“We should do the school play,” Freya informed me as we made our way into the theater for our long-awaited dance class. “The show hasn’t been announced yet, but I’m sure it’ll be great.”
I crinkled my nose at her. That did not sound like something that would be fun. Maybe for Freya, who loved to be in front of anyone and everyone, but not for me.
“I hope they do Grease,” she continued now, still very excited over the thought of it all. “I’ve always wanted to be in Grease. You know it’s my favorite movie!”
“They’ve already done Grease,” I had to break to her, feeling kind of bad because she really was excited about it. I could remember how they had done Grease the year after my brother had graduated.
Freya waved this fact away. “That was over ten years ago.”
That may have been true, but I still didn’t think a school was going to do the same show even if it had been over ten years. But then again, I didn’t even know what I was talking about. It didn’t really matter for me anyway, since I wasn’t going to try out no matter what it was.
“Wait, don’t you have to be in the drama class to be in the play?” I remembered out loud, knowing for a fact that she wasn’t in drama and hadn’t been since her freshman year.
Freya shook her head so fast that I thought her neck would snap. “Not this year,” she giggled, even bouncier than usual. “There aren’t enough kids in the class for a whole show this year, so they’re going to hold auditions for everyone in the school!”
I was happy for her, since she really was talented enough to get a big part in whatever show they were going to do. I just hoped she ended up liking the show the school decided on using. I knew I’d never hear the end of it if she didn’t.
“I’m really excited about the class after this one,” Freya giggled as we plopped down beside Bennett and Maxxon. “Mr. Deveraux is definitely going to make English class a hell of a lot better than last year.”
Bennett rolled his eyes. “You’re just mad because you had Mrs. Sparks.”
“She’s evil, I tell you!” Freya bellowed now, just like she always did whenever we mentioned her eleventh grade English teacher. “She had it out for me from the start! Just because I was late on the first day! She partnered me up with this freaky kid for our year-long project and I was stuck with him! He followed me around all summer! He still follows me around!”
I patted my best friend on the shoulder, but she didn’t see the flat look on my face as I tried to calm her down. I then glared at Bennett, because he should have known better than to bring up Mrs. Sparks.
Bennett rolled his eyes again, and the bell luckily rang to stop him from saying anything that would piss Freya off even more.
“I want everyone to pair up,” was what Mrs. Carson informed us all first, and I immediately grabbed Bennett before Freya could. If she paired up with him, then I’d be stuck with Maxxon. “We’ll be learning ballroom dancing today.”
Freya didn’t look disappointed by the fact that she was partnered with Maxxon, since ballroom dancing meant that you’d have to be really close to your partner. Since Bennett and I had been best friends since childhood, it really didn’t matter to us how close we were.
“Everyone up on stage,” Mrs. Carson now ordered with a clap, and we all hurried our way from our seats and to the stage. She plugged in a boom box and stuck a CD inside. I could tell that she was hoping teaching us would be easy so she’d actually be able to use it.
“Alright,” she sighed, hopping up on stage now. “What I’m going to show you guys is pretty basic…”
As she went on to teach us what we were supposed to do, I did agree that everything she was showing was basic. But instead of moving on with music, I was surprised to see that nearly no one else in the class understood.
Freya got it, and so did Maxxon, so they were just twirling away while everyone else just stood there blankly. I turned toward Bennett, giving him a look that said he better know what the teacher was talking about or I was going to punch him. He merely gave me a shrug, and I had no idea if that was supposed to be good or bad.
Bennett had said before that he couldn’t dance. He had only taken this class to be with his friends and meet cute girls. He never had a passion for dancing like I did, or even an interest like Freya. I was sure he didn’t know what he was doing, just like the rest of the class.
I didn’t seem to notice that mostly the entire class sucked. Mrs. Carson was looking at all of us, a helpless look on her face as she saw everyone slipping. I almost felt bad for her, since it was her job to make them better. It almost seemed impossible to do.
She tried her hardest to help everyone, but I could tell she was getting frustrated. So when she jumped down from the stage and over to the boom box, I knew she had pretty much given up on trying to teach us.
“Fair warning,” Bennett began, and all I could do was roll my eyes at him as he raised his hands in defeat. “I might drop you.”
I blinked at him flatly. “My hero.”
We heard the doors to the auditorium open, and we all looked up to see a woman make her way inside. I paid no attention to her, kicking Bennett’s foot into the right place instead.
“Before you all start!” Mrs. Carson stopped herself before she could push play on the boom box. I let out an impatient sigh, turning back toward her to see a familiar woman standing right beside her. “I’d like you all to meet Miss Ryder, an English teacher at this school! During this period, she will be helping out because she minored in dancing during college.”
This woman looked familiar, but I thought nothing of it as I turned back toward Bennett to continue on with our dance. Just as we were about to begin once again, I froze in realization.
She looked so familiar, and her name was Miss Ryder… I knew someone with the last name Ryder, and this woman looked eerily similar to her, only older.
Could it be possible that this woman was actually Anna, Ethan’s girlfriend all through middle school and high school? Could she really be back at the high school just like Ethan was?
