This is part FOUR of a four-part story. And it's totally neat and worth reading, sure enough. But if you haven't read the other parts, you should start at the beginning
"So," Beth said in a tone that, while calm and usual, displayed a fair amount of angst by sounding purposely calm and usual, "How was your weekend?"
"Not too bad, really," I answered, dropping my bag next to the chair that I'd grown accustomed to spending my afternoons in. "No barking from the dog, no smog, and mom cooked a breakfast with no hog."
She lightly tossed an annoyed glance my way. "Well, uh... Okay..."
"Not a fan of Ice Cube?" I asked as I plopped into the hard plastic chair.
"Uh... No, not really..."
"Shit," I muttered, "Wish I'd known THAT a few months ago..."
"Wouldn't have helped," she replied. "You'd still have gotten caught."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," I sighed. "Mrs. Cowart knows her gangsta rap... She'd have picked up on it right away."
That should have made her laugh. Instead, she further buried her face in the papers she was grading when I walked in. I coughed lightly, attempting to elicit some sort of reaction from her. She replied by not replying.
Yep. Just as I feared... I fucked up.
"And your weekend?" I asked.
"Fine," she replied.
And then she said nothing else.
"Just fine?"
"Yeah, just fine," she answered.
You could have stored a locker full of Jell-o Pudding Pops in the cold space that just settled between us.
"Well, alright," I said in response. "So what's my assignment today?"
"Whatever you want it to be," she replied. "You pick. Write five pages of whatever... I don't care."
"Jesus, Beth…" I said, pretending I had no idea why she was being so hostile, "What's with you today?"
She slapped her red pen down on the desk and turned precisely 98 degrees toward me in her chair. "What's with me?” She half-gasped, half-huffed – quite a feat, and one I’m very certain is only achievable by members of the female species. “You… Wait – you know what? Nevermind – it’s not important. Just… Get to work.” She turned toward her papers and began grading again.
“Fine,” I said, and I pulled out my notebook and a pencil and made all the motions of a man who was about to get to work. But I couldn’t let it all go without at least one parting shot: “I don’t see what the big fucking deal is…”
Now, if you’re old enough to read this, you’re old enough to have seen a storm brewing. You don’t have to actually be outside or even peek out your window to feel the lights dim and hear the howl of the wind against the walls of the building. The overall pressure around you drops and your head swells and you know that, very shortly – if not right now – you and everything around you is about to get pelted.
That’s precisely why I didn’t have to look up to know that, in a matter of seconds, she’d leapt from her chair, crossed the room, and was now standing directly in front of me with her bottom lip caught directly between her teeth.
“You asshole,” she said in an angry whisper.
I deliberately kept working in my notebook.
She pushed my shoulder. Hard.
“Hey!” I yelped, dropping my pencil. “What the hell!”
“How can you just… SIT there… And treat me like this?!?” She snarled.
“What!?!” I half-yelled, half asked. “I’m not doing anything wrong! What am I doing wrong?”
“You’re acting like a JERK again!” She said, and pushed me again.
“Woah woah woah…” I said, kicking the floor and sliding my seat back a few inches. “Aren’t you violating, like, some sort of teacher-student ethic right now?”
“I did that a long time ago,” she answered. “I thought we were past all of that crap. I thought we were friends!”
“We… We are,” I said.
“Then… WHY!” She demanded. “Why did you stand me up Friday? And why have you spent all day today avoiding me?”
“What!” I interrupted. “I didn’t avoid you–”
“Wow…” She snapped, placing her hands out as if to brace herself. “You weren’t in the art room this morning, you skipped my class this morning—”
“I didn’t skip!” I said. “Mrs. Jones sent me to the—”
“She said you asked to go!” Beth countered, referring to my trip to the office supply store this morning.
“Wait – you asked her?”
“Of COURSE I asked her!” Beth snapped. “You skipped my class!”
“Well, we… uh…” I stammered. “We needed toner! Copier’s out!”
She just stared at me.
“You… You don’t want the copier to be out of toner, do you? You need it to, like… Make tests and shit.”
Her voice went low. “Why didn’t you just go get some from the library?”
