My Teacher Is a What?

~Maya~

I was glad when lunch came, because Ms. Crystal invited me in to sit with her in class, I was excited, and couldn’t wait to see her.

My heart beat fast as I approached her classroom, and saw that she was sitting there grading papers. I walked in shyly, and closed the door behind me.

“Hey Ms. Crystal,” I said with a shy smile.

Ms. Crystal looked up at me, and said with a smile, “Hey Maya, come have a seat, it’s nice of you to join me for lunch today.”

I nodded, and sat down at the front of the desk, and said, “Yea, I didn’t want you to have lunch by yourself, so what’s up?”

She looked up at me, and said, “Well, I wanted to thank you today for helping me get some of my stuff in order here, you were a great help.”

I blushed, and said, “No problem, Ms. C, I wanted to help, and anyways, you seemed like you were struggling.” I then took a bite of my bologna sandwich, and smiled at my teacher.

Ms. C then went back to doing her grading, and a few seconds later asked me, “So Maya, tell me about yourself, you seem like a nice girl who would have a high record of being the most honored student in school.”

To this remark, I frowned, and said as I took another bite of my sandwich, “I don’t think so Ms. C; you are the first person I’ve ever talked to during my years here.”

When she heard this, her head snapped up, and she looked serious through her glasses, and said, “Really, that doesn’t sound too good Maya. A girl your age should already have a lot of experience with socialism. Is it that you are too shy to talk to anyone?”

I shook my head, and said, “It’s because I don’t bother…no one talks to me, so I don’t talk to anyone.”

She then said, “But how do you do in your classes then May? Is it fine that I call you May?”

I nodded smiling, and then frowning again, and said, “Well, normally the teachers don’t bother calling on me, I think it’s because they hate me or something.”

This got Ms. C’s full attention, she said with a serious tone, “Then how are they grading you if you don’t participate in class?”

I only shrugged, wishing we could change the subject. I didn’t want to tell her about my situation at home, because that’s probably where this all going to end up, and then she’ll feel sorry for me. I don’t need other people’s pity; I already had a bad life as it is.

Ms. C then asked, “How are your grades in your classes? Are you failing or doing well?”

I thought for a moment, and said, “I’m doing well in some of my classes; the only class I’m struggling with is Math.”

Ms. C then smiled, and said, “It’s always the subject that everyone is having trouble in. What part of Math are you struggling with?”

I frowned, and said as I looked down at my lunch, “Fractions…I hate fractions.”

Ms. C then laughed, making me look up at her. She already took her glasses off, and was smiling brightly at me. I didn’t even notice that she was in front of me, were incredibly close.

“Well,” she said, twisting my blue and black hair around her finger, “Maybe I can help with that.”

I blushed, and said, “Uh, yea sure.”

She then moved away, and asked as she walked over to the chalkboard, “Do you have your math work with you?”

I smiled, and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

I then grabbed my backpack off of the dusty floor, and took out my math homework that I was supposed to be working on for homework.

I then looked up to see Ms. C writing on the board. It was something that was dealing with her next English class. I smiled, and then decided to look over my homework to see what was easy, and what was difficult.

“Hmm,” I heard Ms. C say, and I looked up to see her staring at the English book.

“What’s up Ms. C?” I asked, giving her a worried expression.

“Oh, it’s nothing, just trying to figure out how this next lesson will go,” she said as she erased a few sentences and started on new ones.

Before Mr. Conrad left, the only topic that we were about to start studying was poetry. It was Mr. Conrad’s favorite part of English. I could see why, he usually would talk in poetry, and everyone would act as if it was amazing, but Mr. Conrad wasn’t fooled, he was too used to old school.

I checked the clock to see that I only had 30 minutes left of lunch break. I sighed, and I heard Ms. C asks, “What’s wrong May?”

“I just noticed that I have 30 minutes of lunch break left,” I said staring up at the clock.

Ms. C then turned, and said putting the chalk down, “Well, why don’t we make use of the time then, shall we?”

I nodded, and she came over to look at my homework. As she did so, I could feel her hot breath on my neck, making my stomach flutter, and my face turn red. I was so close to her, and already I was being affected.

As Ms. Crystal told me what to do, she kept insisting that I use a calculator just to make sure that I have the write measurements. I would refuse and say that I always used my head, and the calculator wasn’t my priority, but soon I gave in, and found the calculator to be useful.

After we finished, we just sat and talked about random things, until Ms. C came up with the sexuality problem, I started feeling uncomfortable.

“Alright, you don’t have to answer this question, but what do you think you? Are straight or gay?” Ms. C asked, her voice sounding strange when she said, ‘gay.’

I only shrugged, and said, “I’m still figuring myself out, so I don’t know yet.”

I gave her an assured smile, but it didn’t seem like that helped, because she tried to put pressure on me to tell her more. I then said, “I’m not really comfortable with talking about this subject.”

She nodded as if she understood what I was saying, and then the bell rang. I sent her a fake smile before packing up my stuff, and walking out of the classroom towards my next class.