Smoked Success

13.

I mean, I expected anyone to ask about my age, just not him. Well, I haven't come to here to hide my age, I don't think there's a shame in being young. I make eye contact with him, noticing his eyes are gray. He's the first person I ever see with grey eyes, and oh my they're so beautiful.

"I'm twenty-three, happy?" I say, cutting that eye contact.

He laughs, as if my age were a funny number. I do not seriously get why the whole class started laughing. Is my button up stained? Is it something in my hair?

"What's so funny?" I narrow my eyes, checking if there's anything on any part of my body.

"He's actually older than you are, miss." A girl says, and I can see she's trying to be polite, I think her name's Rebecca.

This is actually worse than anything that has ever happened to my during my whole entire teaching career. A student older than you, that's new. I mean, I expected very low chances of that to happen, but now that it did, boom, the bomb has exploded. He doesn't look older than me though, he seems so young for god's sake.

The rest of the hour resumed with me talking and trying not to look embarrassed. I didn't talk to Andrew at the end of the hour for his behavior, I'll just avoid him till the end of times. I'm currently at home, this day was really one of the longest. I didn't tell anyone about that coincidence, but I bet it has gone around the whole university already. No one's home, so I decide to go for a run. I wear a t-shirt, a pair of leggings, running shoes and just storm off.

This is the first time I run since I've left London. I used to run once a week for half an hour, but that's it. I hated it, but it let me throw my thoughts behind. I'd literally run as if every step I run, I drop a thought, and it does help. It is sort of dark outside, but it's not horrible. I plug my earphones in my ears, set a timer for forty-five minutes and start.

It's been two months now that I've started teaching, and I've already gotten used to it. I just avoid as much as possible unprofessional contact with any student, because I still remember how embarrassing that day was. Christian and I haven't met each other so far though, we've called and all. It doesn't feel the same, but guess I'll have to get used to it if I want this. I've started to wear jeans, since dresses started getting boring, and that's what I'll be doing today. I wear a white tank top and a navy classy blazer, I'll probably go for a pair of converse today, I'm very tired. Makeup's the same, typical coffee and there I am going down. I have started taking driving lessons, but I'm still not done, three weeks left. It's this day where I have two hours of each class, I should be ready to survive.

Whilst I'm heading to class, I smile to teachers, being the polite me. I get in business economics' room, as usual and wait for it to be eight a.m. Hannah's sending Oscar and I pictures of her three a.m. work party. I have a really interesting life, I have noticed. And here are my freshmen.

"Good morning class," I smile at them, hoping they're starting their day great, "hope you've already started your projects since we are presenting them next week, known as two weeks before Christmas."

Their project was so much easier than the juniors' one, they only had to make a prototype and a description with a tinge of advantages and disadvantages. I'm excited to see what's on their mind, to see how creative they are and what will be the most used method to show me their prototype.

Freshmen, check. Now it's break time, I use it to sort of socialize with the rest of the pedagogic crew, but I decided to use today to update some of the posters I have in my room, like what we've done in the syllabus so far and what's left, predictable test days, etcetera. Strangely, five minutes before the break ends, Andrew appears. He used to always be late, what is going on? The thing is, since I'm sort of short, I'm standing on a chair.

"You need some help with that?" He asks, giving me some tape.

"Why are you here early?" I am as direct as possible, not planning to take this anywhere else.

"I didn't come here for the class, it's just that the break was worthless so I decided to go to class early." He says casually, looking at his phone.

As if I'm going to believe that.

"Who told you I'm stupid?" I narrow my eyes, getting off the chair.

"Nobody, I'm serious." He shrugs. "A twenty-seven years old doesn't lie when they say the break's shitty."

Twenty-what? Is he serious? Why on earth would he be in university at that age? I swear you could say he's only 20 if you don't know him. I don't reply to him, instead, I check out my phone quickly to see how many notifications I'll have to see by the end of the day. Great, more pictures of that party, and none I have seen. Sometimes I think this was a mistake, but others, I think it was the completely right decision. I give him my chair to sit on whilst his classmates get in. I smile and reply to those who're saying hi.

"Class, next week's the presentation, I hope you've started." I announce, next week is very exciting for me but terrifying for them, I know. Much more stuff seem clearer to them after I've explained, but you still do not know what to expect. I can hear a knock on the door, and before I get to open the door, Andrew does it for me. It's the marketing teacher, but with him, there's Smith. Yes, the Smith, the one I met in New York.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your class Miss Styles," Mr. Lockingham smiles at me, "but this is an alumni that wanted to say hi to his old classmates."

Mr. Lockingham's in his mid forties, he's divorced and has one daughter who's on his ex-wife's custody. He told me that teaching got so important to him that he forgot about his house and would spend days at work without going home, which was the reason of his divorce.

"I don't mind." I look at Smith, who was smirking.

"I'm pretty much fine from here, Mr. Lockingham," Smith states to his ex-teacher, "I'll meet you later."

"Thank you Miss Styles." The teacher says as he gets out of the door.

Smith gets closer to me, "never thought anyone'd replace Mr. Worthington." He gets the whole class to laugh, except for Andrew, who seems sort of angry.

"Juniors, Jessica has helped me a lot, you better be treating her like a princess." Smith declares, smirking at me. He gets closer and hugs me, which is very unexpected of him, and he does something expected, touch my butt. I don't want to make a scene out of it, so I just smile uncomfortably and pretend nothing happened.

"Class, have 5 minutes with Smith and we'll resume our class." I tell them, hoping Andrew'd say hi to him so I sit down a little, since I'm sort of tired. And apparently, he isn't interested, he just continues on doing whatever he was doing on his notebook.

"Haddad, I miss you bro." Smith calls Andrew, smiling at him. "Where have you been?"

Andrew looks at him, "leave me alone." I notice lots of tension between both of them, but I won't ask, it's non of my business whatever happens outside of this building. And if there's a rivalry between them, I don't think Smith would appear to UCLA every month or anything, so no angry students.

"I'll be here," Smith whispers hugging me, this time not touching my butt. "you have my number."

What on earth? I don't understand whatever's going on, but I'll fake a smile and hope for everything to pass. I won't even talk to him, hopefully, I don't know what he thinks is going to happen later, but that won't happen. I have a boyfriend who loves me, and whom I love, and that's not going to change.

"Back to wherever we stopped." I say loudly, making the class stop talking.

Oh my god, I thought I'd never get out of that building, glad I did. I'm in the cab at the moment, and I really wish to sleep for some reason, but it's only Monday for god's sake. I unlock my phone to look at Hannah's pictures. Many selfies of her, free products she got, and why on earth is she sending pictures of a couple making out? I keep on scrolling, the person does look so familiar to me, I know them, I swear. I zoom in, trying to see if I'm hallucinating or something. Is that who I think it is?