The trip home, which was supposed to make Louis feel refreshed and more calm, left him even more anxious, nervous, and flat out confused than he had felt before. He hadn’t been able to get Lottie’s question out of his mind, since the words had carelessly slipped out of her mouth, and he was getting more and more flustered every time his mind wandered to the mysterious student, with the curls, who sat in the back of his first period class.
Louis was half an hour early to class Monday morning, pulling out the stack of quizzes he had tossed carelessly in a drawer before locking up the room on Friday, and he began to quickly scan the quizzes and grade them.
Naturally, the last one in the pile was Harry’s, which left Louis no other quizzes to distract him from his obligation to grade Harry’s half complete quiz. It didn’t take long to grade, as only two of the twelve answers he’d bothered to fill in were correct, the other ten being so far off the mark Louis wondered how he’d even come up with answer.
With a tired sigh, and a sinking pit in is stomach, Louis wordlessly scratched the grade on the side of the paper and tossed it aside to join the rest of the quizzes. He reached into his other drawer and pulled out a stack of journals for his students to retrieve on their way in, and then he leaned back in his chair and sipped on his tea, waiting for the bell to bring in the wave of teenager angst.
Sure enough, as soon as the first girl entered his room, makeup smeared and hair askew, the weekend gossip begin to circulate. Louis only caught bits and pieces of conversations, as they were whispered loudly throughout the room. Kids streamed in, collecting their quizzes and journals from Louis’ desk, and he just sat silently and watched them all.
From what he gathered, three of the Emily’s had thrown a joint party at a boy name Ben’s house, but Ben hadn’t liked two of the Emily’s, so that had ended poorly.
A kid named Matt, who Louis had never heard of before, had gotten himself arrested along with a girl, after they were caught fucking in a field outside of town.
And most importantly, Brittney’s boyfriend had cheated on her with Emily #4, and Louis watched half interested as the two glared at each other from across the room, lips pursed.
The bell rang to start class, and Louis couldn’t help himself from glancing at the back corner of the room, where Liam and Niall were both sitting, staring at Harry’s empty seat, both biting their lips nervously.
Louis didn’t want to care; he wanted to not care like he wouldn’t care if it were one of the Emilys or one of the Williams in his class.
But it was Harry, so he did care, and that drove him absolutely crazy.
He cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the class, “Right, I hope you all had wonderful weekends-“
Brittney in the back began to sniffle and Louis took a steadying breath to calm himself before he continued, “And if not, I’m sorry-“
He winced when he heard Brittney’s sob ring through the air.
YOU ARE READING
Teacher's Pet
FanfictionIt was supposed to be a quick and easy gig: Teacher’s Assistant. All Louis had to do was spend a few months assigning reading and grading reports, and then he could continue his wayward life. He wasn’t supposed to get attached, especially not to one...
