By the time the bell rang for last period at Jefferson High, the California sun had turned the row of parked cars into a strip of blinding metal. Heat shimmered up from the asphalt. But none of that even registered for Ren Morales, because his best friend was elbowing him in the ribs and whispering the seven words that would flip his whole life upside down.

“Yo, Ren, isn’t that your mom flirting?”

Ren squinted through the crowd in the hallway and felt his stomach drop.

There she was—his mother—standing under the buzzing fluorescent lights, laughing at something Mr. Thomas had just said. Mr. Abe Thomas. Ren’s English teacher. The guy who made Shakespeare sound like a stand-up comic instead of a dead British writer.

And there they were: his mom’s hand on the strap of her purse, her head tilted back, her dark hair catching the light, her smile too bright. His teacher leaning in just a little, grinning like a high school boy instead of a grown man in a crisp blue shirt.

“Oh man,” his friend Eli muttered, trying not to laugh. “Wow, it’s been such a long time. Hey, maybe that’s your future dad.”

“Shut up,” Ren hissed, but his face burned anyway.

He’d grown up in the same kind of American suburb every teen movie used as a backdrop. Chain coffee shops on every corner, a Target down the road, kids in hoodies and backpacks swarming out of a big brick public school with a U.S. flag flapping above the entrance. For years, his mom had been the one constant that kept it all from spinning apart. Just him and her in a small rental house with a patchy lawn and a chipped mailbox.

He’d always known she was pretty. Other people made sure to tell him—too often, in his opinion.

“Your mom has the hots for Mr. Thomas,” Eli whispered now, eyes wide.

“No, she doesn’t,” Ren muttered. “She’s just here for the parent–teacher conference, man.”

“Sure,” Eli said. “Totally just a conference that needs that much smiling.”

Ren tried to look away, tried to pretend he didn’t care. But the image burned itself into his brain: his mom and his teacher, standing close in the hallway of a California public high school like it was some kind of TV show.

And he had no idea yet that this would be the day his life turned into one.

That night, Ren sat across from his mom at the kitchen table, poking at his microwaved mac and cheese. The old ceiling fan hummed over their heads, stirring the warm air. Outside, the streetlights flicked on one by one.

“So,” she said, sliding a paper across the table. “Mr. Thomas really likes you.”

Ren groaned. “Please tell me you’re talking about my grades and not… anything else.”

She smiled, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Yes, your grades. Mostly. He says you have a good mind, when you actually use it.”

“Wow. High praise.”

“He also says you’ve been a little… distracted in class. Something about you and Eli acting like you’re hosting a talk show during his lectures?”

Ren shrugged, trying to play it cool. “We were just… keeping the energy up.”

“He called it ‘disrupting’,” she said lightly. “And something about you pretending to propose in the middle of a presentation?”

“He was talking about serendipity,” Ren protested. “I made a joke. It killed.”

“Uh-huh.” She shook her head, laughing. “You’re lucky he has a sense of humor.”

“You think so?” Ren asked, then immediately regretted how interested he sounded.

She lifted her eyes from the paper. “He’s… nice.”

“Nice how?” Ren pushed, even though he didn’t want the answer.

“Nice like… he listens. He asked about you. About how you’re doing, outside of school. Most teachers just read off a script about test scores.” She hesitated, then added, “And he remembers books I mentioned, which is more than I can say for some adults.”

“Aha,” Ren muttered. “So now you’re trading book recs with my English teacher. That’s not weird at all.”

“Ren.” Her voice softened. “It was just a conversation.”

“Good,” he said too quickly. “Keep it that way.”

He wasn’t ready to admit it—even to himself—but the idea of his mom dating at all made his skin crawl. He barely remembered his dad, just flashes of a man who came and went, then left and never came back. He remembered crying one night, and his mom holding him, swearing they were better off with just the two of them. Since then, she’d been everything: mom, dad, chef, homework warden, cheerleader. He’d gotten used to the idea that it would always be that way.

The thought of some guy—especially his teacher—stepping into that space felt like someone trying to sneak into his room and rearrange his stuff.

No. Just no.

He didn’t know then how wrong he was.

The truth was, his mom hadn’t met Mr. Thomas for the first time in that school hallway.

