The Boy Who Has No Belief - Victoria Quinn Page 0,37
on the lights.
“Totally.” She slung her backpack onto the kitchen table even though I’d told her a million times not to do that.
But I let it go this time.
“I thought he would be one of those nerds that is just so smart, you have no idea what they are saying, but he was cool.”
“Cool?” I asked with a smile.
“Yeah. He didn’t make fun of me for not getting stuff, and when I couldn’t get there, he explained it in another way until it clicked. And then he taught me different ways of doing the problems, and it was way easier that way.”
It meant the world to me that she had positive things to say about him. Normally, she complained about her teachers all the time, said they were all stupid, so maybe she was actually being honest since she didn’t say it about Derek. “That’s great, sweetheart.”
“He’s funny too.”
“Funny?” I asked, knowing Derek was a lot of things, but funny was not one of them.
“Yeah.”
“What did he do that was funny?”
She shrugged then headed to her bedroom. “Don’t be nosy, Mom.”
It was Wednesday morning, so instead of leaving for work, we enjoyed some time together. I arrived to see him already standing there, waiting for me to enter his penthouse at any moment. He looked at me with trepidation in his gaze, as if he were waiting for a sentence from a judge.
“She really liked you, Derek.”
He closed his eyes as he released a sigh of relief, like that had been weighing on him all night.
I smiled, touched that her approval meant so much to him.
“She said you didn’t make her feel stupid when she didn’t get it, and if she couldn’t get there, you taught her differently until it settled in her mind.”
“She’s a bright girl, Emerson. There’s no reason she should ever feel stupid.”
I loved the way he believed in people so resolutely. He believed all people were capable of anything with the right tools, so when he described Lizzie that way, he meant it. “She said she wishes you were her teacher instead of the one she currently has.”
He dropped his gaze and didn’t say anything.
“And she said you were funny…but didn’t tell me why.”
The corner of his mouth rose slightly, but he turned away to try to mask it.
“Why does she think you’re funny, Derek?”
He shrugged.
“Come on, why won’t you tell me?”
He released a sigh before he turned back to me. “I appreciate how loyal your daughter is for not throwing me under the bus.”
“Throwing you under the bus for what?”
He took a while before he answered, as if he was searching for the words. “Well, when I looked at her teacher’s worksheet and all the goddamn red ink everywhere, I realized he spends more time ripping apart her work than explaining what she should have done beside it, which would have been a lot more effective and instructive…so I blurted out that her teacher was an asshole. She found it amusing.”
Of course she did. “You guys sound alike.”
“I’m sorry. It just came out.”
“It’s not a big deal, Derek.” I chuckled because I actually found it funny. “I’m sure that made her feel connected to you, so that’s fine.”
“I know you work really hard to make sure she behaves a certain way.”
I shrugged. “I think it’s inevitable. Lizzie has a strong personality and calls things as she sees them. It’s not really a bad thing. She calls people out on their shit instead of blindly accepting her environment. I don’t want her to have a dirty mouth, obviously, but I’m relieved that she’s that way.”
“You know where she gets it from, right?” He turned back to me, amusement in his eyes.
I grinned. “Yeah, I know.”
“And if she grows up to be like you, I think you’ve done your job as a mom.”
Those words filled me with elation because that was all a mother wanted to hear—that she’d done a good job, that she’d raised a beautiful person. When I thought about how Derek was when we met and how much he’d grown, it made me realize how lucky I was to have a man like him, a man who would change for a woman.
All my apprehension about the success of this relationship faded away after that first meeting between Derek and Lizzie. They both seemed to get along and enjoy each other’s company. I understood tutoring Lizzie wasn’t the same thing as being a stepfather, but it was still a good first step.