Unexplainable Thoughts

My feet shuffled across the yellowing old laminate flooring as I weaved my way throughout the classroom to my unoccupied desk.

The familiar noise of books hitting a table sounded as I practically fell into my seat. A sigh left my mouth as I glanced around the room, uninterested in any of the immature antics of my fellow classmates.

Homeroom always sucked. It was always the same thing.

All the stupid assholes that I've been stuck with for the past 3 years sit around and do nothing, while our moron of a teacher stares at his computer. I've always wondered what he looks at... but then again, maybe not.

For some strange reason, when I became a freshman, I got placed into Mr. Ward's homeroom. And from that year on, he has been my advisor, which means that I have stupid conferences that are pretty much useless, and everyone in my homeroom gets to meet with him on the first day of each semester.

Surprisingly, everyone other than myself in his homeroom is either an idiot, a moron, an asshole, or a creepy weirdo.

Oh, and one more thing, I'm the only girl.

Ya, I know. You probably think that they all fawn over me and try to ask me out and stuff like that. That happened on the first day of freshman year.

Let's just say that second semester, they got a few choice words to come out of my mouth.

Now, they know to leave me alone.

After a minute or two, I noticed that Mr. Ward's chair was empty, along with his desk.
And I mean totally empty, not just without Mr. Ward.

The only thing that was on his desk was a calendar, a new-looking grade book, and one lonely pencil.

Where's the computer? Where's the couple of Diet Coke cans that seem to reappear every single day? Where's the funny little empty jar with "Remains of Former Students" etched into the side?

That's not normal... All of Mr. Ward's things were on his desk on Friday last week. Why wouldn't they be here now?

Anyways... Where's Mr. Ward?

Almost as soon as that question popped into my head, my eyes readjusted to see that someone was now sitting at Mr. Ward's desk.

I glanced around at the other students, seeing that none of them had taken notice of the stranger, before I found myself trying to get a look at the new occupant of Mr. Ward's desk chair.

His face was set in a calm expression, contrasting against the chaos that was prevalent in the classroom. His hands moved fluently, almost gracefully, as he moved papers from his messenger bag to rest on the desk, which now held a laptop and a cup of writing utensils.

A mop of dark brown hair was placed atop his head in a messy but also casual way. His bangs were long enough that they fell to partially cover one of his dark-colored eyes. My vision fell too short for me to actually be able to see the color of his eyes.

He was naturally tanned, allowing the slight redness of his cheeks to shine through in an almost cute way, making his cheekbones even more prominent. His face came together with luscious, pouty, soft pink lips and an angled chin. His posture was perfect, his back straight, his head held high even as he was sitting in such an uncomfortable chair.

As he stood, I was not expecting him to be as tall as he was. Without actually standing by him, I guessed his height was around 6'3", considerably taller me, considering I was about an inch below 5 feet tall. (Yes, I'm short, I know that.)

From his face and the way his body was built, he looked to be in his early twenties, fresh out of college maybe. His slim body was clothed in black dress pants, a pin-striped navy blue button-up, and shiny black, patent leather oxfords.

I could feel my stomach twist as I took in his full appearance, seeing that he had pulled up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal buff arms.

He scanned the classroom, over and over and over again, with no emotion on his face whatsoever, scaring me slightly. Then, after an agonizing five minutes, he coughed, barely audible to my ears, to which everyone was insanely quiet and rushed to their proper seats.

I felt my face contort in confusion as I looked around the room, searching for the reason as to why they would have shut up so quickly.

I looked to the door to the classroom to see no one there.

What the hell? Did the principal come in without me noticing?

I shook my head lightly, clearing my head before a strangely familiar, yet totally new voice spoke. His voice was velvety, deep, and smooth, with a slight lisp that made me smile lightly. It was comforting to me in a way that I had never felt before.

"Now that we're all settled in. I'm sorry to tell you that Mr. Ward will no longer be a teacher here at Rosaline Carter High School. He took a job at another school, so I am going to be your homeroom advisor, as well as your new English teacher for some of you for the next half of the year. My name is Mr. Reed, and I hope we'll have a great year together." His face held a look of poise for the first part of his short speech, but after his eyes glanced at the back of the room, gazing at me for a few seconds longer than necessary, his lips formed a smirk.

Let's just say that I tried not to make eye contact with him from then on.