*/ This chapters longer than the other, but it's worth it. :) There's a twist starting to come into the story and i hope hope hope you'll like it! :D /*
I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I was stood in the middle of a locked English classroom with my handsome new teacher...crying my eyes out.
Even through my blurry vision his looks seemed to startle me. His light brown hair was ruffled, falling into his face slightly and his green eyes were staring at me intently. I blinked a few times and looked back, noticing small hazel flecks amongst the green.
"...Jas?" I saw Mr Hinchcliffe's lips move and I landed back in reality with a thud. His lips settled into his oh-so-familiar gentle smirk when he saw me jump at the sound of his voice. How long had I been looking at him for? Ugh...I didn't even want to know.
"What's wrong?" He asked me, still looking down at me...but this time his eyes had a hint of worry in them. The concern in his voice was quite apparent, too. Gosh this guy needed to sort his mood swings out. Unless the first time I spoke to him was a one off, but as much as I wanted to believe that I couldn't. Something was telling me that there would be a few more of them moments to come. Without thinking, I sighed outwardly at the thought.
"God Jas, seriously. Tell me what's wrong." Mr Hinchcliffe pulled a chair out for me at one of the desks in the room and I took it obediently, leaning my arms on the table in front and letting my head fall into my hands. I felt Mr Hinchcliffe pull out the chair next to me so I lifted my head up to look at him.
"Nothing," I replied, shaking my head quickly and wiping my eyes. He threw down a box of tissues in front of me and I took one, carefully wiping under my eyes trying not to smudge my eye liner. Hey though, who was I fooling? I'd just cried my eyes out for like 10 minutes straight, what make up was on my eyes would now probably be all over my face anyway. Fantastic. I bet Mr Hinchcliffe thought that looked mega cute. Not.
"Don't be stupid and just tell me," He leaned back in his chair and entwined his hands, resting them on his stomach. "I'm not letting you leave until you do."
I let out a small laugh of frustration. See, again with the mood swings! He really does need to sort his head out.
"Whatever, I can go when I like." I lifted myself out of my seat and instantly felt an arm grab my wrist.
"Well, you could leave...but I doubt the principle will be too pleased to hear you've been skipping again. Especially when you don't have a note from a teacher explaining the circumstances."
I glared at him. He was right...but, hang on a minute. This was blackmail. Only slightly, but it still was! This can't be allowed! ...Still, there was nothing I could do about it other than glare at him, and that wasn't helping my situation at all. I sighed in defeat and sat back down, watching as Mr Hinchcliffe returned to his previous position.
"You can't do that," I attempted to make my voice sound strong and authoritative, but it cracked half way through the sentence.
"I just have, though."
"What is with you, Mr Hinchcliffe? Like, really...what's with the mood swings? You seem to change your opinion of me every 5 minutes; one minute you like me and the next you're just...weird. Why am I even here? Why do you care why I'm upset?"
"Woah woah woah!" He answered, laughing gently.
"From the beginning? I don't have mood swings, my mood just changes a lot..." He smiled a cheeky smile at me when he said that. I was never going to get a straight answer was I? Ugh. He carried on.
"I do like you, you're one of my students and I have no choice." Again with the cheeky smile, but this time it turned into that lob sided grin of his.
"Nah, only joking. Of course I like you. And you're here because I found one of my students crying in the hall way when she should have been in a lesson. I care that you're upset because it's my responsibility to...plus, it's never nice seeing a pretty girl crying."
He smiled innocently at me and I didn't know what to think. 'Pretty girl'? Half of me said pervert, and the other half told me that he was just been charming and helping me feel better. I preferred the latter, so I stuck to that thought. I smiled back.
"Pretty girl? I think you've pulled the wrong girl into your classroom."
"Oh. Pfft," He waved his hand in dismissal. "Whatever. Tell me why you're crying, Jas."
I sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you?" As I spoke, I turned sideways in my chair so I was facing him and received that smirk of his. Great. Although it was quite a nice smirk he had going on, it was an arrogant one.
He replied with a simple 'no'. With a groan of frustration, I began to tell him what happened. I planned to edit the story a bit, but I found myself telling him everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. From the day I met Matt, actually...I told him everything that had gone wrong and everything that had upset me. I told him about how much I thought I liked him but in a few days I would probably remember how much of a dick he was to me all these months.
And what shocked me most was that Mr Hinchcliffe actually looked like he was listening and his facial expressions made it seem like he actually cared. It made me feel warm for a minute...but then I realised that his caring persona probably wouldn't keep up. Soon enough he'd be back to teasing me and been the arrogant idiot that no one else knew. I shook that thought out of my mind and carried on telling him about what had happened.
I was just about to tell him what had happened today when I heard the screeching of the school bell, making us both jump. I saw Mr Hinchcliffe rub his face with his hands and heard him sigh slightly as went to lean down and pick up my school bag. The sound of a gentle cough stopped me and I turned in my chair to face him.
"Yeah, Mr Hinchcliffe?" I asked, I could feel a puzzled look dominating my expression.
"You're not in a rush to get home, are you?" He asked.
I shook my head. "No. Nobody's home, my Dad is working and I don't particularly want to be alone right now."
"I can see that...so, stay. Sit back down and finish what you were telling me. Besides, you still haven't stopped completely crying."
I nodded in agreement, I wouldn't mind staying if I was honest. It's not that I hated been at home alone, it's just that when I was upset and I went back to an empty house the atmosphere just always got to me, you know? It always seemed more tense and upsetting than it actually was.
