Idk if I should warn you...this part might contain some blood, abuse and other stuff....so if you don't like it, skip this one
Max
I had enough of this. My dad wasn't going to stop. He punched me once more and I ended up on the floor, where I received a few more kicks. Then he spat on me and after that he was gone and I was once again alone in my room. I lost consciousness a few moments later and woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. I was covered in sweat and blood, the taste of iron still in my mouth. I tried to get up but after a while gave up and just crawled into the bathroom.
When my alarm rang in the morning I slowly got out of the bed. At least I was able to treat the worst wounds in the night.
I went into school and sat at my table as usual. Charles and Lando were nowhere to be seen, but the two were always late, especially when there was math for the first lesson. Yeah. Boring.
I don't know, what took the teacher so long, but Lando and even Charles were in the class sooner than her. Our teacher was an old lady. Nobody really liked her, not even the nerds. The weirdest part of it was that she was never late. And after a long ten minutes the headteacher came.
"Class, your teacher's not coming today, she retired. I'll stay here today, take it as free time to do your homework to other classes. Hopefully tomorrow you'll have a new teacher."
"Finally, I hated that old hussy..." I whispered and Lando let out a quiet laugh.
"Yeah, she was a bitch." He said a bit too loud. A few students turned to us and some of them laughed.
"Lando, you shouldn't talk about her like that, even though I agree with you." Said Charles with a smile on his face.
We sat together with our other friends at lunch and talked about the new teacher.
"I bet she'll be even worse than the last." Said George.
"Yes, or it might be a man, but even worse than he'll be if he was a woman." Agreed Alex.
"Or, it could be...someone nice, right?" Asked Lance, but we just laughed.
"I don't think that maths teachers are able to be nice. Sounds impossible." I couldn't be more wrong.
The next day came quite fast. My dad wasn't home so I had at least one normal day. We had geography and then English, but nobody was actually listening, because of the next class. Maths. We were curious, who would be the next teacher we'll hate.
When the bell rang, we excitedly got into the classroom. I sat at my usual place next to Lando and Charles. We were all high-strung and nobody spoke, until the door opened. I looked up and saw the most handsome man ever. He was tall, but I was sure that I was taller and had dark curly hair. He was muscular and had beautiful brown eyes. I never believed in love at first sight, but this was a whole another level of beauty.
Or maybe it was the fact that he wasn't a girl. I never found any girl that attractive, to fall in love at first sight. Maybe he's a bad person? I hope he's really evil because having a crush on a teacher is very bad. And I shouldn't even mention the fact that, again, he's a man. MAN. My dad would literally kill me if he knew.
"Good morning class! My name is Daniel Ricciardo, but you can call me Dan, or whatever you like, just not professor. That sounds weird. I'm your new math teacher...but you probably already knew that, nevermind, I hope you did your homework, I spoke to the headteacher and he told me you had one. But I forgot what, can someone tell me?"
I was too taken back by his voice and...he seems really nice. I think I'll die...
Someone showed him the homework and then the lesson started. It wasn't as boring as I thought, even though it was still math.
At lunch we were once again talking about the math teacher, but this time it was only good stuff.
"I like him, he's nice. And hot, right Max?" Said Charles and bumped into me with his elbow.
"What?"
"Don't tell me it's not true, I saw you, you had eyes only for him." My cheeks reddened and I tilted my head down.
The others laughed.
"It's fine, we know he's hot." Laughed George and I smiled. My dad mustn't know about this.
Few weeks later
I didn't know that my test went wrong until the teacher told me to meet him in his office. He shared an office with other teachers that taught math and physics.
"Ah, hello Max, you can sit down."
"Good morning Mr Ricciardo." I said quietly.
He smiled, but the smile wasn't as happy as his other smiles. That was the most beautiful thing about him. His wide happy smile. He smiled almost all the time. Except for now which I found quite bad.
I knew that he couldn't possibly like me, but he smiled at everyone.
"I think you should know that the test you wrote went quite...bad." he then showed me my test. I looked at the paper and then at him. He still had the sad smile on his beautiful...ehm, face.
I got 0/100, which was the worst result I ever got from the test.
"I compared it to your other tests from math and you always got at least 75 points, even the first test with me was good, so what happened? If this is some kind of sore spot for you, I won't ask again, but I'm here to help you okay?" While he was talking, I somehow went back in my mind to the day before, when I got home from school and my dad was standing in the hall with a whip and an angry face.
I never slept so bad, everything hurt, and still does.
A few tears escaped my eyes. Mr Ricciardo noticed and got closer. He carefully wrapped me in a hug, which I immediately reciprocated. I felt so safe in his arms. He held me like the most fragile thing in the world as I cried on his shoulder. It felt so good. When I calmed down a bit I told him everything. I trusted him with my whole heart and he seemed to understand me.
I told him about my dad beating me to unconsciousness, shouting at me every day, kicking me out of the house in the middle of the night in winter only in shirt to rake of the snow from the whole garden. Mr Ricciardo didn't interrupt me until the end of my story.
"Please, Mr Ricciardo, just take me away." I sobbed while he hugged me again. The other professors in the office were quiet. I knew that they heard everything, or almost everything, but what they didn't hear was when Mr Ricciardo whispered in my ear.
"Don't worry Maxy, I'll help you, I promise."