Bodies of Water

Samara leaned into Dante’s chest and sighed. “It’s just so weird,” she said, pulling at her recently-relaxed hair. “I mean, Mr. Garrett wasn’t the best teacher in the world, but I can’t believe he would do that.” Her dark eyes looked tired—everyone’s did—and her usually smiling mouth was set into a hard line.

Oliver shrugged. It was bound to happen, especially in a place like Sewell Heights High School. Before he moved here, he would have been absolutely horrified if a teacher of his had been arrested on murder charges. Now, not so much.

Dante let out a sigh of his own, wrapping a comforting arm around his girlfriend. “I dunno, Sam.” He left it at that. On any day other than today, he would have been playfully arguing with her about music. He would insist that Rihanna’s rapping skills were nowhere near Jay-Z’s. And she would agree begrudgingly, but swear that Rihanna’s soulful singing made her the better artist any day. They would both turn to Oliver to break the tie before one of them made the long-past-dull joke that he didn’t listen to their music; he only listened to his ‘white boy’ music: Cream, Styx, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Allman Brothers Band. They would all laugh just to wake themselves up.

The bell rang and there was still no teacher at the front of the classroom. Stragglers that filed in seemed glad that they wouldn’t be marked for another tardy. Some of the rowdier students made suggestions that the class party. But not many people really wanted to party. They were all like Samara: wondering where Mr. Garrett had gone wrong. Whispered comments were morbid at best. Would he get the death sentence? How did he kill her? Did he get off on it?

Oliver bit his lip and glanced over to the other side of the room. He caught Tyrice’s eye for a moment before the quarterback turned back to his own group of friends. When he first found Oliver about two months ago asking to ‘try out a relationship’, Oliver had expected to let people know. At his old school, everyone knew about Martin and him. They were the gay power couple. Here, not a soul besides Sam, Dante, and Tyrice knew.

“Oliver?” It was Sam’s voice that brought his attention back. Oliver flashed her a fake grin, one that didn’t reach his deep blue eyes. If she picked up on its lack of authenticity, which he knew she did, she didn’t say anything about it.

Suddenly, the door opened. A young man, maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven, walked in. He wore a mint green button up shirt and tailored black slacks. Oliver glanced at Sam and Dante suspiciously. They looked just as surprised as he felt. Taking a quick survey around the room, the rest of his classmates were, too. The man looked far too rich to be in Sewell Heights at all, let alone teaching for a living.

He swung his bag into the chair at the teacher’s desk and clapped his hands. The room went dead silent.

“My name is Ryan Harper and I’m your new geography teacher until further notice.” His voice was slightly deeper than Oliver expected. His sandy hair, short and rather untidy, made him look young, but the matching facial hair confirmed that he was old enough to be teaching.

Sam shoved her elbow into Oliver’s side and he shot her a curious look. She mouthed something at him, but he couldn’t tell what she was trying to say. She looked pointedly over Oliver’s shoulder and made an exaggerated face. He followed her stare and saw Ty staring back at him. The football player’s eyebrows were pulled together and he didn’t look happy. Oliver felt his face pale slightly before he turned away to look straight ahead.

Mr. Harper scanned the room, his dark eyes behind large glasses that suit his face well. Everything about what he wore suit him well. The mint green shirt he wore with the top button unbuttoned exposed colorful tattoos winding up both sides of his neck. His slacks fit him perfectly, like they were made for his body. Though, looking at the leather bag in the chair at the side of the room, it didn’t look unlikely that they were. Even his shoes, with boxed pointed toes, looked like they cost more than most students’ entire outfits.

“Well,” he said, grabbing a piece of chalk from the board behind him. “Since I don’t know what you do on a regular basis, I guess we’ll just do something fun today.”

Some students started chattering again as Mr. Harper turned and wrote on the board in handwriting that could easily be an architect’s. Geography Bee. Oliver heard Ty’s distinct voice moaning at how boring a geography bee would be. His athletic friends agreed with him—they always did.

Dante and Samara weren’t huddled into each other’s arms anymore. Instead, they exchanged awkward glances between glances up to Mr. Harper at the front of the class. Dante looked surprised still, but Sam just looked uncomfortable. She beckoned Oliver over with a flick of her manicured finger.

“He doesn’t look right here,” she whispered, twirling a strand of hair through her fingers. Oliver nodded in silent consensus. Mr. Harper really didn’t look right in a slagging first period senior geography class.

It wasn’t too terribly long ago when Oliver wouldn’t have been surprised to see this man teaching his classes. Not too long ago, his style was the norm. Not too long ago, Oliver was in his place. He was the one being looked at funny because he just didn’t look right in his surroundings. He’d toned down his suburban wardrobe and ‘posh boy’ talk; he’d started walking with his head down.

Mr. Harper cleared his throat and said, “Now, everyone stand up.” No one moved. “Come on,” he prodded, “stand up.” This time, only a few people stood. Mr. Harper rolled his eyes and sighed. “Stand up before I assign a project that will be worth twenty percent of your grade.”

