Ms.Martin

VII

The sound of my humiliation was the bowling ball hitting all of the pins. I put my head in my hands dramatically as Adrianna came over to gloat. Her score was 260. Mine was like 82.

"In your face, Thomas! I won! I am the CHAMPION!" The brunette was skipping around our table, attracting amused looks from other bowlers. I just started laughing at her silliness.

"You're really competitive, aren't you?" I ask her. We gather our stuff and put our regular shoes on.

"Very. You aren't #4 in your country without being competitive." We've returned our shoes by now and we're going to my car. I turned to her.

"What do you mean #4 in your country?" I'm genuinely curious. You have to be damn good at something to be so far up there.

"Soccer, mon cher." I had to grab onto the car when she spoke in French because my knees gave out. Luckily, she didn't notice. Shaking it off, I get in the car and unlock my phone and hand it to her. She takes it and she tells me that I got a text from "Babe". My teacher hands me my phone with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, ok. That's just my best friend. I'll respond to it later." I don't know why I felt the need to explain myself. She smiles and picks COPYCAT by Billie Eilish. This girl has good taste in music. "So, why'd you move here?"

"Hm? Well, I went to MSU and one day, I heard someone mistake MSU for MSSU. That got me thinking about how different the two colleges were and my train of thought led me to the cities and how they were different. I came down to visit one day and I REALLY liked it. Turns out, the high school was hiring. And the high school is a lot nicer than any others I've gotten offers from."

"Yeah, the new principal fired a TON of teachers," I interjected.

"I heard about that. I applied and they accepted immediately. Dr. Tria is trying to get me to teach French, but I don't want to. It's different when you grow up speaking a language than when you're taught it in class, if that makes sense." I nod my head, thinking about how difficult it is to remember how to put a sentence together in Spanish. I open my mouth to say something but I close it because I don't want her to think I'm stupid. She notices.

"What?" I shake my head. "Say it!"

"Do you think in French or English?" I ask. She just looks at me for a second. Then busts out laughing. My cheeks are burning because of the embarrassment. "I knew I shouldn't have asked!" This makes her laugh even more.

"No, no! It's a good question. Well," She's calmed down, but her cheeks are flushed a little bit. Good god, she's so hot right now. I pretend like I hadn't just thought that and focus on the road. "Most of the time I think in English, just because that's mainly what I speak. When I get really distracted or I'm really angry my thoughts AND my words will slip into French. I've never really thought about it until now actually." By now, we're at the restaurant. It's a little diner close to the dealership. We get out and walk in. The waitress is a friend of mine, so she sits us in the back where it's not burning or freezing. Adrianna looks a little confused when she looks at the menu.

"Do you wanna know what's really good here?' She looks up gratefully and nods. "They've got good chili and good hamburgers. We can share a plate of fries if you want?" Again, she nods. Our waitress, Mindy, comes back. I ordered fries, a Dr. Pepper and a hamburger. Adrianna orders the same, but without the fries. When Mindy leaves, I ask my gorgeous teacher a question.

"Wanna play a game, Adrianna?"

"Sure. By the way, just call me Adri or Adi. Adrianna is a mouthful." I nod.

"Mhm. The game is Never Have I Ever. First one with no fingers loses. Got it?" She smirks.

"Yes, I think I understand. You ask the first question."