7 comments/ 2620 views/ 10 favorites Sharing Her Heart By: patientlee Sharing Her Heart: Judy Carlisle falls in love and loses her virginity in a Trans Am This story is my entry for the Valentine's Day 2016 contest. All sexual activity occurs when the participants are eighteen or older. I'd love it if you would give the story your vote. Thanks to my friend, MSTarot, for the last-minute beta read. Happy Valentine's Day! ~ pl * Robert Maitland entered my biology class at Greenburg High in the middle of my freshman year, and right from the start, nobody liked him. It was a ninth-grade, college-prep biology class, which we thought meant we were an elite group, specially challenged with advanced material. In reality, there was little difference between the freshman college-prep biology and the sophomore general biology, but Robert was a junior. He'd failed bio at his previous school, and they stuck him in our class full of pubescent, preppy snobs. Robert's dark, straight mullet, Iron Maiden t-shirt, ripped jeans, and dark, wispy mustache didn't fit with the Izod shirts and designer jeans my classmates wore, and we labeled him a loser in the first ten minutes. His black 1977 Trans Am further alienated him. He was the only person in our class old enough to drive, and we resented him for it. The guys in my class weren't motor heads; muscle cars didn't impress them. Their fathers drove BMWs and Porsches, and they aspired to do the same. (Although, I saw Ethan Fries driving a mid-life-crisis-GTO about a month ago.) They sneered at him, calling him Bandit, mocking him for driving a car made famous by a movie. Robert would drive into the high school parking lot way too fast with Metallica blaring each day as we were getting off the bus. That car was his suit of armor. Out of it, he drew as little attention to himself as possible. In it, he announced his presence to the world. I could hear it even through the foam headphones of my Walkman, his heavy-metal noise drowning out my Bryan Adams cassette. Of course, Robert was the one who taught me to head-bang, but that came later. The way we treated Robert would be called bullying today. We snickered at his mustache and mocked his mullet. Ethan Fries (on whom I had a crush) was the loudest, mimicking him from the back row and making us laugh. Even I was unkind to him, rolling my eyes and making faces if he drew an ounce of attention to himself. I'd like to excuse our behavior by claiming youthful ignorance—to propose that we didn't know any better than to treat a newcomer badly because we were young and foolish. But that's horseshit. We were mean, plain and simple. Mrs. Parker, our biology teacher, wasn't nice to him either, quoting the number of "guys like you, Mr. Maitland" (always delivered with a shake of the finger) she'd taught over the years. Things changed for Robert after the incident with the snake, but not with Mrs. Parker. What she did was unforgivable. As Mrs. Parker predicted, Robert struggled in biology. He bombed tests, never completed lab reports, lost his textbook, and I didn't see him turn in homework a single time in those early days. Once he was on track to fail, he'd come into class, put his head down, and take a nap until the bell rang. As long as he didn't snore, Mrs. Parker left him alone, but that changed the day Mr. Casagrande, the principal, came into class and saw him with his head on the table. Mr. C freaked out, furious that a student would sleep in class and that Mrs. Parker would let him. Mr. Casagrande crept up to Robert's table, snatched the pile of books from the table behind him, and slammed them down, right next to Robert's head. He bolted up in his seat, farted out loud, and lost his balance on the wooden stool. He caught himself just before he crashed to the ground, and his face turned as red as the exit sign over the classroom door. For the first time, I felt sorry for him, but only for a minute. Mrs. Parker rallied to save face in front of her boss, but the damage was done. Why she picked me, I didn't know, but she pointed right at me and said, "Judy Carlisle. You're Maitland's new lab partner." Casagrande looked at me and said, "You're in Tutoring Club, right?" I nodded. I was pleased as punch that the principal recognized me, but at the same time, I was seething with anger. Having Robert Maitland as a lab partner would be as bad as not having one, and I was pissed that I couldn't work with Gwen anymore. We'd worked on every project since first grade together. It wasn't fair. I collected my books and moved to the table where Robert sat, turning my nose up at the aroma of flatulence lingering in the air. If you'd told me that morning the day would come when I'd miss Robert's "fragrance" hiding under my bedsheets, I would have laughed in your face. I was angry, and I didn't try to hide my disgust. Robert mumbled an apology under his breath, and thankfully, the bell rang. From that day on, Mrs. Parker did everything