“Uh…”
“SEE! This is the crap I’m talking about – and I’m not going to let you get away with it!”
My blood began to boil and my testosterone took over. “Wait – why the hell do I have to answer to YOU?!? I had stuff I had to do, alright? Why do you have to, like, ASSUME that I’m ducking you!?! Huh?!?”
“Oh, I don’t know… Because maybe you WERE?!?” she fired back.
“Whatever…” I snapped. “I don’t have to take this from you.”
Her mouth hung open. Her nostrils flared. She took a deep breath, bit her lip, and smiled a frustrated smile. “You know, you’re right,” she said in mock defeat. “You don’t.”
She walked back over to her desk, sat slowly, and began grading papers again.
I sat there, dumbfounded. For at least a minute, maybe two, I sat there and watched her scan the paper in front of her, move her hand to a line, execute a pen stroke, and go back to scanning. It was nearly mesmerizing; the mechanical precision with which she was doing her job. It was almost like… Oh, I dunno, like she was focusing extra hard on the task at hand to avoid paying any attention to other people in the room or something.
Finally, I broke my gaze and slid my chair back up to the desk. With absolutely no intention of actually working, I placed the point of my pencil to the paper in front of me and tried to move it in some sort of meaningful manner.
Wow.
Shut up.
I mean… Wow. You couldn’t possibly have handled that any worse. Bravo.
Shut. UP.
Oh wow, we’re going to do this now?
Yep.
Come on. You know you can’t shut me up. I’m your subconscious. I don’t answer to you.
Well, this is the last thing we really need to do right now, okay? I need to think.
You’ve had ALL DAY to think.
…I know.
You avoided her this morning when she came to the art room, you skipped English class to duck her, you purposely hid out in the wrestling room during lunch because you KNEW she’d –
Look, I was there, okay? I don’t need to fucking recap the entire miserable day… I just want to get through this and go home.
You know you’re being a coward, right?
…Yes. So what? I’m a coward. I can admit it.
Oh, horseshit! You know you’re not! You just always start off as one because it’s easy and you’re lazy. But you know that you’re about to slam your pencil down and attempt to defend yourself any minute now.
Nope. I did nothing wrong.
That’s not what she thinks.
I know that.
And it drives you crazy.
I know that, too.
In fact, it’s absolutely eating you alive that she is sitting over there hating being anywhere near you right this moment, because you know that she has no idea why you did what you did.
It was true. I couldn’t lie to myself. It was killing me that she had no idea the agony I went through in deciding not to go to the show that night.
I laid my pencil down—
See? I told you you would.
Oh, shut up… It’s not like it was some amazing prediction. You are me. You’re part of the decision.
Anyway. I laid it down and said, “Look…”
“Save it,” she said without looking up.
“No,” I stated. “I need to say this.”
“Well I don’t need to hear it. So save it.”
I sat back, stunned. My eyes were wide and my heart began pounding. “You don’t want to—”
“NO!” She snapped as she lifted her head – but she didn’t turn to face me, she spoke directly to the wall in front of her. “I’ve heard enough. You’re… You’re not what I thought you were.”
“What?” I said. “What the hell did you think I was?”
“I dunno,” she said, turning to face me. “Different.”
There was a marked note of pain in her voice and her eyes. But I was too young and too naïve to know what it was – all I heard was that she thought I was different, and now she thought I was a jerk. And I knew that I’d screwed up, and as per the usual course for screwing up, it was time to backpedal.
“Look,” I said as I went on the defensive, “I am really sorry about Friday. I’ll pay you back for the ticket…”
“I don’t WANT you to pay me back for the ticket!” She said. “I don’t care about the money! GOD…”
“What?” I said passively.
“You just… You don’t get it, do you?” She queried. “Do you know how far out on a limb I went to even invite you?”
I didn’t answer.
“I mean… My friends were all weirded out by the fact that I wanted to invite a student to the show… My boyfriend is annoyed that I gave you the ticket instead of his friend James… I even missed the first song of the set because I stood out in the rain thinking you were just running late!”