Weeks before the conference, on a gray Saturday morning in downtown Los Angeles, she’d walked into a coffee shop halfway between their neighborhood and the school. She had a shift later at the hospital, but she’d carved out an hour for herself and her favorite book—a beat-up paperback with a folded corner.

“Large vanilla chai with almond milk?” the barista called.

She stepped up to grab it at the same time another hand reached toward the cup.

“Oh, sorry, that’s—” she started.

“I think this one’s mine,” a man’s voice said.

The barista looked between them. “I’ve got two of those. One for Abe, one for Denise.”

The man turned. He was handsome in a slightly tired way—dark curls, laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. “You’re a chai person too, huh?” he said.

She nodded, suddenly shy. “Guilty.”

He took his cup, then glanced down at the paperback in her hand. “Hamlet,” he said. “Bold choice for a Saturday.”

She looked at the book he was holding. Same title. Nearly identical cover, just less worn.

“Looks like we have the same taste in literature,” he said, grinning.

She laughed. “What serendipity,” she replied.

They both winced at the word at the same time, then laughed harder.

“Did we really just say that?” he said. “At the same time?”

And for a second, she felt twenty again. Back before life had gotten so heavy. Before some dreamer of a boy had promised her the world and then decided he wanted a different one. Before she’d had to work double shifts to keep a roof over her son’s head.

They chatted about the play, about teenagers who hated it until someone explained it right. He talked about teaching in a public high school just outside L.A., about some kid who thought pretending to propose in class was a valid learning strategy. She talked about nursing, and raising a boy who thought he was too cool to admit he needed his mom.

“I’m Abe,” he said finally, offering his hand.

“Denise,” she replied.

They shook hands. And the moment their palms met, something in the air shifted—just a little. Nothing dramatic. Just enough for her to notice.

She had no idea he was her son’s English teacher.

He had no idea she was the mother of the boy who cracked jokes in the back row.

Not yet.

Back in the present, in the chaos of the school hallway on conference day, that quiet coffee shop moment collided with Ren’s world like a car crash.

“Mom, what are you doing here already?” Ren blurted, hurrying up to them. “The meeting’s not for another half hour.”

“I’m just catching up with Abe,” she said, smiling. “I can’t believe he’s your teacher. What a small world.”

“Yeah,” Ren muttered. “Too small.”

Up close, he could see it now—the warm way Mr. Thomas looked at his mom, the easy way she laughed at his jokes. It hit him like a punch: oh no. This wasn’t just a parent and teacher being polite.

Something was happening.

And as much as Ren hated the idea of his mom dating again… a tiny, opportunistic piece of his brain woke up and whispered, If this is happening anyway… maybe you can use it.

That night, they argued.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Ren said, pacing the living room. Cartoon light flickered on the muted TV in the background.

“Doing what?” his mom asked, folding a dish towel, trying to stay calm.

“Dating my teacher. You can’t date my teacher. There has to be a rule or something. Isn’t there a law?”

“There’s no law against teachers dating parents,” she said. “I even asked the vice principal. They said as long as everything’s professional at school, it’s… fine.”

“Fine?” he repeated, disgusted. “You going to start calling him Abe in front of the whole class? You going to bring him to Back-to-School Night and make us all watch you two hold hands?”

“Ren.” She took a breath. “I didn’t even know he was your teacher when we first met.”

“Where?” he demanded. “Where did you meet him?”

“At a coffee shop,” she admitted. “We were both buying vanilla chai, and we both had Hamlet in our hands. It was… a coincidence.”

“Serendipity?” he said, mocking. “Did you both say it at the same time and then swoon?”

Her eyes widened. “How did you—”

“Oh my gosh, you did,” he groaned. “You’re like a walking streaming series.”

“Ren.” She put the towel down. “Look. I know it’s weird. And I don’t expect you to be thrilled. But I am an adult. I am allowed to have a life outside of being your mom.”

The words stung more than he expected.

“My whole life, it’s just been you and me,” he said quietly. “And now suddenly some guy gets to step in and… what? Share you?”

“Some guy?” she repeated. “You mean the teacher who stayed after class with you for an hour to help you with your essay last month? The one who wrote me an email saying how smart you are?”