in her power to make Robert's life miserable, just to get back at him for embarrassing her. And not just in biology class. For all the academic talent Robert lacked, he made up for with gifted hands, and the carpentry skills that put food on our family's table all these years blossomed in Rob's shop classes. By Easter, he was helping Mr. Adams, the wood shop teacher, complete the side projects he took on, building cabinets and shelves for faculty members. By Memorial Day, the teachers were seeking Rob out to build things for them over the summer. It was good for Rob's self-esteem, and since he didn't charge teachers to repair their furniture or make a step-stool for them, they rewarded him by adjusting his grades so he could pass. Until Mrs. Parker complained to the school board of directors, that is. One phone call dismantled the long-standing extra-credit system at Greenburg High School for the less academically inclined. No more oil changes on teachers' cars in the parking lot during study hall. No more art students doing calligraphy for teachers' daughters' wedding invitations. And no more trophy shelves for teachers' Little League Stars. For the non-college bound, it was a devastating decision, and it was all because Robert was sleeping in class when Mr. Casagrande popped in. Those first couple weeks as lab partners were rocky, mostly because I was a bitch. I didn't speak to Robert unless I had to, even though he stopped napping on the desk and started scrawling illegible gibberish in his notebook when Mrs. P wrote on the board. By then, my nastiness was mostly for show. The budding teacher in me recognized that he needed help with more than just biology, but I kept my wall up, ignoring him so the rest of the class wouldn't think I'd gone to the dark side. I was insecure and nerdy, and I wanted Ethan to like me. I didn't need any more strikes against my social life. In addition, Mrs. Parker was treating me differently, looking down her nose at me as if she lumped me together with Robert, blaming me for what happened with the principal instead of being her solution. That's what I thought at the time, anyway. Unfortunately, when the truth came out later on, it was much more nefarious. Then, on the day before Valentine's Day, everything changed. Robert called me on my bullshit. Mrs. Parker was clearly not the best teacher I ever had, but the lasting influence she had on me as a science teacher was her amazing projects and labs. If she were still alive today, she'd have a million followers on Pinterest, trying to replicate her holiday-themed science projects. Of all of her clever assignments, Mrs. P was at her coolest on Valentine's Day. On February 13, 1985, she announced the lab I'd been looking forward to since seventh grade—the Valentine's Day Pig Heart Dissection. For a science nerd like me, dissection was the holy grail of labs and the perfect way to celebrate what I thought was a stupid holiday. My initial rush of excitement wore off quickly when I looked at Robert though. He was smiling, something I hadn't seen him do before, but all I saw was that stupid mustache. It was too soft and undeveloped to even be called a mustache, but he wore it on his face as if he were a grown man, not a biology-failing, heavy-metal-listening teenager. I couldn't stop myself as the rage coursed through my body. "What are you grinning at?" I asked him. His smile faded. "I think this will be cool, don't you?" My blood boiled. "Of course, I think it's cool, but it would be cooler if I got to work with my friend, Gwen. If you weren't such an idiot, I'd be able to." Nobody in my life had ever spoken to me the way Robert did after I said that. Right in the middle of class, he said, "What the fuck is your problem?" Before I could answer, he kept going. "I didn't ask for you to be my partner. I didn't ask for your help. All I wanted was to be left alone, so I'm sorry you got stuck with me, but you are a bitch, and you need to shut the hell up." His words struck me right through my future-teacher heart. The tears filled my eyes before he finished speaking, and the worst part was knowing he was right. The whole class looked on as I stammered something defensive (God knows what I actually said.) and then ran out of the room, leaving my books on the lab table. I got as far as the windows looking out on the courtyard before Robert threw the door open and followed me into the hall. I heard Mrs. Parker yelling from her desk, but she didn't follow us. With my arms folded on the windowsill, I hunched over and cried my eyes out. When Robert reached where I stood, he placed his hand on my shoulder and left it there, rubbing gently with his thumb until I stopped. Finally, I lifted my head, afraid of what he was going to say, but I was surprised to find him looking concerned. "Are you okay? I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." I nodded, wiped my face with my sleeve. "You're right I am a bitch. I was