And as if on cue, the door at the top of the auditorium opened to reveal Ethan, and I thought I was going to pass out. What was he even doing here? Didn’t he have a class he had to teach?
He made his way down the aisle toward the stage, and I wanted to shout at him to go back to his classroom. Did he know that I was there? Was he doing this to torture? Or what he here for Anna?
I couldn’t help but purse my lips at this. I could remember when we were kids. Whenever Ethan and I had one of our rare good days together, we would get to play a little bit before Anna took him away from me. It happened every single time and it had pissed me off so much. Was that how it was going to be again?
But when Ethan saw her standing beside Mrs. Carson, he looked surprised. So he hadn’t come to see her… That was definitely a first.
She looked surprised to see him as well, but that quickly melted into a smile. Ethan then forced himself to smile, and the two of them were the only things I could focus on. I didn’t even care about everyone sucking at dancing any longer. I just wanted to know what had gone on between the two of them.
“Chelsea,” Ethan now said to Mrs. Carson, and I was surprised that the two of them even knew each other. He then lowered his voice while he said the rest, and I couldn’t help but glare at him for it.
He then looked up on stage, eyes immediately locking with mine. He smirked, but I only continued to glare at him like I always did. He did not belong in here at all, and neither did Anna. I didn’t want to be around either of them.
“Look, look!” Freya hissed in my ear, suddenly right beside me and yanking on my arm. “Mr. Deveraux is here, Mr. Deveraux is here! Do you think we’ll be able to dance in front of him?”
I looked back over at him, my stomach dropping when I saw both he and Anna sitting right next to each other in the front row while Mrs. Carson went back to the boom box. Ethan looked almost awkward and uncomfortable being right next to her, which was definitely a first for him. Anna looked like his presence didn’t even bother her.
The music started, but I didn’t even notice. Bennett didn’t see that I wasn’t paying attention, so he pulled me in and spun me around. Normally, this would have been fine and we would have continued on, but since I wasn’t paying attention, my legs ended up tangling together and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground.
The back of my head cracked against the floor, and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from shouting out a cuss word. I snapped at myself in my head, not believing I let myself get distracted by Ethan and Anna.
Bennett merely blinked down at me. “I told you I might drop you.”
I made a face at him, forcing myself up into a sitting position until my vision blurred and my head pounded. I fell back onto the floor and didn’t dare move.
Everyone had stopped dancing to see what had happened, but the music was still going on even though no one was dancing now. I blinked a few times to fix my vision, but it wasn’t really working that well.
“Mrs. Carson!” a voice shouted out, but I couldn’t tell who it was. “Mrs. Carson, Sadie’s hurt!”
I heard Mrs. Carson quickly making her way up the stage and toward us, but I unfortunately heard two other pairs of footsteps as well. Knowing that all of my classmates were already surrounded around me, I knew who was coming with her.
“Sadie,” Mrs. Carson gasped, getting on her knees and gently lifting my head. I flinched when she touched the back of it and I felt pain. “Someone needs to take Sadie to the nurse’s office!”
“I’ll do it,” Bennett volunteered before anyone else could, and I was glad that he did that before Maxxon could. During sophomore year, Maxxon volunteered to take me up to the nurse’s office when I had twisted my foot in gym. He ended up purposely pushing me over and ended up screwing my ankle up even more.
Bennett picked me up, helping me to my feet. I swayed, but was able to continue standing as long as he held onto me. He helped me off the stage and up the aisles toward the doors, which seemed too high up and far away from the bottom of the theater.
But when we finally got out into the hall, I felt a little bit better. The theater was just too stuffy for me, and I didn’t know why. I hadn’t even felt like that in there before, even when I had been hurt.
“You okay?” Bennett asked me as we made our way down the hall, and I nodded in response. “I’m really sorry, Sadie. If I knew I sucked that much, I never would have taken the class.”
I shook my head, stopping him from walking now by clutching and yanking on his shirt. “No, it’s not your fault,” I assured, since it was the truth. “I wasn’t paying attention. It was all my fault I got hurt.”
Bennett was now giving me a look, a look he always gave me whenever he was trying to figure me out. It sure made me worry about what he was going to say.
“Mr. Deveraux and that new teacher were inside the auditorium with us…” Bennett now seemed to think to think out loud, his eyes in suspicious slits as he continued to look down at me. “Were they the reason why you weren’t paying attention to the dance? You’re almost always focused when it comes to dancing.”
He was right, and that was why it was driving me nuts. I wanted to be a dancer more than anything, and I had been dancing for all of my life. I couldn’t remember any time where I had been this distracted from dancing. It was all Ethan’s fault!
“Do you like Mr. Deveraux?” Bennett practically blurted now.
I nearly tripped, which caused Bennett to reach out and catch me before I could. At first, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to him. But then I remembered that Bennett had been with me for my entire childhood. He had to remember what Ethan had done to me.
“Don’t you remember when we were kids?” I had to ask, slowly continue on toward the nurse’s office. “He’d always make fun of me and stay the stupidest yet smartest things. You remember that, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah,” he chuckled now as he continued leading me to the nurse’s office. “I almost forgot.”
