Teacher's Pet

Teacher's Pet: Chapter Seven

September turned to October, and October turned into an unusually cold November, and before Louis’ knew it snow was lining the streets as he drove to school each morning.

Two months after his one confrontation with Harry, and it was almost like nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened to the boy. The day afterwards Harry had shown up to class on time, bruises covered, and laughed and talked with Niall as if everything was perfectly normal.

And he hadn’t dropped the act once, not in the past eight weeks Louis had spent watching and waiting to see him slip.

Louis began questioning his sanitary around the middle of October, when he realized that the only true reason he got up each morning wasn’t to get to school on time, but rather to see that mop of curly hair and fake bright smile walk through the door at nine in the morning, like clockwork.

There was an uncomfortable tug in his stomach, guilt, every time he caught the eye of Harry, guilt for the little flutter in his stomach and little murmur in his heart.

But following the night Louis had dropped Harry off at home, and kept him from going to wherever the hell else the kid had wanted to, Louis had vowed to stay out of his students’ personal life.

The next day, when Harry walked in with Niall, laughing loudly at a joke, Louis had wordlessly handed Harry the phone, mumbled an excuse about him leaving it in class, and then forced himself to let Harry go.

It wasn’t exactly easy.

“Mr. Tomlinson,” Louis lifted his head to twenty blank stares, and turned to Liam who had spoken up. “The bell rang a few minutes ago.”

Louis blinked, eyes unconsciously turning to the empty seat next to Liam.

He hadn’t noticed the bell, because the normal curls and smirk walking past his desk hadn’t alerted him that class was about to start.

Harry hadn’t shown up.

Ignoring the pang in his stomach, Louis stood up and cleared his throat.

“Right,” He muttered, “I know we’re all looking forward to the start of Holidays, which will be upon as very soon. As for chapter ten, raise your hand if you would like an exam on that tomorrow.”

The lone kid in front, with the oversized glasses that weren’t cool enough to be considered ‘hipster’ and acne that covered his forehead, raised his hand before looking around and quickly lowering it.

Louis smirked, trying to pry his mind off of Harry, who he wasn’t supposed to give two-shits about, “Right, good, because I don’t really want to make an exam,” he walked over to the front of his desk and sat on it, staring out at the students he’d come to know a bit better in the past two months. “So instead of testing you on the grief cycle, which I know sounds very fun, I thought we’d have a project.”

Nineteen eyes blinked unresponsively and Louis rolled his eyes and sighed, “You’re welcome,” he muttered sarcastically, pushing himself off the desk and dawdled over to the board, grabbing a piece of chalk and writing out a word.

‘Memory’

“Explore it,” Louis stated, dropping the chalk back into the tray and sitting back down in his seat.  The room was silent as the kids stared at him.

Liam raised his hand in the back, “But what’s the assignment?” Liam asked and a couple kids nodded in agreement.

“Memory,” Louis stated again simply, “The rest is up to you, groups of three.”

Blank eyes stared at him for another moment, before loud chatter filled the room as friends tried to claim groups before someone was left alone with the nerdy kid in front.