Cracks in Anchors

“Here I am, here I am, nomaneul wihae sesangkkutkkaji, gwbufewyfgbreuigt.”

“That sure isn’t French or English.” I spun around and came face-to-perfectly crafted-face with Mr. Styles, who stood behind me with a smirk toying at the ends of his lips. I tried to laugh the embarrassment off but instead a strangled coughing sound fell from my mouth and I saw worry cross his face.

“Hey, are you okay?” I liked the fact that he seemed worried; that his eyelashes fluttered a little bit faster and the curves of his lips drooped, that he put a rough hand on my shoulder and that he didn’t even notice the students who bumped past him as they rushed to their classes. And maybe that was when I started seeing him as Harry, not Mr. Styles, and maybe that’s when those warm feelings started to creep inside my bones and run through my veins.

After I recovered from my fit and fixed my black cardigan, I smiled up at Mr. Styles. “Yeah I’m fine, just a coughing fit, no big deal.” It really wasn’t, I’d been having coughing fits since I was a child and once when I was nine and we went to the doctors to see if he could fix it the doctor made the mistake of telling my mother that I had the fits because of her smoking. Basically it was all her fault, in simple terms, and let’s say we never went to that doctor again.

Before Mr. Styles could say anything else I brushed by him and planned on heading towards pre-calc. Which sucked major asshole - not kidding. You try taking pre-calc and tell me how you like it. I walked away with a binder pressed against my chest, sneakers pounding on the tiled floor and my hair waving behind my back. I was only about a step away from the threshold of the classroom when Mr. Styles came rushing by, stopping abruptly in front of me so I almost ran into his back. But I did touch his back with my open palms, which felt like a little glimpse of what heaven would be like. I reeled back and looked at him with quirked eyebrows.

“I have to get to class, Mr. Styles.” And I expected him to move to the side and say sorry and let me enter the room filled with brain-dead students and malfunctioning calculators, but he just stood there staring at me with those doe-eyes of his.

“Actually, um,” He coughed into a closed fist and shook his head so his hair ruffled against itself, “I was wondering if you’d like to skip pre-calc? I mean, I’d like to help you with French-well that’s what I was going to say, but actually I just want to get to know the school and town better, and what’s better than having a student tell me?”

It was fucking weird - a teacher asking a student to skip class and tell him about all the dirty little secrets we had in this town. As I was weighing the pros and cons, the biggest pro of all outweighing all the cons - missing pre-calc - I gazed behind Mr. Styles’s head and noted every expression in the room; from the alert ones of the nerds, the bored ones of the kids who tried to listen but didn’t have the ability to care, and the closed eyes of the kids who couldn’t give a fuck and were already asleep.

I turned back to Mr. Styles and shrugged, telling him why not and asking him to lead the way to wherever he wanted to go. He smiled like he was glad I took him up on his offer and grabbed my binder from my hands, holding it against his hip and turning on his heels.

“I’ll call your teacher later and tell her you were with me.” I wondered if Mr. Styles knew that the calc teacher wouldn’t be happy with him and would most likely call the principle, but then I decided that every female teacher in the school, whether old or new or married, swooned over him and could be struck into submission. So I wasn’t worried about that, I was worried about the fact that he brought me into the parking lot, sending me a smile as we stood next to a silver SUV.

“I assume you like McDonalds? Not fancy, I know, but I am a teacher after all.” His British accent made my knees weak and I bit my lip to tell myself to get it together - he was just being friendly. Hell, he wasn’t even that older than me, in actuality. I just nodded my head and got into the passenger seat as he held open the door. He closed it with a light thud then got into the drivers seat, turning on the car with a simple tap and turning his head so he could back out. And when he looked back I couldn’t help that my eyes betrayed my mind and loomed to where the veins pressed against his milky British skin. I watched as the blood pushed through them, how they stretched against the skin; how they sprawled over the whole left side of his neck and how his skin contracted when he swallowed.