“That was before he started trying to steal my mom,” Ren shot back.

She sighed, rubbing her temples. “I’m not going to argue with you.”

“Good,” he said. “Because this is gross and weird and you shouldn’t do it.”

He stomped off to his room and slammed the door.

On the other side of the house, she stared at the closed door for a long time, the hurt settling into her shoulders like a heavy coat.

The next week, things got even more complicated.

It started with a pop quiz.

Mr. Thomas clicked through a slideshow about Hamlet. “First slide, we’ve got the prince himself,” he said. “Second slide, to be or not to be, the famous question. Third slide… surprise pop quiz.”

The class groaned in unison.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “It’s not that bad. It’s only ten questions.”

Ren slumped in his chair, shooting Eli a look. “This is so dumb. I didn’t even do anything,” he whispered.

Would you like for me to provide a recap? he imagined Mr. Thomas saying in that perfectly calm teacher voice.

Ren’s eyes flickered from the quiz to Mr. Thomas, and then to his own notebook. An idea began to take shape. Dangerous. A little wrong. But tempting.

If his teacher liked his mom—if this relationship was really happening—maybe he could spin it.

He decided to test the theory.

After class, he lingered near the desk while everyone else poured into the hallway.

“Hey, Mr. Thomas?” he said.

“Yeah, Renton?” Mr. Thomas asked, stacking quizzes.

“You know my mom’s going to freak out if I get anything less than an A on these tests, right?” Ren said casually. “She’ll blame herself. She always does. It’d really… break her heart.”

He let the words hang there.

Mr. Thomas paused, the papers in his hands rustling. “You’ve been… struggling with time management,” he said carefully.

“I know. But I’m really trying,” Ren said, dialing his voice to just the right pitch of worried teen. “And I know you care about me. And about my mom. And, like… our whole family, you know?”

Mr. Thomas let out a slow breath. “Do the make-up assignment,” he said finally. “I’ll weight it heavily. If you put actual effort in, we’ll see what we can do.”

Ren smiled. “Thanks. You’ve earned this, son,” he thought he heard in his head, mocking.

It was too easy.

And once he realized how easy it was, the plan practically wrote itself.

Step one: charm his mom.

He flipped the script. Instead of whining about the relationship, he sat her down at the kitchen table.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “About how I freaked out. I was just… surprised. And selfish. I want you to be happy, Mom. You deserve it.”

Her eyes went glossy. “You really mean that?”

“Yeah,” he said smoothly. “If you like him, you should keep seeing him.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, searching his face. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

He watched her text Mr. Thomas with trembling fingers, watched her smile when the reply came in.

Step one: complete.

Step two: make the teacher feel the weight of his decisions.

For every quiz, every project, Ren found a way to tie it to his mom’s happiness.

“I really don’t want to let her down,” he’d say. “She’s so excited that I’m in your class. She keeps telling everyone my English teacher is ‘amazing.’ If I get a C, she’ll think she was wrong about me.”

Mr. Thomas stayed after school with him. He helped with outlines, rewrote half his thesis statements, corrected drafts until the paper barely belonged to Ren anymore.

He started signing Ren up for study hall passes, letting him skip boring electives to “work on English.”

Ren made sure to swing by his mom’s room or the kitchen, sighing dramatically. “Mr. Thomas is helping me so much,” he’d say. “He really cares about my grades.”

Her smile always grew a little softer at that.

Step three: reap the rewards.

The day he brought home an A on a paper that had practically been ghostwritten for him, his mom shrieked with joy.

“My son!” she yelled, pulling him into a hug. “I knew you had it in you!”

She ruffled his hair. “You’re getting a new video game this weekend. You earned it.”

Ren grinned. “Yo,” he texted Eli later. “I’ve hacked the system. I’ve got my teacher AND my mom wrapped around my finger.”

“Bro,” Eli wrote back. “How far you think you’re going to push this?”

Ren didn’t answer.

The truth was, even as he leaned into his scheme, the guilt started creeping in.

It hit him hardest one afternoon in the park.

His mom had asked him to stay home and finish his project; she had a date with Mr. Thomas. “Just a quick walk,” she said, slipping on her jacket. “I’ll be back before dinner.”

