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Everything on the page is the intellectual property of Jessica Williams… Whether you think it’s intellectual or not.
“And that’s what caused the fall of Alexander the Great,” I said as I shut the book on my podium. I looked out at the seven rows of five chairs and smiled at the students seated in them. Most of them look bored, but it’s the glassy fish-eyed look that I’d come to expect from them. I noticed that at least half of them took notes. Looked like I knew who was going to pass my class that year.
“So, for class tomorrow, I want you to answer all of the questions on page 142 and turn them in at the beginning of class. I’m giving you twenty minutes to start now. You don’t have to do it, but at least look busy. I don’t want to hear a word.”
There was no reply but sound of flipping pages was heard throughout the room where some students had begun the work while others were pulling out magazines or books.
I made my way back to my desk. I kept it in the back of the classroom to give me a good view of my students. They were less likely to pass notes and talk if they thought I was keeping an eye on them.
The familiar path I took to the back of the room led me past Alan Burwell and I noticed he’d already started his work. I don’t know why I noticed this in particular, but I did as I took a seat at my desk.
Alan had study hall with me next block. He was a quiet kid who pretty much kept to himself at the small desk beside mine when I hadn’t asked him to do something. He always managed to stay busy the entire hour and a half.
Normally, kids in this school were paired with a willing teacher during their study hall. They more or less just sat around and did homework or ran errands for the teacher. Alan was the first teacher’s aid I ever had because I never liked the idea of a kid hovering around my desk while I taught. He was different. He just sat there being his slightly-nerdy self and concentrated on his work. There was something about that kid that I couldn’t put my finger on. Something about the way he always managed to sit there ever so quietly and not disturb a single thing I did, being as polite as possible. I supposed I had just gotten stuck with a good one.
Alan, besides having study hall and World History with me, was also in my government and economics class. Considering the fact that the school ran on a block schedule and I only taught three of the four blocks available, I spent a considerable amount of time with that kid.
After I was situated at my desk, I started to grade papers. I hated assignments. It just meant more for me to grade, but I learned after my earlier years of teaching that students liked the idea of more work to help get their grades up. I suppose a lot of easy little grades do help and I guess I want to help out my students. I just hate grading them.
They also ate away at my extra time. Time that I could’ve spent with my wife, or at least she claimed I spent more time with my job instead of her.
My wife. I hated my wife. I hated her. It’s almost hard to think her name and not feel fury. Which is why I feel sorry for Kelly Wilkins in my fourth period class for sharing the same name with her. It’s not Kelly’s fault that she shares the name of my slut of a wife, but I couldn’t help but be a little short with the girl whenever she asked me a question.
I suppose it would be a good time to mention why I hate her. We married our sophomore year of college because we ‘just couldn’t wait’. Then I got hired immediately after graduation; Kelly couldn’t do anything with her degree in Classics except become a housewife, and that wasn’t enough for her. She didn’t like that I was always busy with work when she wasn’t so she decided that she was going to do something—excuse me, someone— to keep herself busy.
The divorce was still pending. Every day I went home and avoided seeing her. We only passed those few awkward moments in the kitchen when we both decided that we were hungry. She stayed upstairs in the bedroom and I stayed mostly downstairs on the couch and in my office. Nothing but snide comments were said during the few moments we spent together anymore. I was also still sore that she claimed the bedroom of the house the my parents signed the loan for.
Why was she still living with me instead of moving out? Well, one reason was because in the deluded recesses of her mind, she believed that the house partly belonged to her and she might get it in the divorce settlement. The second reason was because she came back to me the day after I found out, tears in her eyes, asking me to stay as she had nowhere else to go. I didn’t know about number one yet. I supposed I was a good one to let her stay. The third reason was that her creamy little coffee shop lover was going to grad school nearby. Perhaps the biggest reason was because we had to move to this city for my job and she didn’t have any nearby relatives or an income of her own and I was being understanding and didn’t force her to leave when I had the chance. We all make stupid mistakes.
“Mr. Osborne?”