What do you say to that? What do you say to someone who just went so far out of her way for you only to have you snub her for no good reason whatsoever? You can’t tell her that you blew her off because you were afraid to go out with her that night. You can’t say you were scared to meet her boyfriend, or scared to see her in a social setting, or scared to confirm that you actually had a crush on this woman whom you had no prayer of ever actually having anything more than a friendly relationship with. But what? What CAN you say?
Well, whatever it might be, it definitely wasn’t:
“Hey, how the hell was I supposed to know you’d be waiting outside for me?!?”
I had never seen laser beams shoot out of someone’s eyes before. And I can’t really say I’ve seen it since – but I am thoroughly convinced that, right at that moment, a small, focused beam of light shot out of her pupils and into my brain, frying it to a crisp. With a quick flick of the wrist, she shot her index finger toward the door and yelled, “GET OUT.”
“Uh... What?” I said, unable to process anything because my brain was now a Frito.
“Just… Leave. Okay? No writing assignment, no nothing.” She shut her eyes tight and pointed again at the door (or at least, in its general direction). “Just leave.”
“Why...” I said. And that’s all I could squeeze out of my mouth before stammering.
“Because, honestly, I just can’t look at you right now,” she responded. “You have disappointed me on so many levels… I can’t even begin to explain.”
Wow, I hadn’t ever heard THAT before… Well, except from my father, my mother, my grandfather, and just about every teacher I’d ever had in my entire life. But at least with them, it was because I’d set fire to something or shoplifted candy or cheated on tests or blown up the chemistry lab – something worth the disappointment. This… I couldn’t get my head around.
“I don’t get it,” I said honestly. “I missed the concert. So what? I mean… Big freakin’ deal, right?!?”
The look in her eyes… I’ve seen it several times since. But I’d never seen it before that moment. This wasn’t just idle disappointment brought on from slightly exaggerated expectations. This was honest and deserved. And the look it created on her face matured me at least ten years in a single moment.
“You knew you weren’t going to go the second I handed you the ticket,” she said. “You lied to me Friday when you said you’d be there. You avoided my calls Saturday when I checked to see if everything was alright. You avoided me this morning AND this afternoon when I went to ask you what happened. You’ve systematically ducked me ever since I brought it up… And that hurts.”
“Well…”
“I’m not finished,” she said as tears began to well. “I thought we were friends – not just a teacher befriending a student, but honest-to-god friends. Hell, every single teacher in this school has tried to reach you. They all talk about it. And they’re all amazed that, somehow, I’ve found a way to get through to you!”
“Uh… I…” I said, fruitlessly.
“They’ve all given up on you – and I can totally understand why. I just… I dunno…” She said, turning away from me. “I thought maybe I was getting through.”
“You… You were,” I said. “You are…”
“Then WHY?” She demanded as she whipped around. “Why are you treating me like you treat them? Huh?”
“I… I’m not…”
“You’re lying to me, you’re avoiding me, you’re giving me that classic little brick-wall attitude you give them…” She wiped away a tear that had begun to stream down her cheek. “And I want to know why. What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything…”
“Did I get too close?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “You, just…”
“What? What did I do?”
I just stood there, looking at her. I didn’t see that she was a 22-year-old student teacher who’d taken me on as her personal crusade. I didn’t see that she was somehow convinced that she could buck the system and try new ways to approach and reach students. I didn’t understand that she had seen something different in me and that she had made this huge effort to reach me on my turf, in my terms, and try to bring out my best.
Nope.
Yeah, alright, we like her.
Jesus CHRIST, make up your mind!
I just did. We are totally into her.
No... I dunno. Something’s not right.
Well, I haven’t picked up on anything not being right – and I’m the subconscious, so it’s my job to know those things. So don’t question me. We like her. End of story.
Well shit. And we just totally blew any chance we had with her.
No way.
Yes, way! We snubbed her like 20 times in the course of three days. What the hell do YOU see that I’M not seeing?
This.
What?
THIS! This right here… This conversation. She’s making an effort! She’s actually into us!
Uh… I think maybe we’re misreading this…
Quiet. She’s about to say something else.
“Joe?” She said.
“Huh?” I replied eloquently.
“Well?”
“Well… What?”