trying to impress the jerks in our class. I'm a horrible person." I wasn't trying to elicit sympathy or to be a martyr. At that moment, I felt terrible, and I was desperate to make it right. "I hope you'll let me help you study." He dropped his hand from my shoulder and smiled at me, and in that moment, his eyes, as blue as the Caribbean, sucked me in. I no longer saw the wispy mustache and the mullet. I saw forgiveness, kindness, and something else I didn't recognize until later on; I saw my future. * * * * I barely slept the night of February 13th. My excitement about the dissection was enough to keep me awake, but it was more than that. All night long, my mind tried to make sense of what had happened with Robert. How had he gone from swearing at me and telling me I was a bitch to such sincere concern for my well-being? He was absolutely right. I was awful to him. What made him forgive me so quickly? The questions turned in my mind, circling through over and over like a carousel horse until REO Speedwagon blared from my clock radio. I tried to put it out of my mind as I slipped on my red sweater and heart-shaped earrings, but by the time I got off the bus and made my way to first period, I was sick to my stomach with nerves. My heart still flutters today when I smell formaldehyde. One whiff sends me back to that bio lab, decorated in garland made of photocopies of anatomical hearts, colored by hand in Magic Marker. Mrs. Parker wore a pink lab coat that day. It looked as though she'd ruined it in the laundry fifteen years earlier when she was thirty pounds lighter, but I appreciated her cleverness, and I think of her every time I wear the pink one I bought on eBay. With formaldehyde in my nostrils, I stepped to my lab table. Robert was already there, and there was a small, heart-shaped box of chocolates on my chair. I looked at Robert to see if he'd put them there, but the only hint I got from him was the warmth in his eyes as he smiled at me. Before I could ask him, Mrs. Parker started barking her orders to the class. After she finished, she called Robert and me up to her desk. She wagged her finger in our faces and said, "I don't know what the heck happened here yesterday, but I hope you got over it." She turned to Robert. "Mr. Maitland, your outburst will not be repeated. You have no right to use that kind of language in school." He nodded, and she pointed that finger right in front of my nose. "Miss Carlisle, you will turn that attitude around from here on in. I don't care if you want to work alone. Today you will share your heart with Mr. Maitland, whether you like it or not. Casagrande's breathing down my neck on this, so you better not make me look bad." She pointed at the dissection trays on the counter. "Your heart's in tray twelve." My face flushed with embarrassment as I realized that even someone as cruel as Mrs. Parker knew how horribly I'd behaved. I scooted to the counter, eager to put the whole thing behind me. When I reached for the tray, my hand brushed Robert's. Our eyes met, and we both laughed. That's when I knew that our pig heart wasn't the only heart we'd be sharing, and my nervousness dissolved. * * * * Robert turned out to be a better lab partner than Gwen because he was content to be my assistant, letting me have my nerdy fun with the stinky ball of muscle. We didn't wear gloves for a dissection in those days, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Robert handed me the scalpel and watched while I cut. As I finished slicing it in half, Robert's eyes crinkled with his smile. "You love this, don't you?" he said. I nodded and grinned. "I'm gonna be a science teacher someday." In the back of the room, Ethan was bitching at his lab partner. "It smells disgusting. This is gross. I don't want to touch that thing." I chuckled to myself, realizing that my crush on him was not only silly; it was over. The dissection was a good teaching experience for me since Robert knew nothing about the structures of the heart. I'd studied the diagrams and read the chapter from the textbook twice, and I narrated as I pointed out the ventricles and the atria, the aorta and pulmonary artery. "Do you want to make the next cut?" I asked Robert. "No way," he said. "This is all yours." "You chicken?" I raised my eyebrows so he'd know I was teasing. He shook his head with a smile. "No. I mean, I can't take this away from you. You look so happy." I looked into those blue eyes and knew I could get lost in them forever. A wicked idea popped into my head. I knew it was disgusting and unsanitary, but Robert hadn't touched the heart or anything gross. I batted my eyelashes and said, "I'm a little hungry. Do you suppose you could get one of those chocolates out for me?" He snorted a laugh. I'd caught him completely off guard, but he complied. "Which one do you want?" There were four in the package. "Surprise me." I opened my mouth and closed my eyes. He placed the chocolate delicately on