Smoked Success

35.

She always does that when we have presentations, so she can be facing us like one of the crowd.

"Look at that ass." Evan, one of my classmates says, pointing at Jessica.

"You do realize that's our teacher?" I glare at him.

"What do you care?" He scoffs. "She's hot and we all know that."

"That's disrespectful towards her," I state.

"Andrew, let me remind you that we have a bet going on. She might've responded to you the best, just because you're the only one who sits right in front of her." Evan rolls his eyes and goes to sit wherever he usually does. "I promise you, I'll be the one to win."

A few minutes later, Jessica goes to turn off the light and instead turn on the projector. She hasn't spoken yet. A text appears, and it reads:

Dearest students,
Today's is the due date for your presentations. If you didn't do it, kindly get out of the classroom and consider yourself getting a zero. I absolutely do not care what stopped you from doing this project, I've given you a whole entire week to do it in class, it's not like it was to be done in your houses. Whoever wants to pass first passes now and plugs in their USB like it is usually done.
Your teacher,
Miss Styles.

Why on earth isn't she speaking to us? She seems tired, I guess I'll have to talk to her at the end of the period.

We're all done with our projects. Jessica just kept on writing notes the whole hour and didn't speak to any of us, not even to give us her comment about each's presentation. There are five minutes left and everyone's just using their phones, including Jessica.

Everyone gets out, except for me and Jess.

"May I ask why are you wearing black? And why aren't you talking to us?" I question, looking at her straight in the eyes. She doesn't react, she just takes a cigarette out of her purse and lights it. "I'm a human being, I wasn't created to be ignored."

She doesn't answer too, she just heads out. Sighing, I glance at my phone, Tyler's texted me back.

Jessica might be grumpy today, but she's sort of pissed and upset because our grandfather died. Yesterday. Sorry mate, xx.

Oh, my god, that's horrible. I really should talk to her, I'm supposedly visiting her this evening, you know, for my private lessons. I really hope she hasn't harmed herself in any way.

I'm at her apartment's door, let's get ready. I press on the doorbell's button, Peter opens it.

"Mate, I don't think she'd be okay with giving lessons today." He seems pretty upset too.

"I don't give two shits about my lesson, I just want to know what's up with her." I pretend I don't know shit.

"Our grandfather died. Although I didn't ever meet him, I feel horrible for him." He looks at Angelina, who's playing peacefully in the back.

"Jessica hasn't said a word on campus today," I state, sighing.

"She hasn't spoken nor eaten since yesterday when she came back from her AA meeting." He replies.

"She still does those?" I ask and he nods. "Was she that close to your grandfather?"

"Fuck no bro. He hated her so because she was, and I'm quoting from mom, 'a sin'." He makes virtual quotation marks with his finger.

"What the fuck do you mean by a sin?" I narrow my eyes.

"Her mom had her without being married, he was too religious." He shrugs. "Nonetheless, Tyler told me they had the same personality."

"I don't see Jessica being religious." I scoff, even though she has that tattoo. "I really need to talk to her."

"I'll let you in, but if she rages, I'll blame it on you." He laughs, getting the door wider.

I walk in and head to her room. Out of politeness, I knock on the door. No one answers. Let's hope she's not naked and open the door. The room smells so much like smoke, damn. She's sitting on her bed, and there are like five packets of Marlboro cigarettes.

"Just the man I was looking for," Jessica states, laughing. Okay, this is weird.

"Jessica, are you high?" I look at her, confused.

"Nah, it was too hard to get weed." She laughs, she's drunk.

"You do realize you just threw away six months of sobriety out of the window?" I say, disappointed. It's not like I don't drink myself, it's just I don't extremely like drinking, so I don't do it often.

"I don't give two shits." She scoffs, glancing at her phone.

"You think being drunk will change the fact that your grandfather died?" I snap at her.

"Oh well, he died, Kristen died, I will die soon, does that matter?" She rolls her eyes.

"Yes it does. Because you matter to many people, your brother, your daughter, your other brother, your parents, not to forget, me." I tell her, sitting next to her.

"Oh Andy, stop being boring." She puts her hand on my shoulder. "Let's do something fun, like making love."