“What did I do?” she said.
“You… You didn’t do anything… You did everything,” I, uh… answered.
“I don’t…”
I walked up to her and opened my arms. I could see on her face that she simultaneously wanted to return the hug and slug me in the face for making her so pissed off and disappointing her. Reluctantly, she sank into my arms and laid her cheek on my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You should be,” she said. I could feel her raise a hand to her face to wipe away another tear. “You just… You have SO much potential… You should hear the way the other teachers talk about you…”
“I don’t care about them,” I said, squeezing her close.
She chuckled. “Yeah, I know you don’t… Which is why I tried so hard to get through to you… You have a bright future ahead of you, you just have to get out of your own way…”
My only response was a small rub on her back.
“And you missed one hell of a concert!” she said with a reluctant, forgiving laugh. I felt her face lift off of my chest and her back press gently against my hands.
Don’t do it.
What? Why not?
She’s a good friend. She reached out to us. She saw us as a special case and befriended us.
Hey, what the FUCK! You JUST got done telling me how into her we are! I tried to fight you, but you brought up all this buried nonsense involving archtypical Jungian psychological shit that convinced me that we DO like her!
Yep, I sure did. And now, I’m deep in the back of your head telling you you’re reading this all wrong and you don’t actually like her.
Oh my dear god… YOU FORCED ME TO GO HUG HER. Now we’re touching her and she’s warm and beautiful and I can feel her tits against my stomach and—
Lucky.
… Could you POSSIBLY be more confusing? Please? I’m not screwed up enough as it is...
I pulled my head back and looked down in her direction. I felt her head turn upward toward my face.
Wait... Okay, I take it back. Do it.
No… I shouldn’t…
As her face lifted toward mine, I thought I detected a slight smile on her lips… Her perfect, pouty, full lips. Her eyes were tightly shut, as one does when one gives a big hug. She looked happy… Genuinely happy… And she was in my arms.
Oh MAN... This is a big mistake.
GODDAMMIT! Quit being so wishy-washy and tell me what the hell to do!
I AM. Pull back -- NOW.
My head slightly lifted back.
… Shit. What the hell. Go ahead and do it.
Wait – what?!?
Do it. We want to.
… I hate you. I really, really hate you.
Fine, hate me. Just... Kiss her.
My heart beat faster. My hands flattened against her back and I inhaled deeply. My head lowered. My lips grazed her cheek, then her nose. I felt her move her head slightly… It was hard to tell in what direction or why. I was heady and slightly dizzy and euphoric. I tilted my face downward. Suddenly, my lips found hers.
The room grew hot. The backs of my eyelids glowed bright yellow. My knees were weak and suddenly, I felt like the bravest, most courageous human being on the planet. It was… Interesting.
But not for long.
I opened my eyes just as I felt her hands on my chest. With as much force as her frame could muster, she pushed against me, all the while making a sound that sounded like a fire alarm deep in the back of her throat.
“Ohmygod…” she said, nearly hyperventilating. She began scanning the room, trying to figure out where she was and what the hell had just happened. I began… Well, I just stood there, dumbfounded.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit…
What? What is going on?
OH MAN… I TOLD you not to do this!
WHAT?!?
You NEVER listen to me! I must have said “Don’t do it” at least a thousand times!
Yeah – and you totally negated that by telling me to go for it at least another thousand times!
SO!?!
SO?!? What do you mean, “So!?!”
I’m your SUBCONCIOUS! I dredge up confusing shit all the time! You’re supposed to IGNORE that stuff and make the right decisions! You’re the one who’s receiving all the input and processing it – you should have known this was going to happen!
AGGGHHHHHH! You… YOU MOTHERFUCKER!
WHAT!
I swear to GOD, I am going to start huffing gasoline and kill you! Model cement, gasoline, Scotch Guard... I'm going to inhale them ALL! I’ve had it with you!
Fine. Do what you want, you overdramatic princess – right now, you need to say or do something – and fast.
“I… I… I…” I said, sounding like a toy machine gun. Beth just made a beeline for her desk. She grabbed her bag, turned toward the door, and began barreling toward me.
