How Jesse Got His Karma

forty-six

I hear a knock on my door right after the end of my class and I quickly walk over to the door and open it wide to see Karma grinning back at me with her bag slung over her shoulder. She's wearing her natural hair in a low-bun as per usual, I'm sure this is her chosen style of comfort and I'm glad. It looks amazing on her.

Her face nearly clear of makeup, with a few acne scars and dark spots gracing her forehead but I barely noticed as I took in the shine of her lip gloss and the brightness of her smile.

Not wanting to stare for too long (or longer than I already have), I clear my throat

Smiling back at her, I move over and allow her to step into the room.

When she walks into the room she heads to her usual seat, as she drops her bag on the table next to her seat and then goes to my desk grabbing the sheets of paper that I had planned for her to help me grade.

She looks up at me as she sits at her desk and furrows her eyebrows at me and only then do I notice that since I let her in, I hadn't moved from my set and I was still standing at the door looking at her in admiration.

Shaking my head, I grin nervously at her and run my hands through the front of my hair, twisting the knob of the front door making sure that it's closed.

Moving to walk towards my desk, I sit down on my chair and open a drawer on the right side of my desk to grab a hair tie so I can hold my hair back because I've been pushing it out my face all day.

Once we both get situated the atmosphere around us becomes silent as we both get into grading. That's usually how it is whenever she's here and I hate it. I mean yeah we might have a conversation here and there but for the most part, it's just silence.

The last thing I'd want to do is make her uncomfortable but I enjoy her presence when she's here and when we do talk, she really is a joy to talk to and to be around.

I don't want to let the whole time she's here be awkward so I choose to start a conversation, "So did you have a good day today?"

She looks up at me and the grin she had on her face, "I mean yeah today was okay." she nods as she collects a stack of papers, lightly organizing them by grabbing both sides and gently hitting the bottom against the desk before laying it back down on the desk, grabbing another paper, looking down at the desk again "How was yours?"

Smiling to myself I say quietly, "Better since you walked in." I say but I didn't know she could hear me when I heard her lightly say, "Hmm?"

I look up at her as she raises a furrowed eyebrow and looks at me, waiting for an answer

Coughing lightly and clearing my throat, I say, "Yeah, It was a good day for me today too. Same old, same old. You know?"

"Yeah I get it." she sends me another heartwarming smile as she looks back down at her papers, "I hate the whole school routine thing. If I could take high school classes online. I would." she laughs lightly and I can't help but join her.