A Dangerous Life [Teacher/Student]

Jennika

The room was full of people, and they all lit up when Mr. Clark walked in. The room roared with greetings and hellos. Lyle walked around the whole room giving each person either a hug or that weird guy handshake/high five thing. I listened to the names he said with each person, I could only remember one. Athena and that was only because it was a pretty awesome name and she was Titan’s sister. She was the only person in the room I recognized. There was one other person that looked very familiar. As soon as Lyle walked up and him and I heard his voice I knew who he was.

He was Lyle’s uncle Ronnie, from the video.

He got around to the other room, answering questions quickly with a smile, but I could tell there was something on his mind. He was headed towards someone, but I just couldn’t figure out who. He stopped in front of a really pretty girl with long auburn hair.

Seeing his family all together like this you could see they all had this sort of similar look. It was really strange how everyone looked like they could all come from one person. Is this what a real family looks like? I know people say things like, oh you look just like your dad, or oh you look like you could be cousins, but I’ve never seen it. Now that I understand what everyone is talking about I wonder what else people would say about families that I just blew off.

The weird thing was, the people that stood out the most were Lyle and the pretty girl with auburn hair. They stood up and Lyle gave her a quick and awkward hug.

“You look good.” She mumbled with a smile.

“Thank you. I like the new hair.” He forced a smile and put his hand on the small of her back as he led her out of the room. Darcy grabbed my hand and suddenly I was the center of attention…and I didn’t like it. I scanned around the room and saw Logan sitting on the couch with two kids that looked to be around our age. I spotted Titan curled up on the couch next to a woman I assumed was his fiancée Kasey. Johanna was still outside. Other than that, I was surrounded by completely strangers.

“Everyone this is Riley, the cute one we’ve heard so much about from Jo, Lyle, and Titan.” I smiled when I heard that Titan had been talking about me. They all smiled at me or shouted out some form of greeting. I had no idea what any of them were saying but I could tell it was all happy nice stuff. Titan winked at me and wrapped his arms around his girls tighter. “Come here, I’m going to introduce you to everyone.” She said dragging me up to people as they continued to talk to everyone. She dragged me up to the big man from Lyle’s video, and cute little petite woman next to him. “This is my big brother Ronnie and his wife Mari.”

Mari jumped up and wrapped me in a hug; it caught me completely by surprise. I stared at Ronnie in shock and his laugh boomed throughout the room like a sonic canon.

“Mari let go of the poor girl.” He said laughing. “She’s not used to affection apparently.” His voice was deep and raspy sort of like an old timely trumpet player.  She stepped back and held my shoulders. She beamed the brightest and most genuine smile I had ever seen right at me. It made me feel sort of special. I could tell that every single one of her smiles were one of a kind. Like snowflakes, they may look similar but no two are exactly the same, and the one she was directing my way was just for me and no one else. All her attention was directed on me, any other time I was squirm and hide from her spot light, but she let off this huge ray of love and happiness.