"Good," He replied as we both returned to sitting in our previous positions.
"Oh, and call me Marc out of school times. Mr Hinchcliffe sounds so...formal. And look at me-" He waved an arm up and down, gesturing to himself. "-I am NOT a formal person." He ended the sentence in a small laugh, and I laughed with him and nodded.
"Okay. Well Ma-" I was cut off mid sentence by a brisk, loud knock on the classroom door. I sighed lightly and earned one of Mr Hinchcliffe's...sorry, Marc's, infamous smirks. However, the smirk left his face quickly and was replaced with a look of annoyance as he got up to answer the door.
A girl from my year called Natasha Michaels walked in. Oh, this was just perfect...she was the popular girl in our year. You know, the one who everyone wanted to be and had to bow down to? Yeah. And to be honest, she was completely perfect looking. Long blonde hair, hazel eyes that seemed to sparkle and an hourglass body.
I sighed even heavier when Mr Hinchcliffe opened the door and I saw her, and he turned to laugh at me. I returned his look with a scowl.
"Yes, Miss Michaels?" Mr Hinchcliffe turned to face her and she almost pushed past him so that she was in the room. Her eyes turned cold when she saw me and she glared hatefully at me. I returned the glare. God, she was a hateful bitch.
"Can I ask you what you need?" Mr Hinchcliffe spoke again. She turned her head to the left to face him and she pouted as she spoke, playing annoyingly with her hair.
"Sorry, Sir. But would it be possible to like...see you after school a few times a week? Because I'm finding this Macbeth essay ever so difficult."
"Miss Michaels, you've only had one lesson. Of course the essay is going to be difficult, we haven't even started on the class work yet! We know you're smart, but you don't have to rush ahead."
Natasha smiled her sickly sweet smile at him and again, flicked me an ice cold look. Felt sick...why was he complimenting this bitch? Oh, I remember...because he's a teacher. And he's meant to be a cool one at that. I slapped myself inwardly for letting jealously get the better of me. Hang on...jealousy? OH WHATEVER.
"Sir, could I please ask some ques-" He cut her off half way which made me smile, almost grin in fact.
"Miss Michaels, please. You have a whole 2 hour lesson with me tomorrow to ask me questions. But as you can see, right now I'm kinda busy. So if you wouldn't mind..." At this point, Mr Hinchcliffe opened the door and gestured for her to leave. I tried, but failed, to suppress a snicker.
"But Sir!" Natasha was almost pleading now, but he was having none of it.
"Go, Miss Michaels. Now."
With a sigh of defeat, she turned to leave and Marc (!!) headed back to me. She glanced at me and I heard her mutter 'bitch'. I had a sudden idea and before I could think it through, I did it. I mean...two could play at her game.
"Erm, Marc I don't suppose you have a bottle of water or anything do you?" I used the fact that he was at the opposite side of the classroom to my benefit, and almost shouted the question. I made sure that Natasha heard me call him Marc, and I was also sure that she heard his reply of "Yeah Jas, one sec." because I got the most evil, coldest glare I had ever had aimed at me. With that, she left the room.
Mr Hinchcliffe put a bottle of water in front of me and snickered.
"That was harsh."
"What was?" I asked, throwing an innocent look of confusion on my face.
"You know what I mean, but don't do it again. Marc is for when the others aren't around, I don't think I'd be able to hand it if all the kids started calling me by my first name. Authority confusion or what. She did deserve that, though."
I laughed and nodded, then apologised for calling him by his name in front of her. He waved it off casually. The my surprise, he jumped up and sat on the desk next to where I was leaning my arms. He looked down at me and told me to carry on with the conversation from before. Shoot! I almost forgot about what I was talking to him about...dammit. I carried on from where I'd left off, hiding my face and ducking down for the most part of it as I didn't want to cry again in front of Mr Hinchcliffe.
He also told me to tell him about the rest of my life and what was going on, so I thought I might as well do. This was actually making me feel a lot better, it was like a huge weight was been lifted off of my shoulder...and he seemed like he was truly interested. I told him about failing my classes last year, about how I was worried about my dad lately, about how I missed my younger brother Simon and I told him about how I was worried about failing my classes this year, too.
"And yeah...that's it. I think I took him for granted and I know that this is all my fault because I am a bitch to him, but I really don-" I was talking about how I felt about what had happened earlier when I was cut off by Mr Hinchcliffe jumping down from the desk and kneeling in front of me. He was now at my hight and he looked my right in the eyes.
"Listen, Jas. You seem to have so much more on your plate than any other teenager your age...and you're handling it brilliantly. I'm surprised you haven't broken before this, to be honest. You're really strong, and I'm sure you miss your mom but everything will get better, I promise I wont let the same happen to you. Now dry those tea-"
I cut him off with a shout of 'wait'. As I replayed the small speech in my head, I realised something. My mum? How did he know about her? I didn't mention it and It wasn't even on my personal school records, and Jess only knew the story vaguely. None of my other friends knew about it at all.
I'd known Mr Hinchcliffe for a day and he already seemed to know more about me than some of my closest friends, things that neither I nor my family had mentioned to him...
My mind raced...what was going on?
*/ Sorry, I have a habit of ending on cliffhangers haha. I hope you enjoyed reading, and if you did please comment/vote and let me know because your comments spur me on, they really do. Plus, i stayed up until 3am writing this...haha. Will update again soon :) Loves