Veronica (teacher x student)

2

The underclassmen made it so obvious there was a party last night. Most of the freshman and sophomores either wore sunglasses or had dark circles under their eyes. The day went by pretty fast up until English. I walked into Ms. Wright's classroom and she passed out a worksheet that looked like Arabic to me. She taught most of the class and let us have work time near the end. Everyone in the class seemed to not struggle with it, but I barely made it before the 3rd question when the bell rang. I knew I couldn't do it on my own so I stayed behind for help.

"Can you help me with the worksheet right now or are you busy?" I ask her.

"I will always make time for you," she says, "What question are you on?" we talk over the worksheet, she actually helps me and I begin to understand it.

"Did you go to the party last night?" she asked. 

Shocked, I tried to reply back, "What party?".

"You definitely went," She smiled.

"Okay, I did, but not for long," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"It wasn't very fun, plus Liam wouldn't stop bugging me," I told her.

"You don't like Liam?"

"Very much not. You've only had him for 2 days so you don't know how he actually is," I tell her.

"I used to go to parties all the time too, there was this boy who was so desperate for me," she says.

"What did you do?" I ask desperately for advice.

"I focused my attention on other people," she says softly. We stay quiet and our eyes wonder at each other.

"I'll finish the worksheet at home," I tell her putting all my stuff away into my backpack.

"You can stay longer and I can help you finish," she offers.

"I actually can't, I have volleyball soon and I don't want to miss a second of it," I pick my backpack up and walk out the door quickly.

The next morning I felt peppier than usual. I decided to wear a white turtle neck and a patterned skirt. I drive to school and feel nothing out of the ordinary except I saw Ms. Wright walking into the school weirdly. Before I could take a step into the school, Liam runs up to me and stops me.

"Who are you wearing that skirt for?" he teases me.

"Not you," I reply trying to walk around him. He grabs my wrists before I could actually get past him.

"What do you have 1st period?" he asks.

"A class I'm not skipping," I answer, knowing his motive.

"You sure?" He asks.

"Yes," I say firmly and pull my hands away from him as hard as I can. I walk into the school and meet with my friends.

"I thought my public speaking class was going to be fun but it's actually so boring," my friend, Emma says.

"The opposite is with my English class, it's actually so fun," I say nudging Nathan. We laugh and talk more before the bell rings. The entire day I was just waiting for my English class to come.

As usual, English class comes and we get homework. Ms. Wright definitely gave us enough time in class to finish but I pretended like I was stuck on a question so I could stay after class. The final bell rings and I walk over to Ms. Wright's desk.

"Can you help me with the homework? But, I have to go to the bathroom first," I say.

"Alright, I'll still be here when you get back," She says smiling. I almost skipped out the door but I hold myself back. I walk to the bathroom and look in the mirror. I thought about Ms. Wright's words, in order to try to be interested in other people I need to look like it. So, I rolled the top of my skirt in to make the length shorter. I touched up some of my mascara, but I kept it light so it still looked natural. I make my way back to Ms. Wright's classroom. I look at her as soon as I walk in and I see her eyes scan my body.

"Bring your paper over to my desk," she says to me. I walk to my desk pick up my paper and hand it to her. While she looks over my work, I sit on the edge of her desk. She looks up from my paper and makes hard contact with my eyes. 

"Is there an occasion today?" she asks, her eyes darting from my skirt back to my paper.

"Well, no. I just like dressing up and the coach likes us to dress up for game days," I tell her.

"What position do you play in volleyball?" she asks her eyes finally parting from my sheet and up at my eyes.

"Middle," I reply.

"So you're strong?" she asks.

"Very," I exaggerate. She continues checking over the questions and helps me finish them. By the time we got done, I took my paper back to my desk and started putting it away.

"You know, if you ever need help getting away from Liam, you can always use me as an excuse. Just say you need to do some extra credit for this class or call me over if I'm close," she walks over to my desk.

"You might get a little tired of me, I need every excuse I can get," I say. I glance down at my watch and notice there are only 5 minutes before volleyball practice starts. Ms. Wright opens her mouth to say something but I hurriedly grab my bag and run out the door before she can say anything.

"Sorry, got to go to practice!" I yell at her out the door and I run to the locker room. I run past the gym and see everyone warming up. I throw the locker room door open and change as fast as I can. I push the locker room door open with my back while putting my hair up. Before I turn into the gym, I see Ms. Wright leaving her classroom. She notices me looking and smiles at me. Before I can react to anything I just run into the gym and over to the huddle by the coach.

"Holmes, you're lucky you made it just on time or you'd be running suicides," The coach snaps at me. The practice was hard today, it was full of conditioning and drills. Coach called me over after letting everyone else go.

"Why were you almost late today?" She asks.

"I needed help with English," I tell her simply.

"I do want you to succeed with your academics, but you're our star middle hitter. We cannot lose you, you hear me?" 

"Yes,"

"Good, now you get some good rest for tomorrow, and don't be messing around with the football boys, they're nothing but trouble," She teases me.

"Roger that, Capitan," I salute her and leave the gym. I pack all my stuff up and leave with two of my friends. As we walk out to our cars, we see the football team still practicing.

"Look at Ryan!" One of them squeal. I leave them to obsess over the boys and leave.

I wake up in the middle of the night. It's nearly 01:00. I toss and turn in my bed. There is no point trying to go back to sleep at this point. I walk out into the kitchen. I fill a glass of water and begin sipping it while looking out the window. The window looked out into the street. The street was so pretty yet eerie with the street lamps on and small puddles in the road. Soon I see a car come down. When it comes closer I realize it's the one I've been seeing multiple times. I set the glass of water on the counter and run out the door. My bare feet slap on the puddles as I run to the car circling around.

"STOP," I yell trying to see who's driving. When I'm only about 10 feet away, the car begins to pick up speed. I begin to run faster.

"STOP," I yell again, my feet and ankles soaked from the puddles. The car leaves my street and starts speeding down another. When I get to the end of my street, I give up. I try to pattern my breaths and look down. I realize I'm standing in a puddle so I step out. I take a few more breaths and look down to see I'm in another puddle. Confused, I realize it wasn't a puddle from rain, it was blood.