I looked up from Christopher McDougall’s paper that I was half-concentrating on to see Alan lowering his hand. He must’ve had it in the air through that entire inner monologue.
“Yes, Alan?” I asked. I noticed a few different students were looking but they turned away when our eyes met.
“I was just wondering, do you need me to do anything during study hall? I finished the assignment and I don’t have any homework to work on,” he said. He was twisted around in his chair to look at my desk, which was at the back of the room. He had a look on his face that told me he didn’t really want to do anything, but that he needed the busy work. I was surprised he was already finished with the homework. I guessed that he started working before I had even assigned it. I was pretty consistent with giving work.
“You can help me file people’s papers into the folders,” I said, pointing to the three large stacks of unreturned homework on a back table behind my desk. My system: a file with each student’s name. When I graded their homework, I put it into their folder. It seemed like a good idea at the beginning of the year, but it was October now and I was behind.
Alan grimaced at the work ahead and nodded before he turned back around to the front of the room, reaching under his desk for a book.
“It won’t be that bad,” I said with a chuckle as I looked back at the pile. Well, it might have been kind of bad. I didn’t even have them in order by class. Well, he wanted busy work.
“It’ll keep me occupied,” he said pleasantly with a nod before turning around fast enough that his shoulder-length black hair spinning behind him before it rested down on his back.
I shrugged, my eyes lingering on Alan’s back before I forced my eyes back down to Mr. McDougall’s paper.
Alan reminded me of myself when I was in high school. We were in the same boat. I was just as quiet as he was; I had been about as tall and thin as he. I also had a favorite teacher that I spent every study hall with. Well, I’m not vain enough to say that I was Alan’s favorite teacher, but this was his second study hall with me in his academic career. If I’m not mistaken, he mentioned liking the Ramones just as much as I do too. Too bad he has such an awful sense of fashion and looked like those punk rocker kids with their thick-rimmed glasses and Converse shoes.
Alan was a good fifteen years younger than I. He still had the optimistic look of the world that I had lost in the years after college. It seemed to me that he still saw the world a big open place, where he could do whatever he wanted if he put his mind too. It helped to have that outlook as he was openly gay. I hoped he didn’t lose it like I had. I hoped he didn’t find his own ‘Kelly’—‘Keith’ in college.
I finished the stack of papers just as the bell rang. Everyone but Alan vacated the room. He just stood and walked back, passed me, and started going through the papers. I grabbed a second stack and began again.
“I feel bad that you’re doing what I was too lazy to do,” I said as I spun around in my chair to watch him work.
He looked at me and smiled softly, flashing his straight, white teeth. He’d gotten his braces off that past year. “I asked if there was anything I could do. I knew I was going to have to do this for you eventually. I’ve watched that pile get bigger every day. I probably should’ve offered to do it before now, shouldn’t I?”
I felt a smirk rise to my features as the first few students of my next class walked in. Alan was a cute kid. Too bad Kelly wasn’t this considerate. She never asked me if she could help me. She was always on the goddamn phone, talking to one person or another, telling them how much she hated my working all the time. I supposed it didn’t matter to her that my meager teaching salary was what was paying for that long-distance conversation she had been having. Oh well.
“What would I do without you, Alan?” I asked as I leaned back comfortably in my chair.
“You’d be up to your eyeballs in paperwork and you wouldn’t be able to tell that this desktop’s previous owner thought ‘Metallica Rox’,” he guessed with a smirk. He began to pull out the three separate boxes of file folders, lining them up beside him on the floor.
I looked back down at the papers; I had graded only five and now I had to stop as the bulk of the students began to file in. This was the class with the lunch period. This was usually my worst class. Kids were talkative and didn’t like to listen, and, after they ate, they were quiet and sluggish.
“Mr. Osborne?”
I glanced back at Alan and immediately noticed the color that dusted his cheeks. The room didn’t feel warm to me.
“What cologne are you wearing? It smells really nice.”
“Versace for Men,” I answered a moment later, standing up to walk to the podium. I found it in the bottom of one of my drawers. It was a Christmas present from a few years ago from Kelly. I suppose it was time to put it to the use that she had bought it for.
