Forced Reconciliation

13.

It's true, I always loved working with children of any sort, but once I did my student teaching, I decided that high school would probably be best for me. I love little kids, but I'm just not sure that I have the patience for children under thirteen. The freshmen that I teach are already cutting it close to being too much for me.

"I wish there were more young teachers like you," Harper tells me. "The rest of them are so old they don't understand what it's like being young in this day in age, and it's like all of them are just riding on a power trip."

"Oh c'mon, they're not that bad!" Although I know they're telling the truth, I just know I shouldn't bag on my colleagues. I remember feeling the same way when I was in high school and even college.

"No," she pauses with widened eyes, "they are. You teach us differently, you make us feel important and not just like any other student, and you dress super cool."

I laugh at the end of her sentence, because if not then I'm afraid I might start tearing up at her words. She has no idea that those are the kind of things I've been needing to hear since I started teaching. I'm always worried that I'm not doing enough. I don't want to just skim by on doing the bare minimum, my goal has always been to find a way to somehow impact every single one of these kids for the better.

"Well thank you, Harper. I really appreciate it."

The rest of the day goes by fairly quickly, but like everyone else, I'm itching to get out of here for the weekend. All of my students seemed to be already checked out by the time they got to English, and I don't completely blame them.

I've always thought that you're either a science/math person or an English/history person. I can usually tell which kids are the math and science kids because generally, they absolutely hate English.

I loved to read growing up, and I'm a stickler when it comes to grammar and spelling, but that's not what got me interested in teaching English. I had a creative writing professor in college that was my absolute favorite. She didn't grade a real assignment the entire semester, she only had us show proof that we were writing in our personal journals.

It sounds silly, but I learned so much about not only writing, but myself that semester because of that class. It helped me sort out everything going on in my life, and I felt like an entirely new person by the end of it.

As soon as the bell rings and I've cleared off my desk and grabbed my things to head home, I'm quickly walking through the halls to make it to my car so I can hopefully try and beat some of the traffic on the way to Fresno.

"Miss Rhoades, may I speak with you for a moment?" I'm halting my steps when I hear Principal Shillings calling my name from behind me.

I try not to show any sign of annoyance as I turn around to face him, "Yes, sir, of course." I turn and follow him to his office, all of my things piled up in my hands. I like Mr. Shillings fine enough. He's a bit of a raging sexist, but I've unfortunately learned to deal with that at this point. Most of the time, I avoid him at all costs.

"Sorry, I won't keep you long, Andi," he uses my first name, catching me off guard. We certainly aren't that close.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes, "It's fine, just try to beat traffic before I head up north."

"Right, right. I just wanted to talk to you about a certain article floating around with your name in it."

What the hell? I had seen the article that was put out in regards to Max and Lila's death and how Harry was one of the legal guardians to the kids they left behind. They, fortunately, did as I asked and didn't mention me by name, that's why I'm confused as to what he could be talking about.