Teach me something 2
It is 2:30 in the morning and here I am dropping something that is so cheesey we should call it fondue (ignore me I’m tired)
BUT this is the fic that I was talking about that I decided is going to turn into a four part mini series, so I hope you like this. Sorry for typos, but y’all know me well enough by now to expect them.
Read the other parts: part 1 // part 3 // part 4
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“Hey, guys, come on! I asked you to do this silently, this is not something we’re doing as partners,” you yell over your students. “The only reason you should be talking right now is if you are asking me a question and Josh is the only one doing that right now.”
Your students are not listening to you; it was the end of the day and a beautiful day at that. With the weather getting warmer and nicer compared to the winter you just had, the last thing your students wanted was to be doing chemistry; they wanted to be outside.
“Excuse me!” you end up yelling, something you hadn’t done before, causing some of your students to jump, “If you’re trying to be louder than me, it’s not going to work. Do you want to see how loud I can be?” You couldn’t believe you were yelling at your students, but for some reason, you were just at a breaking point. You see Annie across the room, eyes wide, shaking her head no at you being the loudest one, “Annie is saying no, do you guys agree?”
The students murmur in agreement, not talking and leaving the classroom in an awkward silence. Before turning back to Josh, you close your eyes, taking in a deep breath to try to calm yourself down a little before talking again, “I’m sorry guys, but I did say that this was something you should be trying on your own. If you have questions, ask your partner quietly. There is no need for me to have to shout over you.”
The entire week had been absolute chaos: the lab you wanted to do with your students didn’t work the way you wanted to, the warm weather was causing your students to act absolutely batshit by the end of the day, you hadn’t seen your husband since Sunday because of how busy he was gearing up for the playoffs with the Flames, and you were just overall falling behind on everything you wanted to do. Nothing was going right for you.
You sit down for the first time since lunch, your students working quietly the rest of the period, only whispers of sound as they asked each other questions they were probably too afraid to ask you at this point. The bell rings, signaling the end of the week, your students scurrying out as fast as they can, hopefully just to get outside and not to get away from you.
Searching through your desk, you finally find your phone buried under papers that you had to take home and grade that weekend. The end of the quarter was coming up, and you had at least seven assignments to get through and put in your grade book. Shoving them in your bag, you find Matthew’s contact, hoping that he was finally out of practice to pick up.
“You have reached the voicemail box of: Matthew Tkachuk,” you hear his voice intertwined with the automation for the voicemail greeting he was too lazy to customize, “Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Hey, babe,” you say, looking at the ring on your finger, “I’m done for the week, I’m probably going to be heading home soon but I want to try to get some grading done first. Any way you can pick something up for dinner tonight? I’m exhausted and I just don’t feel like cooking, unless you want to. Ok, call me when you’re out of practice. I love you, bye.”
You keep your phone out on your desk, sound on for if Matthew actually calls you. The entire week had been a game of telephone tag, and you were praying you would finally catch each other before actually seeing each other at home.
“Hey, Mrs. T?”
“Oh, hi, Nazeem, what’s up?” you greet one of your students as he comes in and sets his bag down on the lab bench.
“I was wondering if you could help me with those K problems?”
You sit down and get started, working on practice problems and trying to reteach him the equilibrium problems, “Ok, so for this problem, are we at equilibrium?”
“No.”
“How do we know that?”
“Um, because it says that,” he hesitates, scanning the words of the practice problem again, “the concentration of the NH3 is 0.405 molar, and it asks for the direction of the equilibrium shift?” he guesses.
“Yes, but you’re guessing aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he admits, causing you to let out the first small laugh you had all week.
“Ok, so with these problems, it’s important that you know you can’t just use K, right? Because K is used for what?”
He stops and thinks for a moment, brow scrunched as he tries to answer your question, “When you have initial concentration and you’re looking for equilibrium?”
“You’re guessing again,” you tell him as he just nods admitting to it, “You clearly know the answers to what I’m asking, there’s no need to guess. Trust your answers, you’re going to need to on your final. But if we aren’t going to use K, what are we going to use?”
“Q.”
“Exactly. Calculate that, and then call me back, I’m going to grade some stuff, ok?” He nods, putting his head down to his paper to get to work. You go back to your desk and start grading, checking your phone to see if Matthew had at least texted you back. Nothing on your screen but the picture of your first kiss as husband and wife that you had as your background for the last couple of months. You would give anything right now to go back to the month leading up to your wedding last summer; you and Matthew were both off from teaching and hockey, spending a month of bliss together doing whatever you wanted.
“Mrs. Tkachuk?” you hear Nazeem ask, snapping you out of your daydream, “I think I got Q.”
