Controlled Demolition

One thing I liked to do when I was at the apartment by myself and while my mom was at work was to watch trashy reality television. In a weird way, it was fun to watch other people’s drama instead of dealing with my own boring life. Watching the Kardashian’s or teen moms was a way to just put your own life in perspective and make you thankful that you weren’t the one pregnant while still in high school. Plus it was just entertaining. I’ll admit, I got a few laughs out of watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

I was in the process of finding something to watch after showering and getting my homework done, when there was a knock on the apartment door.

When I opened the door I was surprised to see Mr. Wentz Pete standing there with a pizza box in his hand. (And why wouldn’t I be surprised? It’s not like I always have history teachers showing up at my apartment with pizza at 8:00 p.m.)

“Hey,” he said, giving me a nervous smile. “Sorry to show up unannounced. I’m sure a teacher is the last person you want to have bothering you.”

“It’s fine,” I said, even though I wasn’t entirely sure if it was fine. I mean, he’s my teacher. This is just weird. “What’s up?”

“I, uh, ordered this pizza cause I haven’t had time to go grocery shopping yet,” he said. “And I was gonna just eat it by myself, but that sounds depressing, so I definitely thought eating it with my student would be much better.”

“That is definitely weird,” I said, eyeing the pizza box. “But I love pizza, so I’m willing to try and get past the weirdness of it.”

And that’s how I ended up sitting in my living room with my history teacher on a Saturday night, eating pizza and watching the Kardashians. Did I mention that this was weird?

What was even weirder (is that even a word? I don’t think it is, but whatever) is that after the initial awkwardness, it actually wasn’t that bad.

I learned a lot about Mr. Wentz Pete (I needed to remember that I can call him that outside of class), such as he had been in a band with some of his friends and the only reason he had ended up a history teacher was because the whole band thing didn’t work out. He told me he was hoping that because he had more free time (aka he didn’t have a wife anymore… he didn’t say this, but it seemed implied) he’d be able to work some more on music when he wasn’t busy grading assignments and such. I then reminded him that he didn’t give out assignments, so what was he grading and he just laughed.

I couldn’t help but grin as he laughed, his eyes crinkling and lips spread wide. I’d never noticed how white and straight his teeth were before. He ran a hand through his hair and checked the time. It was almost midnight.

“Does your mom always work late?” he asked.

“Usually,” I answered. “I don’t think she’ll be done until 4 in the morning today.”

“That must suck,” he said.

“I’m used to it,” I replied, smiling as he stood up. He yawned, stretching his arms over his head.

“Well, if you ever get bored being on your own like this, you’re always welcome to come visit,” he said. “I know it’s a bit unorthodox, with me being your teacher and all, but… I don’t know.”

“Same to you,” I said. “I must say, this was weird at first, but you’re not so bad.”

He smiled and I followed him to the door of the apartment.

“Just remember, it’s Mr. Wentz at school.” He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

“I’ll remember. Thanks for the pizza.”

He smiled again and went into his apartment.

I went to bed with a smile on my face, picturing the reaction of all the girls at school if they knew I had just spent my evening with Mr. Wentz.