Ren pretended to be annoyed. “Whatever.”

But later, after scrolling through social media until his eyes hurt, he got curious. He pulled up the locator app on his phone—one his mom had installed years ago “for emergencies.” Her little blue dot hovered over a quiet neighborhood park a few miles away.

He pictured her and Mr. Thomas walking under the tall oak trees, the American flag at the park entrance rippling in the breeze. He imagined what they might be saying.

He didn’t have to imagine for long.

Weeks later, when he finally heard the story from her mouth, it matched the movie in his head almost exactly.

“It was peaceful there,” she told him, voice soft. “We just walked. For a while we didn’t even talk. Then he told me about his wife.”

Ren hadn’t known Mr. Thomas had been married.

“She… passed away,” his mom said. “A few years ago. He said when she died, it was like someone turned the world into grayscale. Like all the color just drained out. He really loved her.”

Ren hadn’t wanted to hear that. It made Mr. Thomas too human. Too real.

“He said he didn’t think he’d ever fall in love again,” she whispered, eyes shining. “Not until now.”

Ren had rolled his eyes back then, made a joke to cover the ache in his chest.

But alone in his room, replaying everything, he couldn’t shake the image of his mom and his teacher walking slowly through a California park, two people who had been hurt and left and were just beginning to believe they might deserve something good again.

And he was using that.

He was using them.

He knew it.

He just didn’t stop.

He didn’t stop when he asked his mom to cancel a date so she could “help with his English project,” even after she’d already made plans.

He didn’t stop when he went to Mr. Thomas after class, saying, “She had to cancel on you for me. I really don’t want to mess this project up. If I fail, she’ll think it’s her fault.”

He didn’t stop when he watched Mr. Thomas hesitate and then smile, saying, “Your education is more important. We can reschedule.”

He didn’t stop when he bragged about it to his friends.

“All the projects he’s done for you?” Eli demanded one day at lunch.

“At this rate, I’m going to get straight A’s,” Ren said, laughing. “He’s basically done my last four assignments for me. My mom has him wrapped around her finger. And so do I.”

Eli looked uneasy. “Dude… that’s kind of messed up.”

Ren shrugged. “It’s called leverage.”

But even as he said it, something in his chest twisted.

The day everything exploded, it started with a bag of chips.

Ren had snuck them into English, tapping the bag lightly against his leg while Mr. Thomas paced in front of the whiteboard, talking about soliloquies and tragic flaws.

“Now, Hamlet’s big speech,” Mr. Thomas was saying, “that ‘to be or not to be’—”

“Ren,” he said, suddenly stopping. “No eating in class. You know that.”

Everyone’s heads turned. A few people giggled.

It was nothing. A minor scolding. A normal moment in any American classroom.

But Ren, his brain wired on guilt and control, turned it into a weapon.

He sighed dramatically, crumpled the bag, tossed it in the trash. “Yes, sir,” he muttered.

Eli leaned over. “You going to flip this on him too?” he whispered.

Ren didn’t answer. But later, in the bathroom during passing period, he stared at himself in the mirror and thought, I could.

He lifted his phone. His reflection looked back at him: a boy with messy dark hair, tired eyes, and a plan he wasn’t sure he wanted to carry out.

He did it anyway.

He waited until next period had started, then ducked into the empty hallway and hit FaceTime.

His mom’s face filled the screen. “Ren? Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

“Mom,” he said, letting his voice crack. “I just… I need to talk to you.”

Her smile disappeared. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

He wasn’t, not really. But he could feel the heat behind his eyes, the sting of all the lies he’d been building.

“It’s Mr. Thomas,” he said. “He’s been… picking on me. In front of everyone. Today I was just eating a snack because I was hungry and he started raising his voice, and the whole class laughed at me. He made me feel so stupid.”

Her eyes went dark. “What?”

“I’ve tried so hard to make this easy for you,” he said, piling on the guilt. “I’ve been trying to be okay with you dating my teacher, but it’s like… he’s different at school. He’s so mean. I just… I need you.”

“I’m on my way,” she said. “Stay put.”

“Mom, you don’t have to—”

“I said I’m on my way.”

The line went dead.

Ren stared at his own reflection, stomach roiling.