“Let’s see. Ok, so you found that Q is 0.233, while K is given as 0.00542. So what does that mean for the equilibrium shift?”
“It shifts to the,” he starts, hesitating, only to be interrupted by the sound of your phone playing John’s Legend’s Stay With You, the song that was your first dance at your wedding. “Do you need to get that?” he asks, looking panicked that you would leave him for your phone call.
You knew it was Matthew calling you back, but you were with a student, therefore, still at work, “No, that’s just Mr. Tkachuk. I can call him when I’m on my way home.” The two of you get back to the problem, working for another half an hour before he finally says his mom was there to pick him up.
“Thank’s Mrs. T!” Nazeem calls, rushing out the door to meet his mom in front of the building.
Finally able to go back to your phone, none of your grading done that you had wanted to get done, copies that you just remembered you had to make for Monday, and a new voicemail to listen to. “Hey, love. Sorry I missed you. I’m just getting out of practice. I have an early day tomorrow and then they just told us today that we’re leaving for Dallas on Monday instead of Tuesday like we were originally supposed to. I’ll see you at home, but is there anything specific that you want me to get? Chinese, Italian, sushi, burgers, etcetera, etcetera. Honestly, all of that sounds good to me. Ok, I love you, bye.”
You send the stuff you need printed, pretty much sprinting down the now deserted hallways as you were probably the last teacher there. “Hey, Matthew. I guess you’re driving? God, I can’t wait to get home and see you, especially since I’ve seen you all of, what, twenty minutes since last week? And get whatever you want, I don’t care, but oh, can you please do the dishes? They’re piling up in the sink and I’m pretty sure most of them are yours,” you tell him, even though that doesn’t really matter. The copier starts growling at you, spitting out the copies as you pray that it doesn’t crap out on you in the middle of the print job, “Sorry, that’s the copier. Remember the day I told you about being in the Stampede, you wanted to push the buttons on this thing? Maybe next time you come you can play with it, admin said when it breaks for it good we can get a new one. Welp, ok. I love you, see you at home.”
You get back to your classroom, stuffing the folders with the fresh copies, thinking back to that day a few years ago when Matthew had been doing the same thing. Matthew hadn’t really been in to visit during the school year since, but he was always the first one to offer to come in when you said you needed help with something, even if it was something he couldn’t help with.
Driving back to your apartment, you just want Matthew to call. Packing up your bag and lugging out the 210 or so things you needed to grade, plus the material you needed to play the lessons for the next week that you were still struggling with actually exhausted you. The only thing you wanted to do was go home and see your husband for a night before he had to be whisked away a day earlier than originally planned to spend what would now be six days in Texas.
But the NHL and the Flames were pretty good about letting the guys know about schedule changes. It seemed sort of weird that the organization would let them know only a few days ahead of time. You could text Noah or Johnny and ask them about it, but what would that say about your marriage to Matthew that you’ve been together for less than a year and you’re already going behind his back to get information?
You know what? Screw it. “Call Johnny,” you say to Siri, Johnny’s contact coming up on your car dash.
“Hello?” you hear him ask, clearly tired from the day he had.
“Hey, Johnny, it’s Y/N.”
“Oh, hey, Y/N. What’s up? Is Matthew ok?”
“He’s fine, I just needed to ask you something,” you start, trying to figure out how to phrase it. You can’t straight up ask him if your husband was lying to you, but how to you put it otherwise? “I just wanted to check in; I heard you guys just found out today that you leave on Monday instead of Tuesday? I figured I’d offer to pick up some last minute things since I’m already doing it for Matty.”
“Oh, no, thanks. I’m all set. They told us about it last Wednesday, though. Matthew didn’t tell you?”
So he was lying? Or did he just forget to tell you until today? Either way, he shouldn’t have said that they found out today, he could have just said he didn’t remember. “I mean, I just remembered today. You know, long week, my students driving my crazy, normal stuff. But if you need anything, let me know. Tell Sean and Elias the same for me, too.”
“Gotcha. Bye, Y/N.”
He hangs up, leaving you to pull into your spot at your complex just in time to see Matthew running out the door.
“Hey, babe!” he says, kissing you as you get out of your car. He was unusually happy for someone who seemed so tired on the phone. And for someone who just lied to his wife. “I’m running out to get the food now; I’ll be back in fifteen?”
“Ok,” you say, without being able to get another word in before he gets in his car and speeds off. You didn’t even know what you were eating, but at this point you would eat anything. You grab your bag, momentarily forgetting how heavy it was, lugging it inside to your place. All you wanted was to have a nice evening with your husband, one of the last ones you would probably be able to have for a while.