“Beth!” I yelled.
“Move,” she stated as she shoved me aside with a stiffarm that Jerome Bettis would be proud of.
“No,” I said, and I reached out and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her toward me.
“Let GO!” she snapped. She jerked back and whipped around toward the door.
“No no no….” I said, following her out of the room. “You… Wait… Let me explain…”
“Nothing to explain,” she said, marching down the hall without looking my way. “Leave me alone.”
“I… I’m sorry…”
She kept walking.
I chased after her. "Wait... BETH! I swear, I didn’t mean to…”
She kept walking.
I tried to keep pace. “It was stupid!” I yelled. "I wasn't thinking! Can you... Just WAIT a second!" I stopped moving and planted my heels.
She kept walking.
She was about 100 feet in front of me when I yelled, “GODDAMMIT, I made a mistake!” It echoed throughout the hallway and cascaded across the building, personifying the message and really driving the fact home.
She turned around slowly. “So did I,” she said.
Even though it sounded like a whisper, I felt it deep inside my head, my chest, my legs… It hit me like a crushing wave and left me utterly devastated. She took three steps backward, turned around, walked out of the building, and left me standing there shrouded in my own confusion and guilt.
The next morning, I woke up at my usual time of five o’clock. I stretched in the usual ways, placed my feet in their usual place on the floor, and began about the usual motions of my usual morning pattern. I took a shower, I put on some deodorant and brushed my teeth, I got dressed, and I grabbed my bag and walked out the door after kissing my mom and hugging my dad.
The thing is, you couldn’t tell from looking at me just how much effort I was putting into actually placing one foot in front of the other to go through those motions. Each and every one of them was a sheer force of effort to enact. I had to consciously flex each muscle to get them to do the simplest of tasks… Take a step, stroke the toothbrush, put food in my mouth…
I was terrified. Today was going to be the worst day of my entire life.
As I walked to school, I played through my mind just about every single scenario I could imagine taking place that day. Beth will have told Mrs. Cowart, for sure. Mrs. Cowart will definitely move me out of the afternoon sessions and into the morning sessions with her, Walter and Mike. I might even be forced out of the class entirely.
Of course, we had security cameras throughout the school, so naturally someone – probably Dr. Schaf – will have seen the tapes of Beth and I fighting. Who knows, someone was probably standing outside of the door videotaping the kiss through the little chicken-wire-enforced window.
God. This is going to be across the entire school.
Everyone’s going to know.
The Kasey Cline puking on me thing? The Amanda attempting suicide thing? The Jennifer accusing me of rape thing? Yeah… None of that shit was going to compare to what I was about to face when I walked into that building that morning.
Black Tuesday, indeed. I was SO fucked.
“Morning,” Mrs. Daughtry said as I walked into the art room.
“Hey,” I said as I threw my bag onto the art table and plopped into the seat.
“Huh,” She said as she walked over to the far sink. “Rough walk to school?”
“You could say that,” I said.
“Well, it’s not raining,” She said. “So count your blessings!”
“Yeah,” I snapped as I placed my head on the desk. I just KNEW it was coming.
There was an easy silence in the room for a few moments, then Mrs. Daughtry broke it with, “Well, whatever’s troubling you… It’ll all work out. It always does, right?”
I looked up. She had a usual, calm smile on her mature and experienced face.
“Yeah, I’m sure it will,” I admitted. She turned toward the sink and began washing the paint out of her brushes.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t out yet. But it would be soon.
Other kids began showing up. The school began to take on a dull hum as the sound of hundreds, and then over a thousand, students began to fill it. Having finished their extra-curricular writing assignments, Mike and Walter walked into the art room and took their seats near me.
“Hey,” Mike said.
“Hey,” I said.
“So uh…” Walter said.
Oh God… Here it came…
“Where were you last night?” He asked.
“Huh?” I responded.
“I tried calling you last night at least 100 times,” he stated.
“Yeah, me too,” Mike added. “Where were you? Why didn’t you answer?”
“Oh, uh… I was…” I tried to say.
Suddenly, Rod came crashing through the door, nearly tripping over his own shoes as he raced in. “You guys… Come look…” He said, nearly out of breath.