“This is too far,” Eli had said earlier.

Looking at himself now—pale, nervous, manipulating his own mother and a man who’d done nothing but try to help him—Ren finally believed it.

It was too far.

But the train was already moving.

He couldn’t jump off now.

In class, Mr. Thomas was mid-sentence—“So, the soliloquy is one of the most famous devices in all of theater”—when the classroom door opened.

The front office aide stepped in. “Mr. Thomas,” she said. “I have Denise Morales here to pick up her son.”

Ren could feel every eye in the room swing toward him.

His mom appeared in the doorway, still in her scrubs, hair pulled back, face set.

“What date?” she said, ignoring the curious students. “Did you think embarrassing my son in front of his peers was going to make me want to see you?”

Mr. Thomas blinked. “Denise, I… what are you talking about?”

“You’re supposed to be his teacher,” she said, her voice shaking. “Not his bully. He called me in tears.”

A hush fell over the room. Even the class clown in the back row didn’t dare laugh now.

“Can we talk privately?” Mr. Thomas said softly, glancing at the students.

“I’ve heard enough,” she said. “Come on, sweetie.”

Ren stood up, his legs heavy, his throat tight. He couldn’t look at Mr. Thomas’ face. Couldn’t look at his classmates.

As he walked out, he heard Eli whisper, “You think maybe this time you went way too far?”

He didn’t answer.

They left the school in silence.

For a few days, life moved like a movie on mute.

His mom moved through the house like a ghost, doing laundry and making dinners, but the light had gone out of her eyes. Ren heard her bedroom door close earlier each night. Once, when he passed by, he thought he heard her crying.

He wanted to say something. Wanted to say, It wasn’t him. It was me. It was all me.

But the words stuck to his tongue like glue.

Then one afternoon, she came home from work holding a small bouquet of flowers. There was a box of chocolates tucked under her arm, and an envelope with his name on it.

“These are from Mr. Thomas,” she said just inside the doorway. “He dropped them off for us.”

“For us?” Ren repeated.

“He got me flowers,” she said, her voice tight. “And he got you this.”

Ren opened the envelope. Inside was a short note in neat handwriting.

I’m sorry for any way I made you feel disrespected in class. That was never my intention. You’re a smart kid, Ren. You deserve to feel safe and supported at school.

There was also a small gift card to a gaming store.

“That’s… nice,” Ren said, staring at the words. Out of nowhere, shame washed over him like cold water.

“Maybe I overreacted,” his mom whispered. “But my feelings were still real.”

“They’re always valid,” Ren heard himself say automatically.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “But you know, if he went through all this trouble just to apologize… maybe I should at least give him a chance to explain.”

“Maybe,” Ren agreed, his heart pounding.

That night, he heard her on the phone with him, voice low. They met up again. They talked. Slowly, things began to thaw.

For them.

Not for Ren.

Inside, his own guilt had just reached a breaking point.

The final crack came a week later.

Ren came home early from school to find his mom sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her phone. Her eyes were red.

“Mom?” he said quietly. “What’s wrong?”

She startled, then tried to smile. “Nothing.”

“Come on,” he said. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

She sighed, the sound heavy. “Mr. Thomas and I… broke up,” she said. “He thinks I was just using him.”

The words hit Ren like a slap.

“What?” he blurted. “No. He said that?”

“Not in those words,” she said. “He just… he said it felt like he could never be sure if he was making decisions for you or for me or for us. That there were too many lines crossed. That maybe it was better if he just left.”

Ren swallowed. “Left where?”

“Town,” she said. “He got a job offer from some fancy private school upstate. Bishop Prep. They called again, and he… took it.”

She stared down at her hands. “I didn’t expect to like him this much,” she admitted. “I didn’t think I’d ever feel that way about anyone again.”

“Mom…” he said, stunned.

“You know your dad was my high school sweetheart,” she said. “We had a plan. A house, a family. All of it. We did it for a while. Then he changed. He started making me feel small—like I was barely good enough to be tolerated. And then one day he left. Just left. No goodbye to you. Nothing.”

Ren swallowed hard. He remembered bits of it. The raised voices. The slam of a door. His mom holding him so tight he could barely breathe.

