Verboten

“Um, hey, sir.”

Jack glanced up from his desk, throwing down his red pen when he recognised the figure in the doorway. “Alex! Come in! Hold on a sec…I have your book here somewhere…” Jack fumbled over the papers and books on his desk, spilling several of them on the floor in the process. He cursed loudly, forgetting his student was in the room, and scooped them up messily, all but chucking them back onto his desk.

“I have my book, actually, sir,” Alex said shyly. Jack froze like a rabbit caught in headlights, a pen in his mouth and random papers in his hands.

Jack calmly removed the pen from his mouth, and with as much dignity as he could muster, replied, “That would explain it. Thank you. Shall we begin?”

******

It was about an hour into the catch up session and Jack was pleased with Alex’s progress, and with his intelligence. True, it was a one on one lesson, which naturally meant that less time would be needed to cover each topic, but even with that borne in mind, Alex was making headway in a remarkably short gap of time. He was focused and quick-witted.

Jack pushed his glasses further up his nose and tapped his pen against the desk rapidly, humming slightly as he finished reading through a Year Nine’s essay on the causes of the French Revolution. Alex was scribbling something down on a sheet about the Potsdam Conference and frowning at his paper.

Jack added the essay to a stack of other essays, grabbing the pile, “I need to take this to the office, I’ll be right back.” Alex looked up and nodded his confirmation, then immediately returned to his work.

Jack hurried out of the room and down the corridor, slipping into the office and filing the essays into the Year Nine drawer. He turned back to leave and locked the door behind him, the key sticking in the old lock. “Bloody old school,” he muttered as he strode back down the corridor, pushing his classroom door open with his back.

“Can’t even afford to get the locks changed,” he said vehemently under his breath, slipping the key into his pocket with his phone. “How are you getting on?” He addressed the question to Alex, who now had his hand on his forehead tersely.

“Alright,” the teenager mumbled without looking up, “it’s hard.”

“It’s meant to be,” Jack agreed. “I usually get students to do it in pairs, so no wonder it’s difficult.” He approached the desk and settled down onto his wooden chair, taking his glasses off and tossing them down on the oaken surface, leaning over to see how Alex’s work was. He frowned.
Alex’s handwriting was normally neat and smooth, curling over the lines printed on the paper, but it was messy here, and waved up and down. It was rough and scraggled, written in shorthand, not at all inkeeping with Alex’s usual, meticulous notes.

“Alex?” he said softly, upon realising that the teenager had dropped his pen and was now cradling his head in both of his hands. “Alex?” he repeated, louder, and then tentatively touched his hand to his shoulder.

Alex jerked as if a bolt of electricity had struck him, and Jack made a calming, shushing noise and removed his hand. Alex curled his legs up underneath him on the chair and linked his arms around the front of his shins, and burrowed his face into his legs. Jack could hear ragged, irregular, painful breaths being sucked into Alex’s lungs, and slid off his chair so he could crouch in front of the boy.

“Alex? Alex, can you look at me?” Jack waited for any sort of reply, and when it was clear he would not get one, tried a different tactic: “You need to breathe deeply, Alex, in and out. I know it’s really hard right now, and I know you feel like you’re going to die, but if you breathe deeply the feeling will be over quicker.” He made sure to keep his tone measured, even, calm; he saw Alex’s shoulders relax minutely at his firm instructions and he attempted to make his breathing more regulated,
struggling against his panic attack.

It was a good few minutes before Alex spoke: “It’s…can’t do it…die…”

Jack understood the broken fragments of his speech. “I know it’s hard, but you can do it. I know your chest feels very tight and you feel like you’re going to explode from the panic, but you will not die. You will be fine, and you will be fine even sooner if you just keep trying to breathe deeply and slowly.”

Alex unfolded his body, letting his legs fall to the floor and his arms collapsed brokenly onto his lap as his breaths forced themselves into a regular pattern.

“That’s it…well done…” Jack murmured, ensuring his tone was reassuring. He reached out again to Alex, this time lying a hand on his hand. Alex started but this time less significantly, and he didn’t shudder away from his touch.

Suddenly Alex threw himself from his chair and onto Jack, his arms wrapping around his slender frame. Jack mirrored his actions, knowing that Alex wasn’t in his right state of mind right now, and above all else needed comfort.

Hesitantly, wondering whether this was trespassing into the No Man’s Land of teacher-student relationships, Jack reached up to stroke through Alex’s hair, humming softly into Alex’s ear.

He could feel Alex nuzzling into his neck, and settled down into a more comfortable position, gently ushering Alex into his lap. Definitely crossing some sort of boundary, he thought. Right then, he didn’t care; Alex was a scared boy in need of protection.

Alex’s breathing eventually slowed down to normal, and he began to stop rocking backwards and forwards so rapidly. Just as suddenly as he had collapsed onto Jack, he had scrambled up again, and had run to the door, pausing only to gather his jacket and bag, and then he stumbled out of the door without a word backwards.

Jack staggered to his feet, a dead leg hindering him, and rushed as best he could to the window that overlooked the school gates. He saw Alex hurrying out, his cheeks bright red, and deduced that Alex was either upset or embarrassed. Jack groaned and flung himself into his chair. He grabbed his marking for the night and shoved it blindly into his bag, heading out of the door in much the same fashion as Alex had done minutes before.