What I Never Knew I Needed

Ch. 15 - The Scientist

The Scientist - Coldplay

"Nobody said it was easy. It's such a shame for us to part. 
Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be this hard"

--

I was a nervous wreck all day at school and my kids definitely noticed.

One of the things I pride myself on as a teacher is my ability to make meaningful relationships with my students. I genuinely love the shit out of them and I make sure to tell them I am here for them and I will support them in anything they decide to pursue. However, this is unfortunately a double edge sword sometimes. In order to make those meaningful relationships, you have to let the kids into your life a little as well and have conversations with them. Through this, they have gotten to know me very well, so they can always tell when something is up with me.

"Mrs. Y/L/N, are you okay? You look sick."

It's times like now that I'm really fucking glad I never legally changed my last name. I just never saw the need for it. Plus, it's a hassle, all the offices you have to go to and all the waiting you have to do. I always said I would get my name changed when we had kids. For obvious reasons, that never happened. This is working out for me now though because I don't have to tell the kids to call me something different, then they would really know what's going on.

"Daaaaang, Bri. Tell me I look like crap without actually telling me I look like crap." I mustered a chuckle and looked back at my computer.

She laughed back in response and tried to quickly amend her previous statement. "Oh, no, no, it's just that you don't look like you usually do."

"And how do I usually look?" I playfully challenged back, raising my eyebrow at her.

Her face got a little more serious as she looked at me and said "I don't know... happy?"

My face fell at her statement and I could feel tears prick the back of my eyes so I cleared my throat and quickly pushed the emotions down before my expressions could give too much away. How do these kids read me so damn easily? They are so flipping smart sometimes and they don't get enough credit for it. This reading test they all struggle with makes them feel lower than dirt and I hate it. I hate standardized tests in general and I wish they would get rid of them altogether. However, I am not in a place where I make those decisions so, until that ever happens, which is very unlikely, we must feed the monsters.

I gave her a small smile back and said, "I'm okay. Thank you for asking though. Go have a seat so we can get started checking our exam review."

"Okay, Mrs." She said as she turned on her heel and went to her seat.

I watched her leave and took a steadying breath, noticing a couple other sets of eyes on me. I gave them all a reassuring smile and finished taking attendance before I got them all started.

"Okay, guys! Get out your exam reviews please. They should be complete..." I said putting emphasis on the 'should' and smiling wide as I got mixed responses back. "... since you had all last week to work on them..." again putting emphasis on 'all' "...right?"

A chorus of sarcastic "Of course they're complete" and "That's what we were supposed to do last week?" and "Shit..." filled the room.

I laughed out and said "No worries, guys. We are going to go over the answers today, dive into why the correct answers are the correct answers, and then you're going to turn them in on exam day so that you still have something to study. Capeesh?"