“When he left, I decided I was done,” she said. “Done trusting anyone like that again. Done letting anyone close enough to hurt me.”

She let out a shaky breath. “But then this man comes along with his chai and his Shakespeare and his too-big heart, and he makes me feel… seen. Like I’m more than just the mom who pays the bills and signs permission slips. Like I’m… enough.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “And of course he leaves, too. I guess I’m just… not worth it.”

“Stop,” Ren said, his voice breaking. “You are worth it. You’re the best mom in the world. You’ve always been enough. I just—”

Words clogged his throat. He wanted to yell, It wasn’t you. It was me. I did this. I broke it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered instead.

She smiled sadly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

He knew that wasn’t true.

And for the first time, he couldn’t stand it.

The next morning, Ren didn’t go to his own first period.

He took a bus across town, then another. He walked three blocks past manicured lawns and big gated driveways until he stood in front of a tall set of iron gates with a stone sign: BISHOP PREPARATORY ACADEMY. The American flag out front snapped crisply in the breeze.

“Fancy,” he muttered.

His heart raced as he checked the directory by the office. English—Building C. Room 214.

He walked down hallway after hallway of trophy cases and polished floors, feeling more out of place with every step. When he finally reached the classroom door, he could hear a familiar voice through the glass.

“And that’s why Hamlet’s love for Ophelia is both his refuge and his doom,” Mr. Thomas was saying. “So, who wants to present next?”

Ren’s hand shook as he grabbed the door handle.

He opened it.

Heads turned. Not the faces he knew from Jefferson High—these were kids in pressed uniforms, their eyes curious and confused. But the voice at the front of the room was the same.

“Renton?” Mr. Thomas said, stunned. “What are you doing here?”

“I’d like to present,” Ren said.

There was a murmur in the room. Mr. Thomas stepped toward him slowly, his expression caught somewhere between shock and anger.

“Ren, you can’t just leave your school and walk into mine,” he said. “You can’t—”

“This won’t take long,” Ren said, his voice shaking. “I just… I need to say something. And I need you to hear it. All of it.”

He turned, facing the room like a stage. His palms were sweating. His legs felt like jelly. But for once, there were no jokes, no schemes, no angles.

Just the truth.

“Bookside’s not the same without you,” he said, catching himself. “I mean—Jefferson. My school. It’s not the same without you. And I know there’s some students—me—who can be a pain sometimes. Who push and test and cross lines.”

He swallowed, glancing at Mr. Thomas.

“But more importantly, my mom…” His voice cracked, and he forced himself to keep going. “She’s amazing. She’s kind. She’s strong. She’s been both parents to me my whole life. And sometimes she doesn’t see that about herself. Not until you came along.”

“Ren,” Mr. Thomas said quietly. “You don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do,” Ren said, louder. “You thought she was using you. She wasn’t. The whole scheme, all the manipulation, all of it—that was me. I planned it. I made her cancel dates. I used the relationship to get better grades. I lied about that thing in class. You didn’t bully me. I set you up so she’d get mad and break up with you.”

The classroom went dead silent.

“And the thing is,” he said, his chest heaving, “for my whole life, my mom has only had me. She gave up so much. She never went out. She never dated. It was just… us. And I got used to that. I liked it. I was terrified of changing it. I thought if she loved somebody else, there’d be less left over for me.”

He took a breath, his eyes burning.

“So I tried to break you up. I thought I was protecting us. But what I was really doing was hurting both of you. And you know what? I also didn’t know how much she loved you. Not until you left. I came home and she was crying. Really crying. The way she did when my dad left. And she doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve to feel like she’s not enough. Not again.”

He turned to face Mr. Thomas fully now, his voice small and raw.

“So I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For everything. For using you. For lying about you. For making her think you didn’t care. I don’t put myself out there like this. Ever. But I’m here now, at some fancy prep school in the middle of nowhere, because… because my mom is worth it. And I think you are too. And if you still… if you still care about her, maybe you could… I don’t know. Talk to her. Please.”

There it was. The confession. The plea.

For a long moment, no one moved.

Then someone in the back of the room let out a low whistle. Another kid elbowed his friend. A girl near the front wiped at her eyes.

“Wow,” she whispered. “That’s… intense.”

