cillian murphy

two

You find yourself fixated, staring at the chalkboard where he had just written his name.

"Now I heard about your previous teacher, and, well, I'm just hoping to get us back on track so you all can pass your exams," he continues.

The weird kid, Caddy, who everyone knew was slow, shoots his hand up in the front of the class and Mr. Murphy points to him, gesturing to him to speak.

"Do you do meth?"

"No," he says, "I don't do meth. Or anything else."

The class laughs as Mr. Murphy sighs and rolls his eyes, clearly not excited to be hired as the replacement there.

"I wanna get straight into things, so could everyone pull out their books please," he orders and the class does as they're told.

He sits at his desk, which had been emptied out before he came, and starts to flip through his teacher's version of the book.

"It looks like you've left off at the Aztecs?"

The class confirms and he starts teaching the lesson. This is where you usually zone out, but he is a surprisingly good talker, something that you find is a rare trait in most teachers. He mostly just rambles on about Aztec culture, but he seems genuinely interested, which, in turn, makes the class feel the same way.

After almost sixty minutes have passed, he looks at his watch, "There are about ten minutes left, so maybe you all could introduce yourselves before you leave so I can start learning names."

People in the front row begin, where mainly all the weirdos and fatties sit. Mr. Murphy stares at them with a bored blank face. As the fattest girl in the class, Margaret  introduces herself, you can see him grimacing at the rolls of fat expelling from the tank top she was wearing. As the rows move along it finally comes to Lindsey, and Mr. Murphy looks relieved.

"Hi, I'm Lindsey," you can tell she has raised her voice a lot, something she does when talking to guys.

He politely smiles and nods then focuses his attention on you. 

You introduce yourself, trying not to stumble on your words.

He smiles, then points to your shirt, "You like Radiohead?"

You look down at your shirt, it's one that you've had since you were a kid, "I love them,"

"They're great," he replies, then continues on to the next person.

The bell rings, marking the end of the day and you're thankful that this is your last period. You and Lindsey walk out together and you feel eyes on you as you walk out, shuddering thinking it could be Mr. Murphy.

As soon as you and Lindsey are a safe distance from the class she starts squealing.

"Oh my god, did you see him, his face, oh my god!" Lindsey gushes.

"Ugh he's not that special Lindsey," you reply, rolling your eyes, "You're probably just bored of Lucas."

"No! That's so not true," she says, "And you're gonna have to lend me that shirt so me and Mr. Murphy can talk about Radio-whatever too."

You just laugh in response to her and the two of you continue to walk home. Your homes are located right next door to each other, making it very convenient for your friendship. At this point, you and Lindsey's families are practically conjoined.

After you go home to change into a bikini, you and Lindsey enter her house, where her mom welcomes you and gives you both tall glasses of iced tea to sip as you both sit outside on lounge chairs, trying to tan, despite the upcoming winter season.

...

It's a few days later, and the buzz of the new history teacher quickly subsides, instead being replaced by rumors of a triplet pregnancy in the freshman grade.

After spending a few classes with Mr. Murphy, you begin to realize that he's a total dick to his students. His nice act must have just been something he put on for the first day. The only time he's not making snarky remarks is when he gets really passionate about specific parts of the lesson. But, even though he was a dick, he was at least a funny one. He teasingly insulted a lot of the kids, including you and Lindsey of course, so you both had decided the best way to deal with it was to tease him back.

You and Lindsey entered his class, with Lindsey exclaiming, "God I'm so glad it's Friday."

You make purposeful eye contact with Mr. Murphy and add, "You're so right Lindsey, I don't think I could survive anymore of Mr. Murphy's horrible classes. So boring."

"So boring," she agrees.

Mr. Murphy only shakes his head and scoffs. The rest of the class shuffles in and he stands up in front of the class. Your eyes wandered up and down his body, as they always did without you meaning to, lingering in a spot that a student's eyes definitely shouldn't linger on. You look away to stop yourself from thinking about it.

"Ok class, it's Friday. Yay," he says with thick sarcasm, "I'm too tired to teach so I'm just going to put on a video, and we can do some discussion afterwards."

You watch him as he reaches up to the projector on the ceiling and the hem of his shirt climbs up his waist, revealing the slightest peek of his abdomen. He continues setting up the film and then seats himself at his desk, focusing intently on his computer. 

You try to stay focused on the film, but keep glancing back at him, his angular face and furrowed brows, fixed so intently on his screen.

Eventually the show ends and he flips off the screen. You hope for him to reach up and turn off the projector again but he doesn't bother.

"Ok, any questions?"

The class responds in silence, most people just hoping to get the day over with so they can go home for the weekend.

"Ok, good, no questions, so just do whatever for the last few minutes of the class."

The class chatter picks up and you begin talking to Lindsey, "What are we doing this weekend, Lin?"

"Ugh, I honestly don't know, there's nothing going on," she sighs, "But we should definitely go to the beach before it gets any colder."

"Oh, wait class," Mr. Murphy abruptly states, "I have to give you a homework assignment for this weekend. Please have it done by next class."

The class groans, "shut up," he says as he gets up with a stack of papers, starting to pass them out as he makes small talk with students.

He approaches you and Lindsey handing you each a paper, "And what about you? What are you ladies doing this weekend?"

"Definitely not this," you say gesturing towards the homework.

"What, are you going to hangout with your boyfriend instead?" he asks mockingly.

"No," I scoff, "I don't have a boyfriend."

"What? You don't like boys your age?" he smirks, then you immediately see on his face that he didn't mean to say that out loud.

"Something like that."

He awkwardly leaves, continuing to pass out papers. The bell rings and students hurry out of the class, meanwhile you and Lindsey give each other a knowing look and pack up extremely slowly; you had both decided to do this for Mr. Murphy's class.

Another teacher from across the hall, Mr. Taylor enters the class and you and Lindsey eavesdrop on their conversation.

"Hey, I know we haven't talked yet," Mr. Taylor shakes his hand, "Cillian? Isn't it?"

"Yeah," he smiles, "You are...?"

"Freddy," he replies, "How has your first week gone?"

"Pretty good, most of the classes aren't too much of a handful," he says.

You and Lindsey finally start to exit as Mr. Murphy calls to you, "Have a good weekend girls."

You can't help but smile back and wave goodbye before leaving.