after you left |ai|

38

"Welcome Ashton." Half the class said in unision and I looked at Ashton who had the biggest smile on his face.

"I am very happy to be here." He said before looking at me.

"I asked all of you to write down your favourite songs at the start of this week so Ashton prepared some of them to play for us. Is everyone ready for that?" I asked and they all screamed a yes and some clapped their hands.

"Okay so who wanted me to play Happy? The song that goes 'clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth'?" He asked and when he sang that little part, 5 out of 15 hands went up so rapidly. "And who wants to sing it with me or learn it today?" He asked and even more hands went up and he looked around with a smile. He sat down at the front of the class with his guitar while I went over to the kids and sat down with them. The most closed off kid of the class moved to come sit with me and once she sat down on my lap, I focused on Ashton and the way he interacted with the kids, the way he let them come forward to sing with him if they wanted to and the laughs escaping when he won over their hearts.

The other teacher, Marie, occasionally looked over at me with a smile on her face. Another autism kid had found his way to her lap and was clapping along softly.

But even the girl on my lap was starting to let go of all the tension and fear after a while. She wasn't going to stand infront of the class like the others but she was very quietly singing along. They went on with the song until everyone could sing it along and they were ready to do it all together.

"You have to sing too, miss Elle" the girl on my lap said and I looked at her with a smile before nodding.

"I will" I said and she smiled at me before looking at Ashton again. I took out my phone and decided to film it when they sang the whole song. They were all smiling, some dancing along and Ashton had the biggest smile on his face while singing the song. Ashton, Marie and I gave the class a big applause.

By lunch time they had learned 4 songs and I had never seen them this happy before. Smiles on their faces while they left the classroom to go to lunch. I don't have to do the lunch break today which I was very happy about.

"You did amazing." I said to Ashton while I walked over to him.

"It's not hard with a class like this. They're all so excited and amazing." He replied all happy before looking at Marie. "So what do we do for lunch?"

"You get to eat together with all the other teachers. They're all very excited to meet you." Marie replied before looking at me. "No worries, there won't be any crazy teenagers there."

"I figured" Ashton said with a soft chuckle, he placed his guitar on the table before taking his bag to take out his lunch. Marie and I took out our lunch too before we started making our way to the teachers room. I took Ashton's hand in mine and he smiled at the gesture while keeping his eyes on me. I just looked back at him shortly before looking at Marie.

"Did you prepare the dance for after lunch?" I asked her and she nodded, it was Marie's first year as a teacher here so I was guiding her through it a bit. She was great with the kids and that's all that mattered.

"Yeah it's rather easy. Is this the one you did last year too? It felt familiar."

"Yeah I have 5 dance routines that I use again every year." I said with a chuckle and she laughed softly. "I'm not good enough in dancing anymore to come up with something new every year."

"I took a lot of dance classes as a kid, if you want I could try and come up with a new one for easter?" She proposed and I looked at her with a smile.

"That would be lovely, I'm always open to new suggestions, you know that." I said to her and she smiled proudly. As of last year, I am the main teacher in our class but due to having 15-20 kids with mental or physical disabilities, we need another set of hands to help. And so far, Marie has been a great help. "Have you got any plans for the holidays?"