Over the last few months, since I learned that Kelly had been cheating on me actually, I had started trying a little harder on my appearance than I normally had. I bought nicer clothes and kept my facial hair to a tasteful patch on the bottom of my chin. I didn’t look as good as I did in college, but I looked better than most of the guys that I worked with. I wanted to remind Kelly just what she was going to lose when the divorce became final. I guess I wanted her to be sorry that she was going to lose me.
I had toyed with the idea of trying to charm over a student. I wanted to show Kelly that I wasn’t ‘unattractive, not fun, and getting old’. I wanted to prove to her that I too could replace her with someone younger and more attractive.
But my plan hadn’t been working the way I would have liked it. I’m not unattractive, but I suppose I could’ve lost a few pounds. I’m not fat, but the jeans that were loose when I was I was twenty-six were now a little too snug. Maybe the girls weren’t attracted to the slightly chubby older guys. They hadn’t been when I was in high school either. Maybe they also didn’t like the way my hairline was beginning to recede just a little bit or that it was now beginning to fleck with gray or maybe I was being too sensitive about it.
It looked like the only person who was taking any kind of notice in my change at all was Alan. I knew from the compliments that I got from him every now and then about how the shirt I was wearing looked nice or how my new haircut looked. I felt particularly complimented when he noticed the definition in my arms that I had been putting on from my new workout regime. Kelly hadn’t said anything.
Alan would’ve been the perfect person to try to woo and cheat on Kelly with. I think we both would’ve gotten something out of the interaction if it had ever led to sex. I would’ve had a little cutie that thought about me and he would’ve had experience with an older lover. But there were two problems with this scenario. One, I didn’t feel that Alan really wouldn’t get that much out of the relationship, seeing as, two, I’m not gay.
But having said all of this, maybe I should have reconsidered and tried my hardest to find someone that wanted me. Anyone would’ve work. If only I could have gotten Alan to see that I wasn’t such a bad guy to be with. I never would’ve had to worry about this if I hadn’t caught Kelly cheating on me. I would’ve been blissfully unaware in my mediocre life.
I taught for the first thirty minutes before the lunch bell rang and the kids hastily retreated only to come back lethargic. I wondered briefly if their lunch went better than mine had. I had wanted to eat the last of piece of pizza from the principal’s birthday party yesterday, but the Chemistry teacher, Randall, got to it before me so I was forced to eat the heat-up cuisine that I had bought at the market that morning.
I finished the lecture in record time due to the fact that everyone had slowed down for the most part and gave them the rest of the hour to study while I graded papers again, as I had done for the last block. Alan still sat in the back, working through the papers. He was making steady progress. During the last hour and a half he had finished the first stack.
“Looks like you’re doing pretty well,” I said to Alan as I returned to my desk and started grading again.
“Yeah, I’ll probably get more done tomorrow,” he said with a sigh. “I had to make a few extra folders. Not everyone had one and Kristen Thomas had two. Someone is playing favorites.” I could almost hear the grin in his voice as I glanced up and saw Kristen look back. I had almost forgotten that she was in this class.
“I don’t play favorites. Maybe I planned on losing Kristen’s folder and premade the backup.”
“Then you’re a pretty shoddy teacher, Mr. Eric Osborne.”
“That’s bold. Being so familiar with me.” I heard a few smirks rise of from the class as I saw Alan roll his eyes.
“I kept the ‘Mister’. It’s not familiar at all. I’m still holding you in a respectful place.” I turned back at him. He was grinning, his teeth shining once more.
I chuckled. “I suppose so. Now hush and get back to work. Kristen Thomas needs to finish her work to turn in tomorrow so I can lose it.” I got another look from Kristen.
If I could’ve charmed another student, it probably would’ve been Kristen Thomas. She was friendly and kind of a looker. In fact, I was about to begin hinting my interest in her when a teacher from a school a county over was arrested for doing the exact same thing. It scared me away from the idea of talking to her myself. I wasn’t a dirty old man. I could’ve waited for one of the girls to hit on me. I guess I had it in my mind then that hinting at liking a same-sex student wouldn’t get me in trouble as quickly as chatting up a young girl.
