Restore

Gia was at work. She clicked onto a Google Doc that her 3rd graders had been working on all week. One of her students was distraught, standing (way too close) beside her. She was afraid they could smell her breath... lately she hadn't been eating, so she couldn't imagine what it smelled like, most likely a tomb... 3rd graders pick up on that kind of stuff.

With tears in their eyes, her student began to sniffle:

"It was there yesterday. All my work. I don't know what happened."

She put a hand on their shoulder, trying to give some comfort, even though she could barely feel herself.

"Timmy, it's okay. Take a breath. Ms. Gia is gonna fix it."

This wasn't the first time this had happened. Believe it or not, Google Docs can betray the innocent typing fingers of 3rd graders, without meaning to. They simply don't understand if they highlight an entire piece of text and wish to move it down that they don't hit "enter" or else the entire text is gone. And then, the panic sets in. What have I done?

Gia, who discovered this trick the first time the incident happened, knew that she could go into "version history" and hit "restore to this version." Taking a swig of her coffee out of a pretty certain to be unclean coffee mug, she did her 'magic' and Timmy's words reappeared as if they had never been missing in the first place.

The tears turned to jumps of joy as he began to bounce and flap with excitement.

"Thanks Ms. Gia! You're the best teacher ever."

His words were sweet but they didn't seem to hit her. She was far away, wishing that she could hit this "restore" button on her last relationship.

Peter had said he lost his feelings for her. When or how that happened, Gia had wrestled with for weeks. And today was their 2 year anniversary, or what would have been.

She walked the kids to Spanish class and came back to an empty, cold classroom. She closed the door, made another cup of coffee, and let it sit on her desk. She couldn't be moved.

Even now, that phone call felt just as raw as if it were yesterday. She heard the tired hurt in his voice, as he quietly said "mhm, mhm" to everything she said. It was painful- was he listening??

She was trying to pour out her very soul to him, trying to say the right thing, the "magic word" to restore their relationship to the version where they were happy. Where did that couple go? How did they get to this terrible place so quickly? Or had it been brewing for months... this displacement until one day she'd click and poof! all her work, all her love, all her life... would be gone?

"I wish we were in love again"

The minute Gia sent that text she regretted it.

"We're not in love anymore?"

Peter was hysterical. But that began his heartbreak.

"When can we meet to talk?"

"If you're just going to break up with me, I don't think I can..."

She regretted that text, too, the minute she sent it.

How would it have been different? Would it have changed anything? She imagined him weeks, or months from now. With some new girl. Would he love her the way he loved Gia? Or would he mistakenly whisper her name instead of his new lover?

Would he stop and think,

"This isn't the person I need... I need Gia."

Or would he push through the hurt, allow himself to feel again, and forget all about their memories and dreams?

Gia seemed to know the answer already, she didn't have to imagine for long. Although it would help her to think that he would remain tethered to her heart forever, she knew he'd move on. He'd moved on from others before... she was just another one, so she thought...

Peter sat glassy eyed at a special education meeting he was required to be at. Uneasy, slightly sweating, he knew this would not be a stressless feat. He had to bring up the fact that the new instructor was not seeing the students on a regular basis to his principal. Worse yet, it was the principal who assigned the new instructor to the wrong group of students. A quick fix, no. He knew it was intentional, and know he was pondering how to put his neck on the line.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. For a moment he wished for a Gia text.

"Hey babe, you got this! Saying a prayer for you right now."

It buzzed again.

"You know those kids are so lucky to have a teacher like you!"

But when he looked at the screen it was just a reminder that his meeting was about to happen. Disappointment set in as he remembered. We gave her up, remember?

The principal finally stopped talking on her cell phone and the meeting began.

"Peter," she said, about fifteen minutes in. "Thank you for being here and taking on so much in this first year of your teaching. What do you think? We want to know your thoughts."

He tongue began to tie as all the eyes turned to watch him. His heart was pounding, he still doubted that he really knew what he was doing here.

"Well, I - um - thank you for having me."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. The words sounded dumb.

"I think..."

Then, it crashed. The wave of regret and sadness. It fell at the most inopportune moment. And all because of a single sentence that popped into his mind...

All of this was bearable when I had her to come home to...

His voice caught in his throat. He couldn't speak. He sat there staring at his hands, as if they were his last prized possessions. He wished he had told Gia this... he wished she would know. Just how much she was to him. Just how many times he thought about her every day. Yet all he could say to her during that terrible, last phone call was,

"I wish it could be different and it didn't have to end this way."

Not: I wish it never had to end... the words he would have used only a month before this fateful night. No, not now. Now he had given up. Now he hadn't felt that anymore. He thought he needed to find someone else to feel that way again.

Gia was drinking her coffee black, the same girl who used to ask for "coffee with her cream," was now drinking it plain, no sweetener, no creamer. It didn't make a difference to her this morning. He wouldn't be coming back. He wouldn't be coming back. So what's the point. The minutes had flown by and her 30 minute break was almost up. The kids would be pouring back into the classroom full of hope and expectation for a happy Ms. Gia to greet them at the door.

But she was still sitting at her desk, thinking of Peter... and dying for him to change his mind about her...

Could he feel her here? Could he sense her? She wished he could feel her yearning, her reaching for him... and how she was doing that for the last two months and he just kept growing farther and farther away. It wasn't his fault though. The annoyingly cute and young janitor came into her life right at the same time... and although she accepted his number when he gave it to her, she didn't want to call him... or for him to call her.

She wanted Peter, restored to the latest version, when he loved her with all his heart and she loved him with all of hers.