and voicemails from coworkers and from Amanda. There was one voicemail from the school. I listened to that one first.

"Mr. Dillon," Principal Torres said, "I think it would be for the best if you came in tomorrow morning at nine so we can go over the developments from today." I wasn't sure if I should try to respond to the other messages. I decided it was probably best to just ignore them for now.

Eventually Amanda pulled herself together enough to stop crying. She sat up without a word and walked into our room. I resisted the urge to follow her in, choosing to give her a bit of space to calm down before we talked about this. She came back out a few minutes later with an overnight bag.

"I'm going to go stay at my parents'. I need some space to process this."

I stood up immediately. "Amanda, no. We need to talk about this."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I can't right now. I need to get away from you for a while so I can think clearly." She stepped past me. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Amanda, please." She didn't stop, didn't respond, just left our apartment without another word.

I flopped back down onto the couch. I couldn't believe this was happening. What was even worse was that I recognized the diary from the pictures. I recognized the handwriting, too.

It was Bella's.

In retrospect it was obvious that the girl had a bit of a crush on me. She had told me that she decided to go to Stanford in part because I had gone there, and she was even more shy in my class than she was in her others, according to some of her teachers. I hadn't realized exactly how far that crush went, though. Somehow I really doubted that Bella herself had intended for those fake diary entries to be turned in.

There was no way I would be able to get my head on straight enough to get any more work done today. I had never really been a big drinker, but I felt a strong desire to get absolutely blasted right now. It wouldn't help anything, but maybe it would at least be a decent distraction.

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

I woke up a little after seven with an awful hangover. Amanda hadn't returned any of my texts or calls. I had a big breakfast with several aspirin, a large glass of orange juice, and a bottle of Gatorade in an attempt to kick my headache.

Principal Torres met me at the front gate. "Ryan, I'm really sorry about all of this," he said. I raised an eyebrow at him. So we're back to Ryan again, no more 'Mr. Dillon' like it had been earlier this week. He led me back into his office. Assistant Principal Simpsons was there again, but no Officer Wilson. We all took a seat.

"So, it's been an eventful couple of days. I assume you've seen some of what's been spreading?" I nodded. "The diary that's been spreading on social media was the evidence that was turned into us on Tuesday. The students who brought it in seemed very concerned, but couldn't tell us who it belonged to. The fact that the photos of the diary started spreading immediately on social media soon made it clear that their intentions were not entirely altruistic. It wasn't until yesterday that we were able to track down the author of the diary. When we brought her into the office she locked up immediately and refused to speak to anyone. It took several hours with a counselor and her parents coming in before we were able to get her to explain the situation to us. She denied that anything had happened between the two of you, stating that the diary entries were fiction. I'll admit, at first we thought she was just trying to protect you. However, further investigation revealed that the timelines of the diary entries did not match up to real events, and that several of the supposed encounters took place while you were involved in football activities with multiple witnesses."

I exhaled, realizing that I had been holding my breath through most of Principal Torres' explanation.

"Do you have any questions?" he asked.

I thought for a moment. "What now? It seems like you're convinced that I did nothing wrong. So I just go back to the classroom and pretend like nothing ever happened? What about the students? The ones who accused me and then spread those pictures all over social media? What about-" I stopped short of saying Bella's name. "What about the student who wrote the fake diary?"

"She's already been moved to another class."

That was probably for the best, even if it left a bad taste in my mouth. Bella was a great student. I enjoyed her work and her contributions to the class. She hadn't done anything wrong. She'd just had a crush on one of her teachers, something that I'm sure millions of students both male and female have had at one point in time or another. Sure, she'd taken things in a bit more of an...explicit extreme than I liked, but honestly writing about those feelings was probably a pretty healthy way to process things. I doubted she meant for anyone besides her to ever read those words.

"And the students who made the accusation?"

"We've discussed it, and unfortunately we don't really have grounds for any punishment. We can't prove the initial claim was insincere, given the existence of the diary, even if it was proven to be fictional. They can and do claim they had no way of knowing that. Spreading the photos is a problem as well, but we don't really have the ability to do anything about what students post online. There's no crime, just teenage stupidity."

The meeting went on for another twenty minutes. It was decided that I'd stay home for the rest of the week and return to school on Monday. That would give them some time to address things with the students and staff and make it clear that nothing inappropriate had happened. Principal Torres apologized again and assured me that he was glad to have me back. But as I left the school there was only one solid conclusion that I had come to. The damage had already been done.

There was no way I could keep teaching here past the end of the year.

Now I just had one other problem that still needed to be addressed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knocked on the front door of Amanda's parents' house. Their dog, Chloe, barked loudly. She was their living doorbell. It took a minute for Amanda's mom to answer the door.

"I don't think Amanda wants to see you right now, Ryan." She didn't look angry, but she didn't look particularly happy to see me, either. That hurt. She'd been more of a mom to me than my own mother had been for the last several years.

"Erin, I need to talk to her. Did she tell you what's going on?" She nodded. "I was just at the school. They already cleared everything up. Absolutely nothing happened. It was just a misunderstanding with a student who has a bit of an overactive imagination."

I could see the relief on Erin's face. "Oh, Ryan. I'm so glad to hear that." She gave me a hug. "I didn't want to believe anything, but Amanda was just so upset. I could barely get anything out of her."

"Can I see her?"

"She's up in her room."

I climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to Amanda's childhood bedroom. I found her lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Amanda," I said, knocking on the doorframe.

She sat up immediately. "What are you doing here, Ryan? I told you I needed some space."

"I just got back from meeting with Principal Torres. Everything is done. They figured out what happened and I'm in the clear, just like I told you."

Amanda bounced off the bed and into my arms. "Oh, that's amazing! I'm sorry, Ryan, but I just couldn't handle reading all of those things about you, and there were just so many of them. It...it was just too much for me to handle. I'm so glad they cleared everything up."