Breaking the Boundaries

Part 2

Miles

I watched Skylar out of the corner of my eye. It was odd, the sensation I had, to get up and help her, to soothe the confused expression on her face. Perhaps it is my imagination, but I saw her respond to my looks, indescribable looks-as I do not know which feelings are running through my mind; annoyance, pity? Maybe: attraction? No, no way! That is impossible. She is a student. I am her teacher. No. I don’t know why that is in my head. I pushed it into the corner of my mind, hoping it will disappear. Sometimes, maybe it is my imagination; I think she responds to my looks. I don’t know what she means by them, but when she catches me looking I feel a rush of colour light up my face. I really don’t understand, and I am positive something’s wrong. I shouldn’t be blushing.

It is odd, extremely odd. For a student, not even a GCSE student of the soulful sensitive type I admire so much to receive my attention this much. She is boisterous, loud, the students I loathe the most, but somehow, she seems articulate to me, artistically developed. Somehow I know that this work I provide her with is not good enough for her, she gets bad- well not bad, but let’s say not up to standard marks, but this feeling I get that she is too good for the work I set. Somehow in my subconscious, I feel like I am below her, and now I realize, somehow, I am worshipping her.

Years ago, in the kaleidoscope of my life I lost a woman, and that’s when I decided I was gay. My attraction to women sped away, and with it, my child. I had a child with a woman and I think that is what caused a change of heart. We were young, very young, I was almost 17. Her parents blamed me. Me. I was the older one, they said. And pushed me away when I said I wanted to be there for her. By then I was living by myself and everyone was shocked to see how a ‘clever young man’ like me could get tied up in such trivial matters, which came only with young foolish men. All the ‘cool’ boys were shocked. I went away, like the coward I was, and I assumed she had an abortion. Of course, I was never informed. When she realized I went away, I remember she sent me one single solitary word in an envelope. Freak. And that communicated to me everything I needed to know.  I don’t know what became of them, I don’t know if she carried out the abortion or not. Sometimes I do wonder…

The sight of Skylar filling her face with make-up shocked me back into the present. Her curly hair framed her face giving her a vulnerable look, a strawberry-blonde sweetie pie look. Before long she would have boys from other schools on her. A thought jolted me. She must never ever make the mistake I made with the other girl. No. it’s not right for a girl of her magnitude to take such terrible risks. Somehow I feel it is my duty to stop this, and there are only 7 minutes till the bell. She must know she must.

’Right class, I want you to put away your things except for your art book which I want you to lay open on your desks so I can see what work you’ve done,’ I say calmly to the class, formulating a plan in my mind. I look around at the work, not really concentrating on the content and tell Skylar her work is not up to standard at all. It seems perfectly satisfactorily, but I need an excuse to keep in her in. I see a flicker of doubt cross her eyes, but she blocks it and changes her expression to unfazedness.

The class empties, and soon we are alone. The atmosphere is tense and I am vaguely aware of my palms sweating heavily. I don’t know what to say. You can’t expect an unknown man to come up to a girl and say ‘hey make sure you don’t have unprotected underage sex, don’t get yourself pregnant’. Huh, I must be stupid for thinking I can in the first place. Me, acting on impulse again.

’Sir is there any particular thing you wanted to talk to me about or can I go? I’m really hungry you know and I was hoping to grab a pizza on my way out. How long are you going to keep me in for anyway?’

I begin collecting up the resources which are left; strewn across the table higgledy piggledy, make myself useful.

’Yes’, I cough nervously ‘I just wanted to enquire why you are putting lip-gloss on in class. Me, the geek again, using terrible vocabulary.