This caused me to stop dead in my tracks. “You almost forgot?” I nearly shouted, but was able to catch myself when I remembered that we were in the middle of a hallway. “How could you almost forget? He made my life miserable!”
Bennett only shrugged, continuing to nearly yank me toward the nurse’s office. “Yeah, I remember that and all, but it’s not exactly something you want to think about. And back then, I never knew if you were talking about Maxxon or him because both of them would make you miserable.”
“Well, it was the truth,” was all I could mutter when we finally got to the nurse’s office.
The nurse quickly swept me away from Bennett shooing him off and urging me to sit down on the cot. I did as I was told, trying my hardest not to wince as she wrapped my head in gauze a few times.
“It’s really just a scrape,” the nurse informed me as I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like I had been in a car accident, and it wasn’t exactly the best look for my hair. “It’s bleeding just a little bit, but you should be fine soon. It’s a good thing you didn’t crack your head open!”
Yeah, I guess I was lucky. I was pretty damn lucky that I didn’t shatter a bone or anything either. I had hit the floor really hard.
“I’m going to go call your mother to come pick you up,” she now informed me as she headed toward the door, opening it and stepping outside. I let my eyes shut as I heard the door close behind her, and I let out a calm breath. Finally, some peace and quiet.
My happy thoughts were quickly interrupted when I heard the nurse call out from the hallway, “Oh, Mr. Deveraux! It’s nice to see you!”
She was obviously flirting, but it wasn’t like that bothered me or anything. Ethan was probably used to girls flirting with him all the time. I was sure he knew exactly what he was supposed to do in situations like this.
The door opened again, and I was hoping that it was the nurse instead of who I was almost sure it was. I looked up, glaring at Ethan as he just stared down at me. I said nothing, and neither did he. We just stared at each other for what felt like hours, even though it was only a few moments.
“You really worried me,” Ethan informed me, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the door, not allowing anyone else to come in if they wanted to.
“Sure I did.” I rolled over in bed so I was in a more comfortable position. “You were too busy worrying about the fact that Anna was in the same room as you.”
His composure completely changed, but I was expecting as much. I simply crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for the witty comeback I knew was coming. Even if I caught him off guard, Ethan always had a witty comeback.
So when he let out a sigh and plopped down in one of the chairs by the cot I was lying on, I was surprised. Ethan Deveraux actually had nothing to say to me. This had been the first time in the near seventeen years I had known him.
“What happened between the two of you?” I found myself asking him, a lot gentler than I expected.
“That’s not really any of your business, now is it?” he snapped, but I could then see him bite the inside of his lip, which I knew from years of experience meant that he had said something he didn’t mean to.
So I didn’t let it bother me. “No, but you could still tell me.”
He glared at me now. “It’s personal.”
Of course it was. I knew it’d be personal, considering how he was acting about it, but that didn’t meant he couldn’t tell me what had happened. We had been friends, once upon a time. Even though he was the devil’s spawn.
“Ethan, we used to take baths together. I don’t think we can get any closer than that.”
He gave me a look.
“Sorry. Mr. Deveraux,” I corrected lazily.
“It was one time, and you were barely even a year old,” he continued on with our previous conversation. “How do you even remember that?”
I gave him a flat look. “Your mom took pictures.”
He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Of course she did.”
I didn’t press on about Anna any longer, because I knew he wasn’t going to tell me no matter how much I begged him. We had never been close enough for him to tell me anything personal, and I knew being separated for nearly seven years
“Sadie,” a voice now said as the door opened, and I turned to see that it was the nurse. “Your mother is here to take you home.”
I let out a sigh as the nurse left the room again, looking at the clock to see that sixth period was almost over. Ethan was going to have to get back to his classroom before the bell rang, because I knew he had a class since I was in it.
I got up from the cot, picking up my backpack and making my way toward the door. But before I could get to it, Ethan beat me.
“Excuse me,” I tried, trying to get by him and failing miserably. “If you would please let me leave, Mr. Deveraux, that would be great.”
He grinned at the fact I called him Mr. Deveraux without having to be reminded, and it almost made me feel sick. I couldn’t wait until I graduated and I’d be able to call him Ethan out loud once again without a problem.
“Oh, and about what you said earlier about us not being able to get any closer…” he whispered as he opened the door, a mischievous look in his eye as he smirked at me. “You’re wrong. I can think of plenty of ways we could get closer.”
My jaw dropped, unable to believe that he had actually just said that to me. It was something that I was used to from him, sure, but not when he was my teacher!
“You’re… You’re not allowed to say things like that to me!” I gulped, feeling the brush creep up onto my cheeks. “You’re a teacher!”
He merely waved over his shoulder, not even looking back at me as he continued down the hall and away from me. I only stood there, not believing what had just happened, before finally walking the opposite way down the hall toward the entrance, where I knew my mom would be waiting for me.
I was definitely going to go home and take a long, long nap.
I was just really glad that I was getting out of seventh period with Mr. Deveraux.
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Finally, this chapter's out! I'm sorry it took so long. :( I have one more week of school, and then winter break! I don't know when I'll be home after Christmas, so I'll try my hardest to update before that. :)
I just want to thank you guys so much for reading. It means a lot to me. ♥