Guilty passion

Chapter 1

Beep beep. Beep beep. Ugh. I open my eyes to the most irritating sound on earth. My alarm. I must be really tired because after turning it off I go back to sleep without even making a conscious decision.

"Senaya. Senaya wake up. Wake up!"
I feel my shoulder being tapped and poked by tiny little fingers. I squint my eyes open so the light doesn't blind me.
"What Lina?" I croak as my hand come up to itch my eyes.
"You're student is here. He's calling you."
My body jolts awake as of it was struck by a lightening bolt and I'm suddenly flying to change out of my pyjamas and into something more professional. How did this happen? I set the alarm didn't I? I question whether it worked or not while I put on my shoes. "Too late for that now." I tell myself as I head out the door, workbooks in hand upstairs.

I find him sitting at the table as per usual.
"Hello." I say nervously praying that he won't call me out.
"Hi." He responds with a slight tone of judgement in his voice but nothing too heartbreaking. I glanced at the clock and I'm only 25mn late, probably with a bed head and a croaky voice and no lesson plan but hey. At least he didn't leave in disgust.

I teach English part-time. Being half English and half Algerian, and living in the latter, teaching English was an opportunity I would have been stupid not to take. I started out at my mothers best friends language school. I would help out there every summer. Most of the teachers came from subsaharan Africa and didn't speak French or Arabic. So I would be there to translate if they ever needed it or to just help out in general. Then when I was 18 I went through the training process to be a teacher, and got an international teaching certificate. Though I've just finished my first year of university studying foreign languages, I would give English lessons from home for 2000 dinars for two hours. I teach anything from 1st grade to 12th grade. French curriculum or Algerian (as there a lot lot of students in Algeria who choose to get a French baccalaureate), I help people who want to improve their speaking skills or just want to learn the language. I get pretty good business as learning with an actual English person seems more appealing I guess. I have around fifteen students a week; around five one on one's, usually the adults, and two groups a week, more or less. And in the summer, I go back to teaching at the language school while still teaching the very few students who want to do English courses in the summer holidays. With the language school we do two hours of lessons in the morning, then as an external activity we go to a swimming pool with restaurants and water slides. And for those who don't do that, there's the internal activity where you stay at the school and do anything from karaoke , to cooking to crossword puzzles, the goal being using fun group activities to help learn the languages. When I was younger I would never go to the pool, mostly because I had to stay and help the teachers but honestly deep down it was probably because I was self-conscious. Last year I started going. And it was one of the best decisions ever. I can't wait for when the next session starts next week...

"Bye!" I shout out with a singsong voice from behind the gate. "See you next week!" I'm still compensating for my unprofessional tardiness.
He waves his hand briefly out of his car window and goes off without saying a word. "Whatever." I say to myself. "As if he's never been late."

Now that I have the afternoon free I don't know what to do with myself. Walking up the steps I try to think of what I want to do. I decide to drive to my friend's house so I get my car keys from the key rack, my bag from the coat stand and head back down the stairs.

Nearing Malia's house I start to get nervous. Her house is on a slope and every manual car driver knows the wrath of the hillstart. I put the car in first and put my foot to the floor praying that noone is coming on the other side. People here are crazy and I can't count on them letting me pass for anything. However, I seem to have avoided humiliation this time and pull up into her driveway.