Mr. Thomas’s face was unreadable.

“Class,” he said finally, his voice steady. “Take ten. Reflect on what we just heard. We’ll debrief later.”

There was a collective scraping of chairs as students began to stand, buzzing with low chatter.

“Wait,” one boy said as he passed Ren. “Was all that for real?”

“Yeah,” Ren said. “Every word.”

“Cool,” the boy said softly. “Good for you, man.”

The room slowly emptied until it was just the two of them.

Ren shifted on his feet. “So,” he said weakly. “Am I expelled from your class in a school I don’t even go to?”

Mr. Thomas huffed out a laugh despite himself. “You have a talent for the dramatic, you know that?”

Ren shrugged.

Silence stretched between them. Then Mr. Thomas leaned back against the desk, crossing his arms.

“You really planned all that?” he asked. “All the canceled dates? All the guilt trips? The FaceTime?”

Ren nodded miserably. “Yeah. All of it.”

“And your mom… she didn’t know?”

“She thought she was helping me,” Ren said. “Because that’s what she always does.”

Mr. Thomas exhaled slowly. “I thought she was splitting the difference. Trying to have it both ways. I didn’t… I didn’t want to be the reason there were lines crossed between us. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know,” Ren said. “You didn’t. I hurt you. And her.”

“So why tell me all this now?” Mr. Thomas asked. “Why not just let me leave?”

“Because I saw what happened when my dad left,” Ren said. “And I saw what happened when you did. And one of those, I couldn’t control. This one… maybe I can.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy.

“Look, I’m not saying you have to come back and be my teacher again,” he said. “I’m not even saying you have to get back together with my mom. I just… I wanted you to know the truth before you decided that she wasn’t worth the trouble.”

Mr. Thomas stared at him for a long time.

“You know,” he said finally, “you remind me a lot of Hamlet.”

Ren groaned. “If you’re about to call me tragic, I swear—”

“I was going to say dramatic,” Mr. Thomas said, smiling faintly. “But also brave. It takes a lot to own up to something like this.”

He pushed off the desk, stepping closer. “I care about your mom,” he said quietly. “More than I expected to. And I care about you, too, whether you believe that or not. That’s why I left. I didn’t think I could be both your teacher and—” He stopped himself.

“And my almost-stepdad?” Ren offered.

Mr. Thomas chuckled. “Something like that.”

“So what now?” Ren asked.

“Now,” Mr. Thomas said, “I call your mom. I tell her you came all the way up here to confess a crime of emotional trickery. And I ask her if she’s willing to meet me at that coffee shop with the terrible jazz playlist again.”

“And if she says no?” Ren asked.

“Then I respect that,” he said. “Because she deserves someone who respects her boundaries.”

“And if she says yes?” Ren asked, heart thudding.

“Then we take it slow,” he said. “We talk. All three of us. We figure out what’s fair. For her. For you. For me. No more secret deals. No more guilt trips. Just… honesty.”

Ren let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“That sounds… good,” he said. “That sounds really good.”

Mr. Thomas held out a hand. For a heartbeat, Ren hesitated. Then he took it.

The handshake felt different this time. Not like a kid begging for a favor. Not like a teacher doling out mercy.

More like something close to… family.

Not yet. Not officially.

But maybe someday.

On the bus ride back to Los Angeles, Ren stared out the window as the highway rolled by—gas stations, diners with peeling signs, chance for rain on the horizon. Somewhere in the distance, skyscrapers glinted above the haze.

His phone buzzed.

A text from his mom.

Your teacher just called me. He says you crashed a prep school and confessed to being a criminal mastermind.

Ren winced.

True, he typed. Sorry.

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.

I’m proud of you, she wrote. We’ll talk when you get home.

His chest loosened.

A minute later, another text popped up.

Also… I’m heading to the coffee shop. For chai. With a certain English teacher. No promises. Just… a conversation.

He smiled, the first genuine smile in days.

Your mom. Your teacher. Your rules.

For the first time, he realized that setting boundaries wasn’t just about saying no.

Sometimes it was also about finally saying yes—to the right people, for the right reasons, at the right time.

He leaned his head against the bus window, watching the American highway unspool toward home, and thought:

This might actually turn out okay.