But too soon he turned back around and we were speeding down a winding, desolate road that led to the local McDonalds. He turned on the radio and an oldies station came on, rough voices pushing past the speakers and Mr. Styles humming along. After a few silent minutes of me staring out into the woods, I turned my attention back to Mr. Styles.

“So, Mr. Styles, what do you want to know?” But before I could finish he chuckled and said, “Call me Harry, we aren’t in school now.”

“Harry, what do you want to know?”

It felt weird calling him Harry even though he asked me to. It rolled of my tongue with hesitance and left a bad taste in my mouth. But maybe it was just because he was a teacher and I’d never once called a teacher by their first name. I guess it could be said that this was the first time I really got on with a teacher, really liked them and really wanted to tell them things about me. Like why I was the way I was; why I liked to be looked over and not dwelled on. A knot tied itself around my intestines and I couldn’t help but feel like Harry deserved to know - like he had some claim on me that no one else had. It actually kind of scared me.

But before I could think about it any longer we pulled into McDonalds and Harry parked close to the entrance. We got out - him holding the door open for me once again - and walked side-by-side into the deserted fast food shop. Christmas lights were already hanging from the ceiling and a fake tree was placed in a far-right corner. I actually liked it, Christmas was by far my favorite holiday and I never thought it was too early to get into the spirit.

“What would you like?” Harry’s gentle voice ripped me from my thoughts and I looked at him leaning against the front counter with his hands in his coat pockets.

“A coffee is fine.”

That was the first time I ever saw Harry outside of school and out of his teacher persona. Instead of standing straight he slouched slightly and his shoulders were more relaxed and a sly smirk always graced his face. His scarf was nearly undone and swayed against his neck, his jeans seemed less new and he seemed more like a young adult than a teacher. He seemed like a boy, not a male. He seemed liked Harry. His voice was more gruff and teasing and he was more relaxed in the things he did, like ordering two coffees and leading me to a booth and sliding the coffee over to my awaiting hands. He sipped at his own and wrapped his hands around the steaming cup.

“What are the kids like out of school?” That was the first question he asked and I took another sip before placing it on the table and responding.

“I don’t really know, I don’t hang out with any of them.”

“Then who do you hang out with?”

“Her name’s Hellene, she doesn’t go here though.”

His tinkling laugh filled the restaurant and the skin around his eyes crinkled together, which made me laugh in turn. “And to think I thought you didn’t have any friends.”

That one joke, that one joke that wasn’t even that funny, made us huddle over and laugh and spill lukewarm coffee on the table and loose our breaths.

But that’s what I liked about Harry, and even to this day his laugh and corny jokes were the best part about him.

After we recovered Harry cleared his throat and asked again, “So do you like it here or what?” It took me a second to actually come up with an answer: did I or did I not like it here? Sure, the sunset was pretty on Summer mornings and snowflakes fell gracefully on cold December nights, but the people inside its confines ruined that beauty. They polluted the town and infested the walls with greed and lust. They bashed people down and walked over them like they were the sidewalks and were meant to be walked over. I guess I was one of those sidewalk people.

“I like the beauty of it, but the people aren’t that great.”

Harry took another sip of coffee and let his eyes wander past the frozen-over glass window. “What are the people like, then?”

“I don’t want to ruin your image of this place, but they suck. They like to walk all over people like me and hate them and spread lies about them just because they don’t like my shoes or hair or voice. They like to laugh at me when I walk down the hallways and when they think I can’t hear their annoying fucking voices.” I didn’t even notice I swore and either Harry didn’t either or he didn’t care. “They make fun of people like me just because of what we look like and how we act. They treat us like scum when really they are the scum. I fucking hate all the people here.”

I watched Harry’s shocked face; his shining eyes and quivering upper lip.

“They are scum, because from the few days I’ve known you, you seem like an amazing girl, love.”