Ignorance is Kind

"So, you really don't know where we're going?" My voice broke the semi-silence that had settled over the interior of Matt's car.

He shook his head. "Nope," he replied, popping the "p" and grinning over at me.

"Alrighty then." I turned and looked out the window. We'd been in the car for almost an hour and I was bored. Not to mention, my ass hurt. See, I have restless leg syndrome and some form of an attention deficit disorder. Me and sitting for long periods of time did not mix. That's why I had such a problem with paying attention in school. My mind would wander from the teacher's topic of discussion to the fact that I really needed to get up and that would cause me to wander off onto various other unimportant things.

My stomach growled louder than the music that Matt was playing (which wasn't actually too loud), and I stared down at it in horror. In my head I hoped that he hadn't heard it. Every teenager knows that having a growly, angry tummy and having people hear it is one of the most embarrassing things that can happen to you.

"Hungry?" he asked.

I looked over at him, eyes almost as wide as his had been earlier when I'd sneaked up on him. "Kind of," I admitted.

"Well, I guess it's time for dinner then, isn't it?" He smiled.

We drove a few more miles down whatever road we were on, and came across a cute little diner on the side of the road. He pulled into the parking lot and stepped out of the car. I sat for a few seconds, mind having wandered a bit again, but was snapped out of it when Matt tugged open my door. He held out his hand for me to take and I wondered to myself what had gotten him so...friendly all of a sudden.

I put my hand in his and he pulled me from the car. We walked into the diner together and he led me to a booth that was in the back. I got the feeling he'd been there before.

We sat down across from one another. The menus already sat on the table, which I thought was cute, and Matt was looking at his. This gave me the chance to look at him. You'd think that I got enough of looking at him during class, but he was so different outside of school; I loved the difference.

He had his lip ring in, which I loved (for reasons I will not disclose). He was wearing a dark shirt underneath a black jacket. The sleeves were pushed up, showing his forearms and the tattoos that adorned them. A small smile was plastered on his face as his eyes raked over the items on the menu. I wondered what he was thinking about; I doubted he was smiling at the thought of having fries.

His eyes glanced up from the menu to me and I scrambled to look down at my menu. I heard him laugh quietly, and I felt my cheeks warm up.

A middle-aged woman with a name tag that told me her name was Meredith walked up to our table with a pencil and a small notepad. "Hello, Matt," she smiled. "What can I get to drink for you and your friend here today?"

"I'll have a Coke Zero," he said. His eyes moved from her to me. "What about you, Hope?"

"Um, I'll have a Diet Coke."

Meredith smiled and wrote it down on her little pad of paper. "Alright. I'll be back in a few minutes to take your order."

I stared down at my menu as she walked away. It wasn't that I was unsure of what I wanted, it was that I knew that Matt knew what he wanted and small talk wasn't one of my greatest abilities. Especially not with him.

"Hope?"

I slowly looked up at him. "Yeah?"

He waited awhile before answering; like he was trying to figure out what to say and how exactly he should say it. "Later," he started, "I really need to talk to you about something. Alright?"

His voice was extremely serious, which frightened me a bit. I nodded. "Alright."

*

After we'd gotten done eating, Matt told me that he was going to take me somewhere. I assumed wherever he was going to take me was where he was going to talk to me about whatever it was he needed to talk to me about. I assumed correctly.

It was after dark. I had really no idea where we were, but it was a deserted area about seven miles down the road from where the diner had been. The two of us were sitting out on the hood of his car. We weren't talking. In the light coming from the headlights of the car, I could see my breath in the air. It brought back memories from when I was younger of pretending to be dragons with Zack. I smiled.

I heard Matt sigh and knew he was going to start to talk soon. I had no idea what he was going to say, and I was kind of terrified. "Okay," he said. "I'm going to say this and I just want to say it. So wait until I'm done before you say anything, okay?"

I looked over at him and nodded.

"Okay, I like you, Hope. I like you- I like you a lot, and I hate it. I can't get you off my mind. I fucking try so hard to just be your teacher. I mean, you're sixteen and I'm you're fucking teacher. I shouldn't feel like this. But every time I close my fucking eyes I see you and no matter how hard I try you won't go away. You're so beautiful, Hope, and so, so smart. I- I wish you were older. I wish you were older and I wasn't your teacher and you weren't my best friend's cousin. I hate wishing that, but I do."

He shook his head and all I could do was stare at him. What I supposed to say? What could I say? His left hand was covering his face, and I could hear him mumbling things I couldn't understand. His right hand was in the space between us, holding himself up. I decided to go for it. I put my hand on his.

He uncovered his face and looked at me, a pained expression on his face. "I'm sorry," he whispered, shaking his head.

I smiled. "Don't be." I leaned over and pressed my lips against his.