“What is it?” Mike asked.
“In the hall… Come look…” he said, panting.
Oh shit. NOW it was surely going to hit. I bet someone saw the video and printed pictures and posted them in the hall. I bet someone saw through the window and videotaped it and put it on the video monitors in the main lobby. I bet… Well, pick the worst possible thing that could happen in relation to my mistake, and that’s what was playing through my mind.
We all got up – me a little more slowly, since I had this incredible weight bearing down on my shoulders – and went out of the room and walked toward the front of the school to find…
…Someone had spray painted “Class of ’95 RULES” on a huge banner and hung it up in the main hallway.
“… Someone tried to out-prank us!” Rod stated as he pointed at it.
I can’t be entirely sure, because I only had a first-person point of view of the event, but I think that all four of us sneered simultaneously.
“Lame,” Walter said, his lip curling.
“Yeah,” Mike responded. “Ours is going to be WAY better…”
“Wow,” I said with a VERY huge sigh of relief, “That is just pathetic.”
“Yeah, well,” Mike said, “Get ready to be called up to the office… You know they’re going to ask us about it.”
“Yeah, well… I hope they do it during 2nd period,” Walter stated. “I wouldn’t mind missing French.”
“Yeah,” Mike responded, “But we have a test in 2nd period, so I hope…”
His voice, along with every other noise around me, faded away. My focus turned from the pathetic banner hanging in the hall before us to the short, somewhat grunge-styled student teacher who was walking toward my group from the far end.
I panicked. My heartbeat immediately doubled in rate. I probably began to sweat. I clinched my fists and my anus. I wanted to run… Run so far away.
But I was petrified.
She approached us. “Huh,” she said as she looked at the banner, then toward us. I tossed my eyes toward the floor… Remarkably, they didn’t bounce back. They just stayed there.
“Yeah,” Walter said nonchalantly. “Kinda… Sad, isn’t it…”
“Yeah,” Beth replied. “Rumor is, it was you guys…”
“Figures,” Mike said. “But we’re not this lame.”
“I know,” she said. “I told the other faculty that.”
I couldn’t look up.
“Well, see you guys in class,” she said, and walked away.
I never bothered to look and see if she looked at me.
The morning went on as normal school mornings usually went. There was homeroom, which I spent in the office sorting mail as I did every morning my Senior year. And I thought about finding another job to do so I could skip first period English… But for some reason, I just had to go. I had to see what nefarious, heinous bullshit awaited me as punishment for my being a colossal jackass the day before.
Nothing happened.
Like… NOTHING. Beth taught as usual. I kept my mouth shut – not “as usual,” but I don’t think anyone minded the departure from course. Mrs. Cowart sat in the back and assessed Beth’s performance. Walter and Mike kept handing me notes with stupid cartoons drawn on them. Rod dropped things.
Class ended, and I expected some sort of… Something. This was surely when Mrs. Cowart would come up and tell me I was going to be joining her for morning sessions for the next few weeks until graduation. Or perhaps a stern talking to by the both of them, with Dr. Schaf and Mrs. Jones and, oh, I dunno… My parents joining us. Or maybe Beth would just walk up and punch me.
Nope. I just got up and walked out. No accostment, no confusion, and no drama.
I spent the rest of the day ducking out of the classes I normally ducked out of, either finding work to do in the front office or hanging out in the Art room (except for the small time I spent in the Dance room). And all the while, one thought sat squarely in the middle of my head:
She’s not going to be there.
The final bell would ring. I’d talk to a few folks I knew, stop by my locker, maybe say hi to Officer Brown as I made my way to the English office, and Mrs. Cowart would be there. Or Mr. Schaf. Or maybe, the room would be empty and a note would be taped to the door… Or maybe, that hidden video camera footage would be leaked and screen captures would be printed out and hung throughout the hallway and I would be mortified as the entire student body stood in the hallways and laughed and pointed and I would run out of the building and her boyfriend would be perched on the roof of the gym with a high caliber sniper rifle and BOOM HEADSHOT—
“Hey,” Dr. Schaf said as he walked into the front office’s copier room.
