The Shadow Of Us

Chapter 1

Juliana walked briskly into her classroom just before the bell rang for first period. She loved teaching, thankfully otherwise she would not have been able to handle some of the unruly teens that walked through her door. She found the best way to deal with these trouble makers was to simply entertain their rebellious souls and ideas. Joining in with them always seemed to help keep them under control in the classroom setting, and she knew how to make History fun, which of course also aided her cause in being the most popular teacher in St Catherine's High School. Right now she reckoned that she was joint most popular with Mr Dean, an English teacher and therefore annoyingly not in her department making it harder to sabotage his lessons. Despite all of this Juliana looked at herself as a professional with a playful side, and with her being twenty-seven she was starting to desperately hold onto her youth. 

Juliana shrugged of her light autumn coat as she sat down on the chair behind her desk, it was a Tuesday which had recently won the title of being her new favourite day of the week, mostly because she had her class that was almost completely made up of stoners, second period and even at that time in the morning they were all drugged up. Trying to teach high teenagers history was now one of her favourite pastimes as, as you can imagine a whole new light had already been shone on a number of major historical events that had made Juliana herself question the historians of the past. 

She heard a knock at her open classroom door, Juliana lifted her head from her computer screen that was still logging her in, she had never had to use a slower machine than the one in her classroom, or her very first vibrator for that matter but that was very much another story for a very different time. Leaning against the door frame stood Mr Dean himself, her most fearsome competitor in being crowned the schools most popular and therefore best teacher. How dare he have the nerve to walk into her classroom like they weren't in some kind of conflict. 

"Juliana." The tall man said in a low tone, his thick, brown eyebrows furrowed deep over his sparkling blue eyes, his vein traced hand tucked loosely into his trouser pocket, he could almost be mistaken for one of those posh sweater models in what he was wearing. Juliana leaned back in her chair, folding her arms, slowly raising an eyebrow in suspicion. 

"Jackson." She replied back, wondering why he would come and see her of all people, he pushed himself off of the door frame, sauntering closer to her desk until he was standing directly opposite her stone cold stare. he sighed heavily, a slight chuckle leaving his breathy lips as he wiped his forehead in his strong palms. 

"So according to the leader board this most popular teacher competition is going to crown one of us as its winner." Jackson said gruffly like he was about to start telling a whimsical tale of a past endeavours. This didn't surprise her one bit she knew all English teachers spoke like pretentious pricks, and apparently Jackson was no breaker of stereotypes. Juliana sat for a moment wondering if he was actually going to make a point out of this visit or if he was just going to tell her more about the competition that she already knew everything about. "I came to wish you good luck, as I have something very special planned for my AP class." Jackson continued, and Juliana couldn't help but scoff when she heard what had just come out of his mouth. 

"Unless it's a free period I'm sure it wont effect the competition." Juliana said, boredom flowing through her voice as she looked down at her hands, making a mental note to cut her nails, because the thought of that was more exciting than this conversation. Jackson chuckled again, as he turned his back to Juliana, who made a face, mocking his stupid chuckle, something was obviously stopping him for laughing so all he could muster was a lame chuckle. As Jackson was almost out of the classroom he turned to face Juliana once more. 

"The votes of the drug addicts in this school will only get you so far, you must know that its the jocks and the cheerleaders in this place that will decide this vote, and they all adore me." A cheeky glint in Jackson's eye glistened with his words, "may the best man win." Jackson said like he thought he was in some indie film about some other kind of sentimental bullshit before he finally left the classroom. Juliana couldn't help but feel annoyed that she hadn't managed to pull off one more comment, just so she could have gotten the last word in. But she was going to make sure she had the last laugh by winning this competition and putting Jackson firmly in his place. 

'So much in getting a head start in my marking', Juliana thought to herself, a small frown taking over her features. The spontaneous visit from Jackson had put her behind at least fifteen minutes, and at least another five of her sitting in her own seething rage after his pretty smug face had left her vicinity. The bell rang for second period, the loud sound startled Juliana slightly, who now realised she was in fact a whole period behind on her lesson planning, and essay marking for that day. But at least it was now time for her favourite class of the day, it was after all always important to look at the silver linings in life. 

Juliana looked around her classroom as it was filling up with the majority of the drug takers, and the drug dealers. She smiled as she got hello, after hello followed of course by a passive aggressive insult which in this instance she chose to ignore seeing as she herself was not in the best of moods. She pulled up the register for the class as she started to round of name after name, only getting a grunt or a scoff in response to signal the students presence. 

"Logan!" Juliana called, her voice was met with silence, she had grown very found of Logan over the years, despite his roll in the cocaine industry. He was a senior and had been in Juliana's history class ever since he was a freshman, this might of explained why the first person who he came to about being held back a year was her. This of course made him eighteen, he surprisingly however wasn't her oldest pupil in this class. She moved on, a small sigh escaping from her mouth, she thought she had finally gotten through to him about not skipping class. 

"Ella!" Juliana called out again, with a little less enthusiasm in her voice. And again this name was met with a response of pure silence. Ella coincidentally was Logan's long term girlfriend, they had been together since she was a Sophomore, and she was now a senior, making her a year younger than her beau. Juliana knew all of this because she was forced to listen to all the drama between them during her lessons. Juliana moved on with the register, not thinking to much about the two absence's  in her class that day, they had probably just decided to skip class together and do something criminally productive instead. That would surely not be out of the ordinary for the present day Bonnie and Clyde. 

Just before Juliana was ready to start her lesson on the 'Westward Expansion' she looked down at her phone as she saw a new text message on her screen, it was from her Tinder date confirming details for their meetup tonight, that Juliana had almost forgotten about, she replied quickly saying that she would be there. Even if they date went sideways, which is all that had been happening to her lately at least she would get a free drink or two out of it, or so she hoped.