The English Teacher ➳ Emison

Chapter 6 | Distance

The days passed slowly for Alison. It's been a few of weeks since everything that went down with Emily, and she's been trying her best to find distractions.

She tried throwing herself into her job at first, planning things weeks ahead, but it wasn't so easy when the brunette was there every single day as a walking reminder.

The two of them came in minimal contact now. Emily was still in her English class, but they had stopped their after-school sessions. It wasn't something that was talked about between them, it was just some sort of unanimous understanding. She had also started spending more and more lunch hours outside of school grounds just to minimize her time in those halls.

As far as her life after school went, she decided to mostly let her bubbly sister entertain her days. She even made the drive up to Philly a few times to meet up with some of her college friends. She just wanted to stop thinking about Emily, but she'd come to find that there was no simple solution.

The girl showed up in her dreams, her journal entries, and her everyday thoughts. Not to mention, she still had to grade Emily's schoolwork, and it was getting a little tiring to have her heart jump a mile whenever she was grading papers and Emily's name was on the next essay.

She didn't know if she could go on like this until the end of the year. She even sniffed around Administrations to see the capacity of the other senior English classes, just to prepare herself for the chance that Emily might take the initiative and move out of her class. They were all booked up though, so even if Emily did want to transfer, she couldn't.

Alison knew where the two of them were standing now, but she honestly didn't know where they could go from here.

She watched now as her older sister opened the door for her and they stepped together out of the restaurant where they had been eating dinner. Cece was always willing to show up for her whenever she was feeling down. The woman had detected her sour mood in a second and practically tried every trick in the book to make her laugh and smile but Alison's mind was just... Elsewhere.

So the younger blonde just allowed her sister to go on, telling her about her various plans for her wedding next year and the many dramas between the employees at the boutique she ran.

Alison genuinely listened, because she appreciated the entertainment. While she couldn't stand Cece's babbling when she had been younger, these days, she quite enjoyed it when the woman spilled to her about everything on her mind.

They were walking alongside each other in the direction of Cece's parked car at the curb of the town square, when the older sister abruptly piped up, "Ooh, wait, I want to get a drink from The Brew before we go."

At the mention of the establishment, Alison turned to her quickly, trying to conceal her inner panic. "Wait, don't go there," she requested just as Cece broke right to cross the road toward the coffee shop.

It wasn't like Alison knew for certain that Emily would be there, but it was a likely guess. And the last thing she wanted was to run into the brunette when Cece was standing right next to her. Her sister would immediately know something was up.

"Why not?" Cece asked, looking at her strangely.

"I just... I heard it's not that good, you know?" she bluffed, trying to appear nonchalant. It was a complete lie and she knew it. People raved about the quality of The Brew all the time.

"What are you talking about? I love their coffee. My employees always spend their entire breaks here," Cece responded in confusion. "They say everything on the menu is amazing."

"Well, either way, I don't want to be there because... My students all hang out there. It'll be too awkward to see them out in public like that," Alison provided desperately, painfully aware of the irony.