Page 135 of You Fall First
He lets out a long, soft whistle.
“I know,” I say. “It’s a mouthful. So my first order of business will probably be coming up with a catchy nickname.”
“Just remember Woody’s taken. Dutton won’t let that one go easily.”
I bite back a laugh. “I was thinking more along the lines of an acronym. Like SWAB. But duly noted.”
“So what’s the program about?”
“It’s this district-wide initiative to improve engagement, especially with at-risk students. Each school’s building a team to work on early intervention systems and cross-campus support, and Nina’s looking for a rep to head the team at every level. She’s recruiting me for the high school tier.”
“This really is huge, Jo.”
“Yep. And since I’ve got a degree in secondary education and my master’s in social work, Nina thinks I’m perfect for the job.”
“I must say, all the evidence points to you being pretty perfect in general.”
Heat floods my cheeks, and my heart does a little somersault. “I still tried turning her down, though.”
“Why?”
“You know I have that thing about getting special treatment because I’m a Michaels. And Dex kept trying to pull strings for me with the whole substitute teacher thing.”
“Yeah. So I heard.”
“But Nina says no one in the district has even heard of this program yet. She came up with the idea on her own, and she’s handpicking her team. We’ll be the ones developing the program, so I’ll be reporting directly to her.”
“Which means Dex has nothing to do with any of this?”
“Basically, yes.”
“So.” There’s a pause. “No nepo baby?”
“No baby.” I chew my lip, staring up at the ceiling. “But I’m starting to think there was more to it than that. Like, there were underlying reasons why I kept self-sabotaging and pushing away good things.”
“What kind of reasons?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was worried that I don’t deserve them. At least not compared to my siblings.”
“Jo.” The word comes out gravelly. “You deserve the world.”
“Well, I’m definitely afraid to fail. And that’s a whole other issue.”
“Failing’s scary. I get that.”
“But if I don’t try, then I’ve failed ahead of time. Before I even start. So it’s kind of pointless not to try, if you don’t want to fail, right?”
“Huh. You’re smart enough to figure that out on your own, which says something about you already.”
“I don’t know about that.” I pause. “But I do know I want to quit quitting, if that makes sense.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It does.”
I chew my lip. “Right after I quit Mockingbird.”
He’s quiet for a beat.
“The way I see it, you haven’t even started training there,” he reminds me. “I’m gonna say that one doesn’t count.”
