The Dark of the Night More Inviting Than the Sunlight

Jeph's Point of View

"Okay, Ms. Stevens and Mr. Allman, what you did today in class is unacceptable!" I said glaring at the two teenagers in front of me.

"But sir it wasn't us--!" Sky started to object, but I was quick to interrupt her.

"You're not a very good liar Ms. Stevens. So you might as well shut your mouth," I said with a smirk. She looked up at me with her steel blue eyes surrounded by black eyeliner, her mouth hanging slightly open in faked shock.

"That was so mean!" she pouted, placing her hands on her hips. I tried my best to put on a serious face and not laugh at her exaggerated body language. It was always amusing talking to this girl because you never knew what she was about to say or do next.

"It wasn't us," the blond boy named Quinn smirked, putting a red lollipop in his mouth. I raised an eyebrow at him, took the lollipop out of his mouth and tossed it into the rubbish bin. "But that was my lollipop!" Quinn objected angrily.

"Yes Allman, it was your lollipop. My classroom, my rules," I smirked. "So... where were we?"

"You were glaring at them looking very strict, saying that what they did was unacceptable," Dawn informed me with a little smile. It felt so good to see the girl smile again. She sat on top of the desk, waving her feet in the air, looking adorable.

"Oh, right. Thank you Ms Jones," I said flashing her a smile before I turned back to her friends. "So you're seriously that immature that you thought it was fun to put thumbtacks on my chair, hide all my markers for the white board, rearrange my papers I spent hours sorting, pass notes, toss wrinkled papers at me and be generally troublesome the whole lesson?" The blond boy was still smirking at me while the dark haired girl tried to put on an innocent face. I looked behind them to see that Dawn was holding her hand up to her mouth to hold back the laugher that was building up inside her. Her cuteness amazed me and I had to look away to not be affected by her infectious cheerfulness.

"Well, I guess it was kind of childish of us, but come on we were just having a good time," Sky tried, leaning her head to the side and gazing up at me with her innocent looking eyes.

"Well that good time just earned you both a two-hour detention, Wednesday next week after school," I informed her, writing it down in my pocket calendar. "Don't be late," I added when she opened her mouth to object.

"Well, I'm not going," that Allman boy said glaring at me. Finally that smirk was washed away from his face. Victory!

"Either you're going or I'll call your parents," I informed him in a definite voice. He gave me the finger and left the room, quickly followed by Sky. Dawn was by the door when I spoke her name. She turned around to look at me with her amazing blue eyes. "Yes, Mr. Howard?"

"You seem to feel a lot better now," I commented with a smile.

"Yeah, I do feel a lot better, thank you," she half smiled. She was frowning slightly, biting her lower lip and her eyes expressing a whole bunch of emotions. It looked like she was thinking about a million things all at the same time.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked her frowning. Her face was so hard to read, she seemed so happy just a minute ago, but now I wasn't sure anymore.

"Oh sorry, my brain does that sometimes," she laughed if off, blushing slightly.

"Does what?" I asked her amused.

"Overwhelm me with thoughts," she explained like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Oh okay," I said. "Are you going to be alright now? I mean, it seems like your mind has been elsewhere the last couple of weeks. A lot of people have been worried about you, you know."

"Really? There's really no need to worry about me. I have my down periods every now and then, just like every other person." I knew that she wasn't telling me the whole truth, there had been something going on in her life the last couple of weeks, and I was determined to find out what. "Seriously, I'm alright," she laughed.

"Okay, that's good," I responded. "Have a nice weekend."

"You too," she smiled and left the classroom to join her friends.

"Jeph! What the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to burn down the whole building?" Branden shouted at me, snapping me out of my thinking. I pulled the frying pan away from the cooker as soon as I realized that I had burnt the food. "I'm so fucking hungry right now I could kill you for this!" Branden muttered coldly as he started looking through the refrigerator for something else to eat since I just ruined the dinner.

"Sorry Branden, my mind was elsewhere," I sighed and put the frying pan down in the sink.

"What were you thinking about anyway?" he asked casually as he started to make himself a bunch of sandwiches. "Is it a girl?" he added wiggling his eyebrows at me and I slapped him playfully.

"It's Dawn-" I started and he shouted out 'I knew it!'. "For fuck's sake Branden, let me finish! It's nothing like that! I'm worried about her that's all. Something's not right."

"Oh... Yeah, she's very misleading in the way she acts," he agreed taking a bite of his thick sandwich consisting of about five slices of bread. "Try not to worry about it. It seems like she's going to be alright now. Didn't you see how happy she seemed today? She was actually laughing when I was talking to her."

"That's exactly what worries me. It's like she knows that everything is going to get better, like it was already planned," I tried to explain.

"What do you mean by that? That she makes herself feel bad for a period of time and then act as if nothing has happened?" He was obviously confused.

"I don't know what I mean... Something is just not right," I sighed and started to make myself a sandwich. "It's so frustrating not knowing what's going on. I really want to help her."

"You're her teacher Jeph, have that in mind," Branden reminded me. "Maybe you should try not to interfere with her private life so much, it's just not professional... On the other hand though, as a teacher it's your duty to make sure that your students are doing alright," he added with a cunning smile.

"So will you help me then?" I asked hopefully, biting my sandwich.

"If she starts getting worse again, I definitely will," he promised me. It's moments like this that reminds me why Branden is my best friend. He's just great. "Well, I'm off to the skatepark. You better start correcting all those essays right now if you want to get it done anytime this year," he laughed. "I can't believe that you even bother to give your students homework and essays when it takes you ages to correct them all. If I was a teacher I'd let them do whatever, maybe have a test every now and then and get paid for it."

"That's exactly why I'm a teacher and you're not," I replied with a smirk.

"Yeah, whatever. See you in a couple of hours," he said grabbing his skateboard.

"See you." I spent most of the evening to read through the assignments I'd given my senior students. It was highly amusing to read what Daniel Whitesides had come up this time. That kid has an unlimited imagination, just like his friend Quinn Allman. I decided that this time he'd earned himself a C- because after all it was less errors than the last time, but the content didn't correspond to the task at all.

'McCracken' the sheet before me read, this was going to be interesting. It was the first time he'd actually bothered to hand in an assignment. I was taken back when I had finished reading and had to check the name in the right corner of the paper twice to make sure that it really was his. It was extraordinary. Robert McCracken, who would have thought that you could write like this?

I heard the door to the apartment open and Branden greeting me. I rubbed my eyes and glanced down at my watch; 11.54. I blinked, had I really been sitting correcting tasks for almost five hours?

"Are you still doing that shit?" Branden asked walking over to the refrigerator.

"I just finished," I told him, finally putting down my pen and stretched. "Hey, look at this!" I exclaimed as I threw a glance out the window. It was a boy and a girl walking down the street holding hands, both of them my students. The boy a senior student and the girl was one of my juniors.

"So Sky and McCracken, huh?" Branden said glancing over my shoulder. "How sweet!"