Behind Classroom Doors III (Student/Teacher)

CLXXXVII- The People We Leave Behind

Song- Youth By: Glass Animals

A/N: @TheIanPatrickhas a new story out! Check out Breaking Utopia (Updating regularly.) 

A/N: I'm sorry for taking so long to update! I've been dealing with some personal family stuff but I hate to disappoint you lovelies! Please vote and comment if you liked the chapter! Enjoy my lovelies <3

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Ten minutes later I gather Matthew, Jack, and Katie for dinner. There's some unresolved tension between the separated couple, but Jack pays more attention to his nephew. "Are you excited for school to start?"

Matthew nods happily, "Yeah, my friend Isiah will be in my class."

"Just don't get in trouble for talking too much. I don't want any calls from your teacher this year." Last year Shawn got calls three times in one month because Matthew and Isiah were "distracting the class." Personally, I don't care. He's a kid, and there's a fine line between right and wrong. Talking to your friends doesn't seem all that in the grand scheme of things. When/if he starts becoming violent, or rebelliously disruptive, then I'll be worried.

"Mr. Louis tried to move us to different desks across the room last year, and Isiah wrote me messages on the white board so he could keep talking to me." Jack laughs at matthew. He genuinely is a good kid with a good heart. I just hope I don't mess him up like me or Shawn. It's no secret our parents weren't perfect. Shawn's was a substance abusing, guilt tripping mom and my parents were absent for most of it. I never want to be that way with Matthew, he deserves the world.

"Okay, eat your pasta, don't play with it." Katie tells him. She's become another mother figure for Matthew. She's with him more than us, but I don't mind. Matthew is happy and I can trust her with his life. I couldn't ask for a better person to look after him when we're at work.

Speaking of work, I want to stop doing tours and meet and greets for my book. Jack was right, it's just opening up old wounds that should be healed by now. I just need the right moment to tell Shawn.

Shawn takes charge of the topic. "So, Jack, when do you think you'll come back to work? Everyone's been asking about you."

I notice how Jack's eyes shift from Matthew to Katie, then to Shawn. "Soon, but I don't mind working from home." I know what Shawn minds. He prefers his brother back at the office, working together. That's another thing though, they'll never work directly together again if we move to Brookview.

The rest of the dinner is quiet and Jack excuses himself to the patio. I follow him up as he lights up a cigarette. "Woah." I said. "Since when do you smoke?"

Jack chuckles as he exhales, "Just tonight, don't worry."

I shrug and lean against the railing. "I have a question."

"As long as it's not about Katie-"

"-It's not." I take Jack's silence as a gesture to ask away. "Are you still upset with Shawn?"

I don't think he saw that coming. I can tell by the way his shoulders tense and he looks away. "I don't want to be, but I think there's some resentment there. Not for me but...for you." Jack pauses to take a hit off his cigarette. It lights up as he inhales. "He's just always fucking shit up and at some point he needs to grow up."

I smile, not because I agree with Jack though. I just wish I had siblings sometimes. "You're his big brother. He's never going to be grown up to you."

Jack flicks the ashes over the railing. "Yeah, you're probably right. It's just, at first I was being a little petty over the book ordeal. But now, ever since that shit with Marin I-" He pauses. "I can't help but feel like he's always screwing shit up." Jack stands with a guilty look on his face. I might not agree that Shawn screws everything up, but I know where he's coming from.