Wandering into the kitchen to put clean out your lunch bag, you find the sink full of dishes, indicating that Matthew had not loaded the dishwasher, even though you had asked him to. Sighing, putting your bag down on the counter, you get to work on the dishes. You probably needed something from the sink in the near future, and something told you Matthew wasn’t going to be getting to this any time soon.
Digging through the dishes, you prayed that none of them had started growing new substances that you didn’t want to deal with. Loading the dishwasher to capacity and still having more dishes, you sigh and just hand wash what was left. Mugs from last the beginning of the weak, plates, utensils, until you saw it: the handle of one of your favorite mugs, the rest of the mug not attached. Careful to dig around the rest of the sink, you found the rest of the mug, smashed under the weight of the dishes that had been sitting there. You had only liked the mug so much because it was the biggest one you had; there was nothing that special about it.
But it was enough for you to break, just like the mug had. All of the stress of the week came out right there, with you crumble to the floor crying, pulling your knees to your chest with your back against the cabinets, pieces of the mug still in your hands. Everything was getting to be too much, between constantly feeling behind at work, coming home almost every night to an empty apartment, doing everything to keep the apartment clean by yourself, and Matthew never being home was destroying you. You knew this would be hard when you said yes, but you never thought it would be this hard.
“Hey, babe, I got us burgers,” you hear Matthew call, walking into the kitchen, “Oh, my god, Y/N, are you ok?” He puts the bag down next to you, getting on the ground and pulling you into him. “What’s wrong?” he asks, kissing the top of your head.
You hold up the pieces of the mug, trying to stop crying. “Shit,” Matthew lets out once he realizes what you’re holding, “Did you drop it? Why are you sitting down, there could be shards on the ground.”
He picks you up off the ground, grabbing the food with his other hand. “No, I didn’t drop it,” you hear yourself yell, all of the crying turning into anger, “I found it broken in the sink because I have been asking you to do the dishes and the weight of everything on top of it probably broke it!”
“I’m, I’m sorry,” he stammers out, “I’ve been busy with practice and we’re leaving soon, and-”
“Like I haven’t been busy? I have a weeks work of assignments to catch up on grading, I need to plan the rest of next weeks lessons, make the tests for my AP kids because last years sucked, plus I’ve been the one keeping everything clean and the one thing I asked you to do, you couldn’t even fucking do that. Plus, you lied to me about when you found out you were leaving on Monday instead of Tuesday.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Johnny told me.”
“You were talking to Johnny?”
“Yeah, I was talking to Johnny; I’m friends with him, too, remember? I asked him if he wanted me to pick anything up for him before you guys leave, like I always do, and he told me you found out last Wednesday? Why would you lie about it?”
“Well, what about the fact that you lied to me about dancing with the stampede?”
You stop and look at him, his face red as you can tell the anger is boiling up inside him. He hated that you had to go behind his back like that. But, you were due for a fight, you just wish it wasn’t over something so stupid like this, especially when he dodged your question in the first place.
“What are you talking about? That was five years ago. And I never lied to you about that!”
“It’s not like you told me the truth.”
“That doesn’t mean I lied about it,” you say, both of you raising your voices each time as if to outdo the previous voice level, “and if we’re really going to hash out and bring up stuff that we already said doesn’t matter, what about that time we went out with the guys and ran into, what, five girls you had hooked up with before you met me? How about we talk about that?”
“That doesn’t matter,” he snaps.
“Oh, it doesn’t? It doesn’t matter that you introduced me to them as your friend when we were engaged, only for one of them to tell me about all the sexcapdes you had, none of which I knew about. But that’s right, we had a night when we talked about all our past relationships to get them out in the open, hookups included, but I guess those girls just slipped your mind, didn’t they?” As soon as the words left your mouth, you regretted it.
The look on Matthew’s face was one you had never seen before and never wanted to see again; the pain in his eyes as his face calmed from red to pink, trying to figure out if any of this was worth it. He turns around, facing the counter instead of you. He couldn’t take the look on your face any more than you could take the look on his.
“How can I expect to raise a family with you if you can’t even wash the damn dishes, Matthew!”
He whips around, eyes wide. “A..a fa-family?” he stammers out. “Are you?”
“What?” you ask, not sure what he means. “Oh, no, no I’m not. I’m just saying. We’ve talked about kids. We both want kids, hell we even already have names picked out. But how the hell am I supposed to be able to depend on you when you’re home to take care of children if you can’t even take care of you and me?”
