I Fell For You At The Cemetery

05.

05

"Shit!"

Sarah blew out a puff of smoke, as she paced around the empty school grounds. She remembered Mammy's words and cursed again. "The old bat gets on my nerves sometimes."

She sighed, running her fingers through her open hair. It was a little warmer now and the sun shone through the thick haze of clouds. Maybe Mammy was right, she admitted to herself. Maybe she was suffering from depression. But isn't that normal? Aren't you supposed to react this way when you've lost someone you loved?

She threw the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under her shoe. Everything would have been perfectly fine, she thought bitterly, if only Steve had listened to her. If he had been careful enough, which he never had been, none of this would have happened.

"Damn you, Steve," she muttered under her breath and walked back towards the school building.

----

Joey froze when he heard someone moving about in the house as soon as he stepped inside. The house was supposed to be empty since his dad had resumed coming back home after eleven. He assumed that it was a thief and was thinking about calling 911 when someone called out his name, causing him to jump.

"Joey?"

He recognized his dad's voice after a second and sighed in relief. "Dad. Wait, what are you doing here?"

He followed his dad's voice into the kitchen and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. His dad had his reading glasses on and a cookbook in one hand. Joey tilted his head. "Uh, what's going on?"

His dad looked up from the book. "Just thought I'd...whip up something."

"Okay," Joey said slowly, his brows furrowed. "But how come you're home early?"

"Oh, you know," his father sighed, looking away from Joey. "There was hardly any work at the office today so I decided to call it a day."

Joey raised his eyebrows. "And you decided to cook?"

"Well, yeah, you know," his father stammered and scratched the back of his neck. He glanced at his son. "I burned the meatloaf twice," he admitted in a quiet voice, as if informing him of some more tragic incident. Joey blinked. He was really confused by his father's behaviour. Never in his entire life, had his father gone and done something like this. He was trying to make it up to Joey and Joey smiled a little at the man's effort.

"Meatloaf?" He questioned as he leaned against the kitchen door. "Why don't you try something else?"

The man shrugged. "Like what?" He then pointed to the book in his hands. "Everything's so complicated or too fancy in here."

Joey chuckled. "Okay, for starters, how about you make an omelette?"

"But it's two in the afternoon."

"So?"

His dad nodded after a while. He was a punctual man and liked carrying out things in the perfect order. Joey turned and walked towards his room. "I'm gonna go change."

"Sure."

Joey closed the door behind him and took his jacket off. He tossed it on the bed and sighed. Sarah's cold expression was still clear in his mind. He, once again thought about their first meeting. Did he even have feelings for her or was it just sympathy? He rubbed his forehead. "Damn, why are my feelings so complicated?"

That afternoon, Joey and his father didn't say much as they sat at the dinner table. But they both felt the undeniable absence of one person whose chair was empty and throughout the meal, Joey caught his father sighing and stealing glances at his wife's chair.

----

"A surprise test?" Collin exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his chair and Sarah resisted the urge to smile at her student's reactions. She simply nodded. "I need to check who is actually listening to me while I'm teaching and who is dozing off." She said that last part as her brown eyes paused at Joey for a second before they moved away and he rolled his eyes.

Typical teachers, he thought to himself.

Sarah started to hand out the sheets and when Joey received the paper, his eyes widened. When he looked up, Sarah read the expression on his face and shook her head a little. Typical slackers, she thought to herself.

The period went by too fast for Joey and every time he looked over at Collin for help, he would shrug and Joey would look away, annoyed. He caught Chloe looking at him once and she blinked and looked down at her paper, a smirk on her face. I bet she's glad I'm suffering, Joey thought bitterly.

Sarah was keeping a close eye on the students as she continued to walk between the rows.

When she was passing by Joey's table, she paused for his paper was blank and he was looking at it with a dumbfounded expression. She bent down a little and whispered in his ear. "You never pay attention, do you?"

He jumped a little when he heard her voice and turned back to look at her. Their faces were only inches away and Joey's heartbeat sped up at the lack of distance between them. Sarah too, froze but then suddenly straightened up and walked to the front of the class. She didn't walk by Joey's seat again for the rest of the period.

When the papers were collected and passed onto Sarah's table, Joey had only managed to answer a few questions. All of them were guesses. He walked out of the classroom along with Collin, who was complaining about how he was going to fail in all of his classes. Joey glanced back at Sarah and saw that she was busy arranging the papers. He wondered what grade would she give him. He would be lucky if he even scored a D.

----

"Hopeless!" Sarah slammed the papers onto Principal Haley's desk, an angry expression on her face. "Absolutely hopeless!"

"Hmm," was all Principal Haley said as she continued to type on the computer.

"I mean, I was up all night grading these papers. And while some of them were good, others were completely crap."

The principal nodded once. "Such affection for your students."

"Seriously though, these two in particular need some major spanking!" She pulled two papers out of the pile and passed them towards the old woman, who looked away from the computer screen for a brief second and took the papers from Sarah's hand.

She fixed her glasses on her thin nose as she looked down at them. "Hmm, Kevin Louise and Joey Harding? They failed, I presume?"

Sarah folded her arms across her chest. "Precisely. That Kevin kid couldn't even differentiate between a simple clause and a phrase! He even misspelled the word adjective."

The principal smiled. "I would suggest you giving these boys some serious tuition. They really need it, by the looks of it."

She raised her eyebrows. "Me? Tuition? As if I don't see enough of these kids at school."  The last thing she wanted was to have Joey Harding inside her house.

"I would increase your pay."

"Not taking the bait," she said, rolling her eyes. "Never in a million years."

She shrugged. "Well, that's a shame. I would have added an extra five thousand bucks to your salary but if you don't want it, there's nothing I can do."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "Fine," she said through clenched teeth. "But I want advance!"

Chapter 05 to be continued...