Dante scrambled out of his seat, and Samara stood up quickly. Oliver rose and slouched into his ribcage tiredly, running a hand through his dark hair. He glanced at Ty in the corner of his eye. Ty looked irritated by Mr. Harper already, his shoulders tense and his lip drawn up in a sneer. Oliver knew he’d have to deal with an angry Tyrice later. It wasn’t something he looked forward to.

“I will ask you a question relating to geography. If you answer correctly, please remain standing. If you answer incorrectly, please sit and start researching the question you got wrong. Understood? Great, let’s begin,” Mr. Harper said, grabbing a pen from his bag. Instead of writing anything with it, he twirled it in his fingers and pointed to a girl in the first row. “Name?” he asked.

“Tanya.”

“Great. Now, Tanya, does Hawaii lie in the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean?”

She paused for a moment. “Pacific.”

“Ding ding, correct,” Mr. Harper said, quickly pointing to the boy next to her.

“Jose.”

“Jose, with how many states does Ohio share a border?”

“Four?”

“Wrong. Five. Write a paragraph on it.” Jose groaned, flopping into his seat and pulling out his beaten geography textbook. Mr. Harper continued around the room, collecting names and asking questions. When he got to Ty, Oliver got nervous. He wringed his hands until his pale skin was even whiter.

“How many countries are in the UK?”

Ty scoffed. “Why the fuck would I want to know?”

Mr. Harper’s face steeled slightly. “Because anyone who’s anyone will know. Now sit down and write.” Ty grit his jaw and sat, flipping his middle finger at Mr. Harper’s back as he continued down the row of desks.

He came to Oliver and the dark-haired boy muttered, “Oliver.”

“Excuse me?”

Oliver sighed. “Oliver,” he said, slightly louder.

“Great. Oliver, what’s the capital of Germany?”

“Berlin.”

He nodded and moved onto Samara, who answered incorrectly and sagged into her seat. Dante answered his question incorrectly, too, and opened his textbook with a sigh.

Mr. Harper went around the room again, and person after person sat in their chairs with agitated expressions. Oliver watched Ty do absolutely nothing but shoot Mr. Harper ugly looks and doodle over his notebook in an attempt to not to any work.

“Oliver?” He blinked and snapped his head up to look at Mr. Harper, who looked a cross between amused and irritated. “What body of water forms a section of Iran’s northern border?”

Oliver closed his eyes and imagined hid dad’s old globe in his hands. Iran formed in front of him and the answer was clear. “The Caspian Sea.” Mr. Harper looked impressed, but went back to Tanya, who still stood.

Oliver answered three more questions correctly before it was just him and Tanya left standing. Mr. Harper pulled them to the front of the room and pulled a notebook from his bag. After flipping through a few pages, he clicked his pen open and started scribbling in the notebook.

“Tanya, which state has the southernmost point: Texas or Florida?”

“Florida.”

“Oliver, what country is the city Chongjin in?”

He thought. The globe appeared in his head again and he gave it a good, hard spin for luck. When it slowed, it landed on a large expanse of Asian land. The name Chongjin started flashing like a beacon. “North Korea,” he said, gently cracking my knuckles. He glanced out past Tanya at Ty, who watched on with an almost smug look on his face. Oliver shot him a small smile and turned his eyes back to Tanya, who answered her question correctly.

Mr. Harper looked at his notebook and flipped through it before he turned back to Oliver. He read off the page, “What body of water connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean?”

“Saint Lawrence River.” Oliver didn’t need a globe for that question. He’d grown up there. His home, his old school, Martin, everything was in Montreal. Saint Lawrence’s waterfront had been the backdrop for his first date. It meant so much to him, and now it seemed like nothing. Just a question in a class geography bee.

Oliver missed Tanya answering her question incorrectly. Mr. Harper turned to him and congratulated him. He blinked and nodded before returning to his seat. It was such a strange feeling for him, winning anything at all. He’d lost so much.

He didn’t hear the bell ring, and it was only Samara poking him in his sensitive ribs that got him up. It was such a strange week already, and it was only Monday. Worse yet, he felt it getting even stranger.

***

“Hey,” Tyrice said as he slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked toward Oliver and his car. Oliver smiled and returned the greeting. Ty glanced around the area, making sure there was no one to see them, before he leaned forward and planted a kiss on Oliver’s lips. Oliver felt his stomach do little flips. He’d gotten them when he kissed Martin, and he got them when he kissed Ty, even if he was only allowed to do so in private.

“What was up in geography?” Oliver asked nonchalantly as he slid into the passenger side of Ty’s beat-up old car. Ty scoffed, turning the key in the ignition.

“I don’t like that new guy. He don’t belong here.”

Oliver couldn’t argue, but he also couldn’t find it in him to agree with Ty’s opinion.