Familiar Routines
Over the next week, Amanda found herself slipping into a new rhythm—one she hadn't planned for.
It started small. A text from Angela during lunch breaks: Angela: "Rate the cafeteria chili on a scale from 'inedible' to 'potential chemical weapon.'"
Amanda would reply, sometimes hours later, but always.
A coffee placed silently on Amanda’s desk after a long faculty meeting, the lid scribbled with a terrible doodle of a smiling sun. Angela's way of saying, I see you, even when you don't say anything.
Casual walks to the parking lot after school. Quick side-eye exchanges during painfully boring staff meetings. Angela would catch Amanda’s gaze across the lounge, raise an eyebrow in some private joke, and Amanda would have to look away to hide her smile.
It was easy. It was dangerous.
Because Amanda was starting to need it—this easy way Angela fit into the empty spaces of her life.
Thursday afternoon, Amanda found herself seated across from Angela at Tony’s again, a shared plate of curly fries between them.
Angela was halfway through an impassioned argument about why "cotton candy" as a concept was an affront to humanity when Amanda caught herself—really caught herself—looking at her.
Noticing the way Angela’s hands moved when she talked, animated and sure. The way her laughter lit up her whole face. The faint freckle at the edge of her jaw that Amanda had never seen before.
Amanda stirred her coffee, trying to will herself back into focus.
Angela finished her rant with a dramatic flourish, then narrowed her eyes playfully across the table.
"You're thinking very hard over there, Lehan-Canto."
Amanda flushed, caught.
"Just… long day," she deflected, reaching for a fry.
Angela didn’t push. She never did.
Instead, she plucked a fry from the basket and pointed it at Amanda like a weapon. "Tonight, your only homework is to do something that’s not productive. No grading. No emails. No obsessively color-coding your calendar."
Amanda opened her mouth to protest.
Angela waved the fry at her. "Nope. Non-negotiable. I'm a counselor. I'm allowed to assign therapeutic homework."
Amanda shook her head, laughing despite herself. "You're impossible."
"I know," Angela said brightly. "You're welcome."
They ate in easy silence after that. The diner buzzed quietly around them, the clink of plates and low murmur of conversation creating a cocoon of normalcy.
When they finally stepped outside, the night was cool and clear, the sky stretched wide and endless overhead.
Angela stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets and bumped her shoulder lightly against Amanda's.
"Text me when you’re home," she said, the same way she always did.
Amanda rolled her eyes affectionately. "I’m not a teenager, you know."
"Humor me," Angela said with a grin. "I worry."
Amanda didn't say it out loud, but she liked it—that someone worried.
Liked it more than she should.
As she drove home, Amanda thought about the way Angela always made space for her. The way she never demanded more than Amanda could give, but always somehow offered more than Amanda knew how to ask for.
And she wondered—terrified and hopeful in equal measure—how long it would be before needing Angela wasn’t something she could hide anymore.