Trustworthy

2

The next day, which hardly felt like a Thursday, while Mom went to work at her salon – saying she'd be back at around five – I officially started my first online class at 1p.m on Google Meet. I watched the faces of my classmates fill my laptop screen as I snuggled in my comfy, cushioned desk chair in my room. Once I spotted Daniel's face, I smiled.

The first thirty minutes of class was spent on doing the attendance and figuring out technical difficulties. Daniel introduced Ms. Savia, the other teacher who was part of our meet as an aid. Fifteen minutes was spent on Ms. Savia trying to remotely teach him how to share his screen with the class to begin the lesson. While I knew that most – if not, all – of my classmates were occupied with their phones while nothing serious was happening I kept my eyes on my screen, which was miraculously filled by Daniel's face. It was cute watching him struggle with technology, while he looked handsome as ever in a blue button-down that he frequently wore at school.

Soon, his struggles were resolved, and his face was unfortunately replaced by a shared PowerPoint - though he still appeared next to it in a small box as he spoke. Class went on smoothly from there and I was able to activate into my focussed-student mode while Daniel went over his presentation, explaining the changes made for our now online program. Then, we were on to correcting a homework sheet, for which he displayed half of the answers on his screen, going over them at a moderate pace, before giving us more problems to complete during the lesson – allowing students required time to log off for better focused individual work.

Once our time was up to complete the questions, students rejoined the meeting and rather than sharing the corrections on his screen, Daniel called on people for the answers. When he called on me for the last problem I gave the answer with ease and confidence, watching the corner of his mouth lift up into a subtle smile as he said, "Excellent."

My heart warmed as a wave of nostalgia hit me. To everyone else, our interaction probably seemed normal, but his hinted urge to smile felt personal to me. As he prepared to share the answers and calculations on his screen, I watched him, not believing how much I missed seeing him in person when it hadn't even been a full twenty-four hours yet. Realizing that I had my phone near me, I decided to text him how I felt since I couldn't in person.

You look really nice today.

Already miss seeing you in person😍

Feeling better after sending the text, I began to set my phone down. A desktop notification sound went off – coming from a classmate who forgot to mute themselves, I assumed – followed by an, "Oh my God." I didn't need to look up to connect the voice to Sara. She gasped. "I knew it!" Looking up to see what the drama queen was talking about, my eyes slowly widened as I was faced with a surprise.

On Daniel's shared screen, was a pop-up of my name with my last message, Already miss seeing you in person😍, that disappeared a second later. And of course, that was when people decided to pay attention rather than be on their phones. On my screen, I could see some of my classmates surprised and confused faces, as well as Ms. Savia's. Oh. My. God. I quickly turned off my camera, my chest heaving with fear and embarrassment. Had I known Daniel's phone was connected to his laptop, I would've never texted him.

"Um," he said, clicking around on his screen, attempting to move on. Sara, who was now muted, had a smile on her face. I hated her for speaking and drawing attention. Now everyone would talk.

"Uh, Mr. Sanders," came Ms. Savia's small voice. "I think we can wrap up here. Everyone's worked well today. And, I'm just gonna ask you to stay back."

"Uh, sure." Daniel gave out our assigned homework, which I was having trouble paying attention to as I was still in shock. I anxiously wanted to leave the meeting but couldn't, as it would make me seem more guilty than I already felt. Daniel finally let us go – fifteen minutes early – and people eagerly logged off, having a new topic to gossip about, I knew.