“I do take care of you! I have done nothing but love you and support you in what you do with your life. You think that you would be living here if it weren’t for me?” He says, immediately recoiling at what he just said. He knows that teachers don’t make a lot of money, but he always loved that you were so adamant about doing something you were passionate about. “Y/N/N, I’m so-” he starts to say, walking towards you.
“You know what?” you cut him off, not wanting to hear any more from him. Of all the things he could have said, that was probably one of the most hurtful, “You have been my husband for almost a year,” you say, your pointer finger pressed to his chest, not fully pushing him away, but enough that he won’t come closer, “It’s time you start fucking acting like it.” Before he can get another word in, you turn on your heels and walk away.
“Where are you going?” he calls, trying to come after you.
“I’m going to Rory’s.”
“No, you’re staying here,” he says, trying to beat you to the door.
“No. You’re staying here and you’re going to figure out how to be a husband. I’m going to my friend’s place. I don’t care if that’s one less day with you at this point because if we don’t do this now,” you stop yourself, looking at the absolute pain in his eyes. You know you shouldn’t say it with his eyes glassing over with tears like they are, “then who knows how much longer we’re going to have.”
“Y/N, don’t leave,” Matthew pleads as you grab your keys, trying to ignore him. You could feel the tears coming back, but you couldn’t stay here with him. You go to your car, thinking that Matthew wasn’t following you. Pulling out of your spot, you see Matthew coming running, not fast enough since you pull away before he can get to you.
You drive around for a bit, debating on if you should even go to Rory’s or just go home. She was the one who had convinced you to tell Matthew about the Stampede, you knew she could give you advice with this. Knocking on her door, trying not to start crying again, she doesn’t answer. You should have called, you should just go back to Matthew.
“I’m coming!” you hear Rory call on the other end, just as you were about to leave. She opens the door, dressed like she’s getting ready to go out, “Hey, love, are you ok?”
She pulls you into her place as you start ranting to her about the fight that just happened with Matthew. “I just, I don’t know what to do. I love him, but I can’t keep doing things alone.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“No. I said he needs to figure out how to be my husband.”
“Look, you’re free to stay here for as long as you need to, but you need to go talk to him. Your marriage isn’t going to work unless you talk to him, just like I told you when you wouldn’t tell him about the Stampede,” she says, getting up and going to her kitchen.
She was right. You needed to go home to Matthew, but what would you even say to him at this point? What more could you tell him to get through to him that you needed your husband to actually act like your husband? You sit there on her couch, definitely intruding as she runs around her place getting ready to go out with her boyfriend, telling you not to worry because “he won’t be here to pick me up for another hour or so, he’s always late like that.” Meanwhile, Matthew was blowing up your phone with texts and calls that you weren’t answering.
This wasn’t fair to him; you shouldn’t be doing this. “Hey, Ror?”
“Yeah, Y/N/N?” She walks back into her living room to find you standing and trying to dig your keys out of your bag. “He wants you to be happy. Go talk to him.”
You rush home, definitely breaking a few traffic laws on the way. “Matthew?” you call once you get in the door. You look down, seeing the hallway lined with rose petals, an almost overwhelming smell of vanilla coming from candles that were lit in your home. “Matty?”
You follow the petaled path into the kitchen to see Matthew sitting at the table wearing blue dress pants and a white button-down, the outfit that he knew you loved on him, your favorite dinner sitting at your seat, along with a bottle of your favorite wine. “What is this?”
“I’ve been the worst,” he says, getting up to go to you. “I should have done the dishes before you asked, I shouldn’t have forgotten to tell you about leaving earlier and then lied about it, I should be at your beck and call at all times. I’m going to help you with your grading this weekend because the only place I’m going to be before I leave is at practice or by your side and no where else. I’ll even break into the school with you so we can break the copier.”
You can’t help but laugh, tears forming in your eyes, for the first time not out of sadness or anger. “You would do that for me?”
“I would do anything and everything for you. You are the love of my life. We said for better or worse, rich or poor, sickness or health until the day we die, and I know that I have never said anything that I meant more before I said that. I love you, Y/N, and I’m sorry if I haven’t been showing it,” he says, pulling you in for a hug.
“I love you, too. And I just need to you to do things when I ask you to. If I’m asking you for help it’s because I really need it.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I will, I just can’t lose you,” he says, tears starting to form in his eyes.
“The only time you’re going to lose me is when you wander away from me in the store,” you say. He laughs, wiping away the tear that had fallen from his eyes.
“I know you said we weren’t starting a family yet, but what do you say we go and practice?” he asks, kissing your forehead.
“I think you’ve had enough practice,” you tell him, smiling. His eyes grow wide, the smile on his face doing the same. Picking you up off your feet, he whisks you away to your bedroom, definitely not needing any more practice.
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