The Wallflower

Mr. Hendricks

"I'm Dr. Green, the health aide. Mrs. Martin just went to grab some lunch, but I'll call her and she'll be here as soon as possible," he told me after an awkward beat of silence. I nodded mutely as he continued to smile at me before leaving the room with a phone pressed to his ear.

The room was quiet all at once, the loud chatter from outside drowned out by the slow hum when the mini fridge in the corner turned on. A sweet smell lingered in the air; something like citrus with a hint of ginger. I wondered idly if it came from Dr. Green.

Looking around the room, I couldn't spot anything different about the space with Dr. Green as the health aide. He was awfully young to be a doctor, I thought. He couldn't be more than twenty or twenty-one, by my guess. But then looks could be deceiving and I wasn't leaving Karen alone until Mrs. Martin came back.

The door opened a minute later and I felt relief flood me when Mrs. Martin's smiling face greeted me. She was getting on in years and her hair was now as white as snow, but she never looked more beautiful.

"Sang, what's the problem today? Feeling under the weather?" she asked me as she went straight to the sinks to wash her hands. Dr. Green came in behind her, shutting the door behind him.

"Karen has a fever, she's been sick since this past weekend," I told her, feeling infinitely more comfortable with Mrs. Martin here. I was hyper aware of Dr. Green but if he noticed my discomfort, he never said and continued to smile brilliantly at me.

My nerves settled a bit at that and I stepped away as Mrs. Martin came toward Karen with a thermometer. Things were quiet and Dr. Green watched carefully. I was curious about this new health aide but also apprehensive because I wasn't sure how Dad would take this knowing I had a male health aide. He tended to get crazy about the littlest things. I rarely got sick so as long as I was careful, there wouldn't be any problems.

After, Mrs. Martin declared that Karen had a very high fever and began calling her parents to come get her.

The bell rang and I turned, ready to go now that Karen was taken cared of. But Mrs. Martin turned to me with a quizzical eye and a look I couldn't decipher, stopping me in my tracks.

"Before you leave, my dear, Principal Hendricks wanted to see you in his office," she told me quietly, before turning to attend to Karen once again.

I froze, surprised. A slow feeling of dread pooled in the pit of my stomach and I swallowed nervously. In all my years attending Ashley High, I'd never so much as gotten in trouble, had a detention, or got called into the principal's office.

Had I unintentionally done something wrong? I went through all the things I'd done this week and couldn't even begin to think of what I'd possibly done to warrant a trip to the principal's office. It'd only been a week since school started. I frowned, worried.

"Sally, I'll escort Miss Sang to the main office. I don't think I'm needed here anyway," Dr. Green said with a smile to Mrs. Martin. She waved her hand and smiled kindly at the pair of us before Dr. Green was ushering me outside.

He held the door open for me, and with a nod of his head, I went out quietly, surprised at his chivalry. It wasn't everyday someone held the door open for me. Whether it was this 'southern hospitality' I'd always heard about but never experienced or Dr. Green just being genuinely nice, I wasn't sure. But it was nice.

We walked in tandem to the main office and the silence was more than a little awkward. I rarely talked to other people as it was, but with a teacher or staff even less so. I peeked up at him from the corner of my eye and marveled quietly at the confident way he seemed to hold himself. His smile was warm and kind, the type that just made you happy for no apparent reason. And he made more than a few heads turn just by walking. I could see why; Dr. Green was very handsome.