Chapter Three

Ryan

8:15. I wanted to be late by 15 minutes so that I could meet Sarah based on her own timings. We were supposed to meet up at the main center, at the waiting hall but she wasn’t there. For five minutes, I kept wishing if I had slept off till the day after, since I stayed up all night yesterday, watching WWE Monday Night Raw.

Jeanne walked past me smiling and said, ‘Good morning, Ryan. I see you are alone’, this was her usual joke the moment she seems me without the company of a teacher. ‘Guilty as charged’ I shrugged and nodded.

Seating myself on one of the empty chairs, I grabbed today’s paper and went through the headlines. Noticing nothing out of the ordinary, I rested my face in the hems of my palm and sighed heavily.

‘Hey, sleepy-head’, it only took me a second to figure out it was Sarah’s soft voice. Raising my head, I was dazzled by her mini red dress. I have always hated bold colours, but on her, it looked…right.

‘Hey’, I surprised myself by smiling and trotting off, closely followed by Sarah. ‘You are late, you know’, I said without facing her.

‘C’mon, I have been here since 7:30 in the morning’, she replied.

Leaving this aside, I thought we could stop on our way and grab a bite at the cafeteria. Before knowing it, we were there when Sarah said she had hers already.

Since she was supposed to stick around with me at all times, I bought a waffle for her, even though she insisted on being full, she ate it afterward. We did not speak much on the table, although I noticed that I was not as tensed as I was with her yesterday. She’s just a natural, I assumed, at making everybody at ease around her or at least, me, in particular.

At 8:45, we were heading to the kindergarten’s section when Ms. Kate abruptly stopped us and asked me to let Sarah fill in her place for the day as she had an emergency back at home. I wondered what the hell was it this time?

I knew Kate for three years now, and she is the kind of person who would do anything to stay in here. Which was weird, if you ask me, because a lot of teachers have confided me in about how hard teaching can be and that I should be grateful for having an awesome thing to do everyday instead. What is so good in repeating the same thing billion of times, but with different people?

Knowing me, I only do this for the cash. If I did not, my landlord would have kicked me out ages ago and I would have to suck up at Dad’s for money every time a new music album came out.

After pointing out the class she’s supposed to be teaching I said, ‘Hello kids, this is your new substitute teacher, Ms. Sarah’, then I seated myself at the back like Sarah did yesterday.

‘Thank you, Ryan’, she whispered as she lifted up her black purse, took out flash cards with the alphabets printed on them and soon, started asking this one and that to pronounce them out loud, though mostly, they struggled in differentiating between d and b, n and m. Later on, she had them write those over and over again.

Here and there, she would crack a joke or two, sing a song and watch them all struggle upon catching the lyrics. It was funny, I should admit. And Sarah, well, she was a different person right then and there.

Sarah

Today’s highlights would have been getting all attached to Ms. Kate’s class that I secretly wished if she’d have some kind of emergency everyday. I know it makes me selfish, but hopefully, nothing bad happens to her or her children. If only it was urgent enough to be allowed to teach the class again tomorrow and, the day after that…

Ryan

On the way back to my flat, I kept thinking of Sarah. I have seen many good-looking, if not attractive, women before but they weren’t Sarah… In the back of my mind, flashes of her smile faded in and out while I am not even brave enough to actually admit them to myself, in the first place.

Ever since my parents’ divorce five years ago, I have been afraid of committing to anyone. I sort of pushed the idea of getting involved completely away as I obviously feared ending up just like Mom and Dad.

I am twenty-five now and my thoughts are filled with Sarah to the point that I forced myself asleep the moment the clock struck 9 PM because, I figured, if I get to shut down my brain, I will be fresh tomorrow and Sarah will be gone as fast and she came in and took control of my remaining senses…

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Author's Note

Ignore grammatical mistakes as English is my second language and I'm trying. Let me know your thoughts about the structure and the plot.