LITMIR.BIZ

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gift from Blake—a jump start to her self-confidence.

      If she owed him for anything it was that, but not enough to lend him money. Especially when his behavior at the end of their short marriage had knocked her newfound self-confidence sideways.

      She was still getting over a few of the knocks.

      Molly pushed the thought aside. She’d moved back to the Eagle Valley because she’d been happy here. There’d been the usual high school traumas—cough, homecoming with Finn, cough—but in general she’d been a happily invisible nerd, with happily invisible nerdy friends. In Eagle Valley she’d found a sense of peace she’d never gotten anywhere else.

      And it was a thousand miles away from Blake.

      Yet still he called her to make things better.

      She walked down the hall to her bedroom, glancing into Georgina’s room as she went by. One wall was stacked high with clear plastic bins that had become the temporary wardrobe solution. One bin sat on the floor next to her bed, which was scattered with the clothes she’d tried on before deciding on the perfect thing to wear for a Friday night out. Being as outgoing as Molly had been shy at the same age, she already had a circle of friends she’d met the first week of classes and had connected with two people she’d known when she’d attended third grade at Eagle Valley Elementary. Molly was in awe. To be born with confidence...what a gift.

      But maybe if one had to fight to develop confidence, one appreciated it more.

      And maybe they always had that tiny niggling fear that if they didn’t hold on to it with an iron grasp, it might just slip away.

      * * *

      FINN FOUND WALKING into English class the second time a lot easier than it had been the first. He held the door open for Debra and her friend Sharla, smiled back at them when they thanked him, and took the same seat he’d sat in the week before. Molly was busy talking to a student, but she glanced over at him as he sat and he nodded at her. Last week had been stressful. This week he was ready to light this candle.

      Debra sat up a little straighter when Molly announced she was going to hand back last week’s papers.

      “If your grade isn’t what you expected, don’t worry. The purpose of this class is to identify trouble areas and learn what to do about them. If you got over a 90 percent, you really don’t belong here.”

      Debra leaned forward as Molly set her paper facedown on her desk, then eagerly flipped it over. Finn shot a quick look at the grade—85 percent. Debra beamed and started reading comments.

      A 70 percent. That was all he wanted. Average. Nothing wrong with average.

      Molly glided by his desk, set the paper facedown. Finn flipped it over. Then he almost flipped it back.

      His gaze shot up to Molly, who happened to shift her gaze toward him just then. She gave him an unreadable look and walked toward the front of the class.

      “As you can see we have some work ahead of us, but again, let me emphasize that this is a starting point.”

      Finn’s starting point was almost at ground zero.

      Okay, he had some problems putting words down, but...this grade smacked more of payback than it did of assessment.

      “What did you get?” Debra whispered. Finn automatically shifted his paper, planning to say something along the lines of “not as good as I’d hoped,” but she caught a glimpse of the percentage before he’d managed to hide it. “Oh.”

      Yes. Oh. He smiled gamely at the older woman. “It’s been a while since I’ve written anything.”

      “That’s what this course is about. Getting comfortable with writing again.” She gave him an encouraging nod, then fixed her attention back on Molly, who explained that they’d start with sentence structure.

      The sentence structure made sense as Finn listened. And he knew he was doing exactly what she was talking about, although according to Molly’s comments, he wasn’t. The remainder of the class was spent on simple exercises. Molly circled the room while Finn stared at his paper, a slow burn building into a flame. He didn’t get much done by the time class had ended, and Molly had avoided coming his way. He left the class with everyone else, but lingered in the hall until he was certain the last person, who seemed bent on telling her life story to Molly, had finally left. The hall, and probably the entire building, was empty when he walked back into the room. Molly did not look surprised to see him.

      “Finn.” She held her folders to her chest as if they were a shield. “I assume you want to talk about your grade?”

      “You assume correctly. What gives?” He set the paper down on the table. “If this had any more red, the white wouldn’t show.” He leveled a long, hard look at her. “Is this because of what happened back when we were kids?” Like an eon ago.

      “This is because it’s that bad.”

      He stilled for a moment. “That’s hard to believe because this is basic English, pretty much the equivalent of high school English, and I got straight Cs in high school English. I couldn’t have forgotten that much.”

      “And I don’t think your grades in high school reflected your abilities.”

      His gaze snapped up to hers. “What the hell does that mean?”

      Molly let out a sigh. “You were an athlete...? A good one...?”

      “You’re saying my grades were fixed?”

      “I admit I have no way of knowing that, but this paper—” she pointed at the bloodbath sitting on the empty desk next to her “—is not C work in high school. Or here at EVCC.”

      “According to you, it’s not even D work.”

      “I have to be honest.”

      He stared at her, at an uncharacteristic loss for words, then when nothing brilliant popped into his head, he snatched the essay off the desk and headed for the door.

      “We can fix this, Finn.”

      Like hell. As soon as he was out of her line of sight, he crumpled the paper, tossed it into the nearest trash can and headed out the door.

      * * *

      FINN HADN’T DROPPED the class. Molly couldn’t say why that was important to her, but she scanned the class lists on Tuesday and Wednesday, fully expecting to see his name missing. It wasn’t, but he didn’t show up for the Wednesday class, either. As she started the lesson, she saw Debra glance over at his empty chair and give her head a sad shake.

      Molly didn’t feel sad. Reality was reality, and Finn couldn’t write. He could tackle the matter and try to improve himself, or he could ignore it. It appeared he’d chosen to ignore it. His choice. There was no reason that the class should feel empty without him.

      Empty and a lot more comfortable. The nervous edge Molly had felt during the first two classes was gone and she traveled around the room, answering questions, offering suggestions as her class worked on skill-building exercises, feeling very much at ease. Therefore, she had no reason to look up Finn’s address and drive by on her way home—just to see if he was there. He lived just past the city limits, so it wasn’t as if she could tell herself she was taking a different route to her place. Nope. She went well out of her way to discover that Finn’s house was well lit and there was a truck and a car parked in front of the garage.

      Finn was home. He just hadn’t come to class.

      Molly drove on by, wondering why she had a sinking feeling. Finn had made the choice to screw up his high school education. Now he was living with the consequences. She’d only told the truth.

      Maybe it was remembering the stunned look on his face as she’d told him that truth. The complete shock to discover that she wasn’t indulging in petty payback. She was doing her job. She let out an audible sigh that made her shoulders drop as she looked for a place to turn around so that

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