Appropriate

two

With only a week left until graduation, I've decided that going to all my classes was pointless. I've been mostly spending time with the teachers who really made a difference. The teachers who cared enough to see through my bullshit and really work with me to being a better person; I'm honestly thankful for many of the teachers at Salt Rock High School, home of the Makos. I find my way through the hordes of students, rounding the corner into Scrivs classroom. The senior English teacher that everyone prayed they had, only some of us were lucky enough. He was funny and personable, but he never gave out 100%; you could write the perfect essay and he would find something you could work on. He wanted us to always try harder, to try to always progress further. I'd come close, at 99% for a paragraph long horror story.
"Good morning, Ms. Wagner, I could've sworn you were in my 5th period class and not my planning period"
He chuckled to himself while grading the late assignments, I would be lying if I said none of them belong to me.
"You know I'm not planning on coming to 5th period, dude"
He looked at me over his glasses, trying to look serious.
"Sorry, sir"
"I guess that is right, you have the legacy walk today. Make sure to bang on my door extra hard, okay?"
I nodded, looking around the room I spent around 9 months, give or take because of skipping, taking time to remember the good times we had in here.
The time we read Macbeth and I was able to ignore the majority of the readings because I was an honors theatre student and read it freshman year. Or the time Denise Slate, an old family friend, came out to the whole class by accident. I leisurely made my way to the door, making sure to say a final goodbye and thank you. I walked into the hall and found one of my favorite familiar faces, Kat and I had known each other since middle school but we got especially close this year because we had Honors Government together, along with three of the other friends I started the year with.
"Kathrine Crews, is that you I see skipping a class?"
She blushed bright red, a color that suited her. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears before following next to me in the hall.
"So, what're we doing with our half day?"
"I dunno, Ar, wanna go to Denny's and play Uno?"
Playing uno in our local Denny's became a tradition in the beginning of the year, we would order food, maybe a milkshake, and just play uno for hours. It became such a routine for us, our normal waitress began to play too.
"Sure, dude, but you're buying"
We headed towards the downstairs hallway, splitting off in the middle after figuring out who would drive and what time to go. I crept into McBrien's second period class, as quietly as I could. He was a new teacher, his first year with the Makos, still pretty young. He looked younger than he was, I would have guess he was 24 rather than his finely aged 28. I had the most vivid dreams about him, dreams of getting married, finding out we were having a kid; even though he was 9 years my senior, I didn't mind, they felt warm, safe, and familiar in a weird way.
"Arie, how nice of you to join us but I want to say you're about 50 minutes early"
I pretended to be annoyed but didn't try to hide the smile
"I just missed you that much, Johnny"
He scowled, I giggled. I had learned his first name from a friend of my sister Holly, who was dating McBrien at the time. She didn't realize the weapon she had loaded for me.
"I guess since you're graduating this weekend, you can call me by my first name"
I couldn't usually tell if we just had a fun teacher/student dynamic or if we had the hots for each other. He was a handsome man; tall, lean but not too lean, wavy hair that bounced. His face was unique, young but wise, soft but masculine, beautiful but rugged. I like to wonder how he would describe me to someone who didn't know me. I move to his desk chair while he sits in the front of the room on a shelf of cubbies, pretending to listen to one of the other students tell him about his life plan. I spend the rest of their period fiddling with the things in his desk while he takes them from me one by one, eventually I find my way to his cell phone. I manage to unlock it while he wasn't paying attention, the password was 0000 so he was basically asking for someone to get into it. I snoop through his apps, no Tindr or Bumble to be found but I was able to find his Snapchat. I found a filter I felt was cute enough and then I snapped a photo of myself, saved it to his phone and then made it his background with a line of text that read 'change your password Johnny. This was too easy' I thought about putting a heart emoji, but maybe people would take that the wrong way. The bell rang and when he turned to address me, I still had his phone in my hand
"What do you think your doing?"
"Well I, uh, here"
I said handing it back to him, his tone wasn't mean or angry but stern. All other words but "bye, going to the lagacy walk" got caught in my throat so I just walked out the door a little embarrassed. I felt his eyes on me the entire way, even after I was out of his line of sight, he always managed to linger on me like that.