Looking back at Alan, I saw his shoulders shake slightly with amusement and he returned to filing the papers.
The silence stayed until the bell rang once more and along with the shuffling of feet, everyone gathered their things and left. I heard Alan stop working with the papers and watched as he walked past me to the normal desk that he took for every class he had ever had with me.
“Mr. Osborne?”
My eyes had just fallen back to the papers when he commanded their attention again.
“Yes?”
“Could I speak with you after class?”
“Sure thing, Alan.” I had wanted to wince. My words were too earnest sounding. But I supposed it didn’t matter. I was a teacher; teachers are supposed to be there for their students.
I found that as I continued to grade the papers, waiting for the bell to ring, that I kept letting my mind wander. I wondered momentarily what Alan wanted. It went from the most ridiculous to the most plausible, in that order. The former went from seedy things that teachers shouldn’t consider, to something as simple as talking about when the next test was.
Luckily the bell grabbed my attention almost immediately. I grabbed my Teacher’s Edition and made my way back to my podium to hopefully drill the three branches of government into the porous, constantly-absorbing minds of the youth in my classroom.
The bell rang when I was in mid-sentence and I hurriedly yelled out the assignment that was due the next day as they filed out of the room. I figured only half of them would do the homework. Most would claim that they simply “didn’t hear you”.
I glanced up as I made my way back to my desk and saw Alan waiting patiently for me as I approached it once more. Again, my thoughts went from the most ridiculous to the most plausible.
“What can I do for you, Alan?”
“Mr. Osborne, I was wondering if we could possibly have a private tutoring lesson before the test next week. I don’t feel like I’m learning as well with the other students.”
I stared at him for a moment. As far as I remembered, Alan’s scores hadn’t really been a problem. He’s made at least B’s on most of my tests. From my last average, his grade was a B+.
“Why? Your grade is fine, Alan,” I murmured as I placed the Teacher’s Edition on my desk. I glanced over as I turned to face him.
“I would really like for my grade to be higher. I wouldn’t mind an afterschool study session. I need to make sure my grades are high. College is just around the corner.”
My gaze stayed on him a moment and I was vaguely aware that I was staring at his mouth and not his eyes. “I don’t know what I could teach you that you couldn’t get from studying the notes, Alan.”
Alan’s fingers rose up and I watched as they began to toy ever so carefully with the necklace that he was wearing. “Well, sir, it would really help to get some one-on-one time with you. Please?”
I began to wonder what kind of help he was wanting. Was he… propositioning me?
His eyes were trained on my face and I felt a cold, nervous feeling in my stomach. “Well, maybe we could help each other out.”
I carefully moved toward him. He didn’t move back. He just looked at me with a slight smile. Screw Kelly. I could replace her with someone younger too. Alan was everything I wanted in a partner anyway and he was here now. I could overlook the fact that he was a man. In fact, it didn’t even matter to me, not really. It would drive Kelly nuts to know that I might be able to be happy without her.
Call me desperate, call me petty, call me whatever you want, but at that moment all I wanted was to do something that made me better. As much as I tried to rationalize the pros and cons for Alan, I knew it was all for me that I was considering this at all. As much as I wanted to hurt Kelly for hurting me, I wanted to feel wanted by someone even more. And here he as, standing before me, those big brown eyes looking at me from behind those thick-framed glasses.
With a careful swoop, I leaned in and pressed my lips to Alan’s. They were soft and more inviting than I had ever felt Kelly’s had been. I felt my own body relax immediately. Alan pulled away.
“M-Mr. Osborne? W-what are you doing?!”
I looked up at him. The horrified look on his face sent me into a huge wave of realization. His wide eyes told me that he had actually wanted to study. The way he covered his mouth with his right hand and gaped at me told me that he hadn’t been propositioning me.
Well, I’m in a world of shit now, aren’t I?