“Hey,” I responded.
“Whatcha doing?” he asked, grabbing a ream of paper from the top shelf.
“Making copies,” I said in my best Rob Schnieder voice.
“Cute,” he replied. “At least you’re not causing more trouble in Mrs. Key’s class… It’s been a long day, and I don’t think I could end it with yet more Peacockian hijinks…”
“Nah,” I replied, still somewhat in my daydream state, “Just working in here.”
“Say…” he said with a slight lift to his tone.
SHIT. Here it comes. He saw the tape. He knows me and Beth were fighting. He saw the kiss. He’s going to punch me and tell my dad and I’m going to join the Navy.
“You don’t know anything about the banner thing, do you?” He asked.
“Uh… No,” I replied.
“Hrm…” he said contemplatively, “Didn’t figure you did. You’d probably try to one-up them if you’d known it was coming… Alright, carry on then.” And with that, he left the room.
And the final bell rang.
And I talked to a few people I knew in the hallway, and I stopped by my locker, and I said hi to Officer Brown as I made my way to the English room, and…
“Hey,” Beth said from her desk.
It’s a fortunate thing that you can’t hear shock and surprise, because if you could, I’d have blown out every window in the building and possibly her eardrums.
“Uh… Hey,” I said with a high-pitched squeak in my voice.
“Ready to work?” She said.
“Yeah,” I replied as I plopped into my chair.
“Here you go,” she said, and handed me a piece of paper, on which was printed the words “Five pages on the correlations between the state of the world in the novel Fahrenheit 451 and our current society.”
“I, uh…” I said with a studder, “I’ve done this one.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “But I’m kind of out of ideas, so… There you go.” She took her seat at her desk.
And that was it.
I wrote the paper. I handed it in and got a nice little red check mark for it. I looked at her, she looked at me, and an uneasy smile was shared.
And so it was the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. And after the weekend, the pattern continued. I went to school and kept my head down, Beth handed me assignments I’d already done before, and I did them with little to no complaint. We settled into a standard student-teacher relationship… If only for two and a half weeks. And aside from my group's senior prank utterly devestating the pathetic banner prank that was pulled the week before, nothing else eventful happened -- especially between Beth and me.
I really was a coward.
Graduation came, and I went through the pomp and the circumstance of sitting on the field of Tara stadium while wearing a ridiculous outfit so I could walk up and hear my name announced to the applause of about thirty people. The only remarkable thing that happened that night was that I decided to be a showboat and kiss our principal, Mrs. Jones, on the cheek as she handed me my diploma. She smiled and the crowd laughed and we hugged.
We tossed our caps and Mike, Walter, Rod and I laughed and shared a moment together as our families came down to the field for hugs and pictures. And of all the people I could have shared fond “This is the end” memories with and reminisce about football and wrestling and pranks and art show awards and past girlfriends and bad dates and whatever else, the only person I really wanted to see was Beth.
I wanted to tell her how amazing she’d been to me. I wanted to apologize for being a fucking moron and taking ridiculous liberties with our friendship. I wanted to let her know how much she’d affected me, how I couldn’t believe that – finally – a teacher who didn’t already know me like Mrs. Daughtry did saw something worth molding and shaping inside of me. She took a huge chance on me and it was greatly appreciated.
I wanted to say so much. But my last words to her that year as I left the English office on the last day of school were “See you tomorrow.”
See you TOMORROW? It’s the last day of school, you fucking moron…
Yeah… Sorry… It was habit.
Well go back in there! Say you’re sorry, say you had a great year! Say you are glad that, even though you screwed it up, you really appreciated her friendship! Say SOMETHING!
I’ll say it at graduation… I can’t go back in there now. I’ll look like a fucking retard.
And “See you tomorrow” didn’t already make you look like one? What’s there to lose?
Just… Shut up. Please.
Yeah… Okay. Just walk away from it. Great. Just don’t get mad at me when I bring this up in a few years, when we’re reminiscing about our influences and why we write and whatever.
I won’t, I promise. Now, can you please start playing through the last track on F-Zero? We’re playing Mike tonight and I’ll be damned if I’ll lose to him again…
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