“Are you saying you want to give me special treatment?”
I groan, shaking my head. “Listen, I’m just trying to make this easier for both of us.”
He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.
“Wow,” he says, shaking his head.
“Wow what?”
“I just didn’t expect you’d be a quitter.”
I blink at him.
“I’m not a quitter. In fact, I’m the opposite—I’m saying you should switch out of the class and move to one where you’re . . .” I trail off, faltering. Smith’s got both brows raised high on his forehead now.
“Better suited,” I finish lamely.
He gives an incredulous snort. “That’s a cop-out.”
“It is nothing of the kind,” I sniff. “I’m attempting to accommodate us both in the best possible way.”
Smith leans toward me again and I meet his gaze with an annoyed glare.
“No, you’re not. You’re trying to escape.”
I scoff at him. “I’m not trying to escape anything.”
“Bullshit.”
I narrow my eyes.
“You. Can’t. Cuss. At. A. Teacher,” I say in evenly measured tones.
His gaze flashes with something like irritation. “Do you think you’re going to like all of your students all the time? Sometimes you’ll have to teach someone who you can’t stand. Other times you’ll have the kind of students that every teacher dreams of. You can’t discriminate.”
“Please.” I cross my arms, too. “I don’t need a lecture from you.”
“Maybe not—but you’re getting one. You think I’ve liked all my teachers? You think students want to deal with the same shit over and over again from the same middle-class, college-educated, out-of-touch women—because, let’s face it, it’s mostly women in your shoes.”
I swallow hard, clenching my fists over and over again. I try to calm my expression and I’m 99.9 percent sure I’m utterly failing at that task.
“Look,” Smith says, “I’m not transferring. I like your class. I like you. If I have to sit through an English class, I want it to be yours.”
His voice is low. More like the voice I heard in my ear at Cave when he was removing my shirt and getting his hands all over my body. Before I can stop him, he reaches out and tilts my face up. I meet his deep blue gaze, which now is filled with concern. It takes me a second too long to push his hand away.
“Don’t do that,” I mumble, grabbing a stack of papers and pointlessly shuffling them. “Just go. Consider your detention served.”
He doesn’t move. Instead, he sits there, stock-still, watching me.
“Just go,” I repeat quietly.
I turn away from him and face the computer. After a minute of my pretending to ignore him, Smith finally stands up. I feel a simultaneous jolt of relief and disappointment. It’s like everything inside of me is in a constant state of disagreement lately.
Slowly, he comes around the side of my desk and squats, forcing me to look at him
“Believe it or not, I’m not trying to make your life hard,” he says, his tone measured. ”But making me disappear from your class isn’t going to solve all your problems. You need to face them instead.”
He’s annoyed, but so am I, and the tension between us feels like it could snap at any second. I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t say anything—instead, I wait for him to stand up and walk away. When the door clicks shut, the first of my tears manages to escape, making a run for it down my cheek and landing on the keyboard below.
***
I take a few minutes to pull myself together.
Okay. I try to pull myself together. I use all the usual tricks. I inhale slowly through my nose. I exhale slowly out my mouth. I pace slowly around the room. Then I not so slowly walk straight to the main office.
All I know is this: I need to do something. My brain isn’t really clear, so I don’t know exactly what that something is. I decide to take a walk through the building. Maybe the chance to move around will let me think things through.
But once I’m wandering through the deserted hallways, I don’t feel any closer to a solution. A big part of me wants to book it straight to my principal and tell him the truth—tell him who Smith is in relation to me and that he needs to be transferred. But a bigger part of me is fighting that entire notion. I mean, sure—yes. We hooked up at a bar when I didn’t know he was a student. But why should that back me into this corner? Why should it make me feel so incredibly terrified and ready to run?
Not to mention the incident earlier this week when Mr. Weathersby basically reprimanded me in front of my entire class. Christ, the last thing I need to do is make myself look anything less than capable in front of my boss. I look down the hallway and see Caroline’s classroom door open and decide to pay her a visit. If nothing else, maybe I can glean some insight from an older, more experienced teacher who, I’m sure, has dealt with her share of fuckups.
Caroline is one of those career teachers who has sort of settled into the role with a comfort that’s enviable. Her classroom looks cozy and friendly. When I walk through the door, she has a handful of students sitting in the back of the room, working on yearbook layouts. I’d forgotten she’s the publications advisor, too.
“Hyacinth.” Her eyes crinkle with her smile and she stands up to greet me. “How is everything?”
“Good,” I say, nodding. When I get closer, she reaches out to squeeze my arm.
“I’ve been meaning to drop you an e-mail. That incident in your classroom the other day was unfortunate. I hope Mr. Weathersby wasn’t too hard on you.”
I shake my head.
“No, it’s fine—although, that’s actually part of the reason I’m here.”
“Oh, really?” She walks back around her desk and sits in a well-padded chair. “How can I help you?”
My eyes flick to the students in the back, then I step a little closer.
“I find my first-period class quite . . . challenging,” I say quietly. “I remember you saying you have planning at that time, and I was wondering if you could come observe the class for me. See if there’s anything I could do better. Or differently.”
“Of course. Which day where you thinking?”
I clear my throat, then clench my hands together in front of me.
“Um—every day, actually.”
Caroline leans back and her chair makes a loud squeak. Her smile is sort of placating and I feel a pit of dread in my stomach. I can see her no before she even says it.
“I think,” she begins, pushing her glasses back into her auburn curls, “that you need to let yourself feel confident in your abilities, Hyacinth. I was in your classroom that first two weeks, remember? And you did just fine.”
I swallow. “But, after Friday—”
She shakes her head. “Friday was unfortunate, but it isn’t typical—even here, where we have so many students in negative situations outside of the classroom.”
She stands then and motions for me to come closer.
“The kids back there,” she whispers, gesturing to the students in the back of her room, “they all have had challenges that you and I can’t possibly understand. At least half of them have a relative in jail. A third of them don’t know their fathers. One of them was picked up for solicitation last year.”
I feel a surge of nausea. “That’s terrible.”
She nods. “It is. So, when the students are hard on you—when they make you ‘pay your dues,’ so to speak, they’re really trying to avoid bonding with someone who will inevitably leave them. So many of them don’t know how to form healthy relationships.”
“I just—I just want to make sure I’m doing this right.”
Caroline smiles at me, then pats my shoulder. “Honey, teaching is always trial and error. Some lessons work, some completely bomb. Some classes are wonderfully behaved and some are duds. You just need to understand that you are the only constant in that classroom—maintain your authority, but show that you care.”
Easier said than done, I want to say. But I just nod.