Smoked Success

15.

"Miss, this is a nice color." A student remarks, smiling. 

"Thanks." I appreciate it, at least she didn't go crazy about it. 

"Why peach?" Another student asks, smiling.

"It's my daughter's favorite color." I tell them, noticing their jaws dropping. Judge me all you want, I don't care anymore. "Back to our syllabus." 

All I did today was explaining the hair color, checking my phone for any updates about Angelina and give some classes, not my best day. I just want to hug Angelina and apologize for leaving her with that asshole of a father. Smith's coming to pick me up in a few minutes, but that doesn't rush me at all, or force me to go adjust my makeup, I simply do not care at the moment. I still haven't done any Christmas shopping, oh my I have plenty of gifts to get, the most important ones though are Angelina's, Mom's and Dad's. And here's my phone ringing, Smith. I get out and see the same car he had in New York, strange. I get in the passenger's seat and see the widening of his eyes because of my hair color. 

"What's that?" He asks, smirking. 

I don't think it'd be the right time to tell him I've got a daughter, so I think I should sort of twist the truth. 

"It's a nice color, shut up." I roll my eyes. 

"It does look good on you, but it's just," he starts, trying to find words, "unexpected of you." 

"Whatever," I scoff, "what brought your car to Los Angeles?" 

"I transferred, I live here now." He smiles, but still focusing on the road. 

"What about John?" I question, looking at my phone. 

"He's here, but after lots of arguments." He states. "He was against the whole thing, but he's here now." 

"I thought you'd abandon him." I tell him, honest. 

"I might be sort of horrible to him, but I'd not leave him living alone in a whole different state." He admits, seeming guilty. 

I slept tonight, two hours, but I'm glad for them. I'm in the cab, on my way to work. I'm wearing a black sweater, matching leather pants and matching heels. Yes, I've been wearing black too often this week, but who cares. Smith doesn't seem that horrible anymore, I mean, he does admit not being the best son ever, but he does try. I pay the driver and head to class, I've seniors now. This is one of the long days, ugh. I like how serious seniors are, and how some of them are really looking forward to more, but it doesn't give you that dynamism freshmen give you. Freshmen, we talk about categories of people who'd buy a certain product or something like that, but seniors, we always talk about jobs they're going to get and how they're stressing about unemployment. 

I'm glad this is the last class, but they're juniors, oh my. They still have five minutes, I guess I can take this call from Hannah, it's not going to last long. 

"Jessica?" I hear an unexpected voice, Christian. I didn't need to hear that, I feel bad for my next students. Great, Andrew's inside, as if I needed him to be here as well. 

"Christian, don't try, we're done." I tell him, hanging up. I didn't need any longer conversations. I give Andrew his seat, and it was sort of violent because it was so loud. I turn off my phone, because, thinking I know Christian, he's going to call again. Andrew says something, but I don't focus, I just want to be over with these two weeks, meet Angelina and everything will be fine. The class gets in and I start writing on the board the title of what we're doing today, the Concept of Ceteris Paribus in Economics. 

"Till next time." I fake a smile at some students saying goodbye. I notice Andrew still sitting on his desk, I have no clue what he's doing but he seems so focused. "Andrew, class' over." I announce, hoping he notices the world around him. He looks at me, his eyes more grey than ever. 

"Yeah, sorry, I'll pack right away." He says, quick, and starts packing. He's sort of slow, but I can see he's been drawing on his notebook. 

"Andrew, may I ask you a question?" I look at the other pages of the notebook, nothing but drawings, he's good at it though. He nods. "Have you been taking notes?" 

"No, I'll just take them from Rebecca and learn them for the test." He answers, shrugging. Learn them? The notes aren't to be learned, they're to be understood. Rebecca's the class' genius, and she does write some good notes. 

"Did you understand what Ceteris Paribus means?" I ask him, hoping yes is the answer. He shakes his head and lets out a little laugh. "Why don't you tell me while I give others time to take notes? I'm in front of you and I wouldn't mind." 

"Look, this class has always been nothing but learning Rebecca's notes and writing them down in the test and then getting a good grade. It doesn't matter if I understand or not." He says and I'm shocked. Never have I ever met a student that hates understanding as much as Andrew did. 

"It doesn't matter to you, but it does to me. Each and every student must understand this class." I declare. "What would you do if Rebecca wasn't here?" 

"Oh please, Rebecca's never absent." He rolls his eyes. 

"What if she minds you taking her notes?" I ask him, putting him in tight situations. 

"She wouldn't. She's my girlfriend." He announces. Rebecca's too young for him, what? Non of your business Jessica, non of your business. "Um, Jessica, can I call you that?" 

I'm sort of mad now, but I nod anyway. 

"Can I ask you a question?"