my tongue. I kept my eyes closed and smiled while I chewed. "Miss Carlisle?" My eyes popped open to see Mrs. Parker glaring at me. Heat sprang to my cheeks, and when I looked at Robert, I saw that his face was red, too. We cracked up laughing as Mrs. Parker moved on to yelling at someone else for waving his pig's heart around over his head. "Thanks for sharing your heart with me, Judy." Rob's smile made me melt inside. I couldn't tell if he was trying to be funny or not, but I took a chance. "I have a good feeling about us." * * * * After the dissection project, I did what I could to help Robert in class, but we also worked in the library during study halls and after school during Tutoring Club. We made flashcards and read from the textbook, and in our first session in the library, I learned that Robert could barely read. As a freshman in high school, I couldn't understand how he'd made it to eleventh grade, but as a teacher, I've seen it dozens of times. "Social promotion." His elementary school held him back a grade twice, so eventually, they pushed him to the next grade, even though his skills were lacking. After we'd do biology for a while, he'd grab a Hot Rod magazine, and we'd read together. I didn't give a hoot about cars, but talking about them made him happy. One day during study hall, when we finished an article about Trans Ams, Robert said, "I know people make fun of my car." I was embarrassed. I'd made fun of it too, before we got to know each other, of course. I started to apologize, but he waved it off. "It only bothers me because it was my dad's. It was his first brand-new car. He used to tease me about not being allowed to drive it until he died. We never expected that to be when I was in high school." I didn't know about his father. "How did he die?" "Heart attack. He was forty-eight. We never saw it coming." I didn't even have time to ask if heart disease ran in his family when a scream pierced the silence of the library. Robert jumped to his feet to see what was going on and told me to stay put. I didn't listen. Today we would assume there was a shooter in the library, and we'd all dive for the cover of the study carrels, but in 1985, we didn't worry about school shootings. Everybody in the library had moved toward the window where Ethan Fries, my former crush, stood frozen in fear. When we saw what spooked him, the rest of us froze, too. Except for Robert. He moved slowly with his hands up, motioning for everyone to get back from the long, brown snake on the floor. He said, "No sudden moves. It's a rat snake. It can bite, but it's not venomous." Miss Koziol, the librarian, hissed at him. "Shh! You'll provoke it!" "No, ma'am," Robert said in a sing-song voice. "Snakes don't have ears. Everybody back out slowly. Except you." He pointed at Ethan. "You stay still as a statue while I catch this guy." He crept closer. The snake coiled back from Ethan. He relaxed a bit, probably assuming the snake was backing off, but Robert knew differently. The snake was agitated and was preparing to strike. "Freeze." Then he took two large strides toward the snake before snatching him from behind and grabbing him near his head. Ethan fell over with relief while Robert struggled with the surprising power of the six-foot snake. I ran to him and grabbed the other end of the body with both hands, bringing the monster under control. Robert led us to the emergency exit where the librarian held the door for us. We moved as quickly as we could to the woods behind the soccer field and let the snake go. On the way back to the building, the early-spring breeze brought goosebumps to my skin. I shivered as I said, "The poor guy. He was just trying to warm up." Robert put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in next to him. The gesture was nonchalant, as if he didn't realize he did it, but the heat from his body radiated through mine, lighting a fire inside me. He said, "He'll be fine. He'll find a den somewhere. Might not be as nice as the library though." When we reached the door, we stopped. I said, "That was really brave." He shrugged and said, "I understand snakes. Me and my dad used to have a ball python. I had to get rid of her though. Me and my mom live with my aunt now. She's petrified of snakes. You were brave, too." "I'm sorry your dad died." It sounded pathetic, but I didn't know what else to say. He was just standing there, looking down at me, and then he reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. I bit my lip, totally unsure of what was happening. His face got closer to mine, and I started to panic, but before I could say anything, he kissed me. Right there, outside of the library. He tasted like spearmint, and when I kissed him back, I barely had time to wonder if I was doing it right before we heard the clapping. Everybody in the library was looking out the windows at us, cheering us on. I was ready to die of embarrassment when the librarian opened the door.