Bad habit

04

The weekend flies by and once Monday arrives, YN is dreading the school day. She almost debates calling in sick, but she knows it would only make the situation worse, because sooner or later she'd have to face a curly headed lad she wasn't particularly keen on seeing, the embarrassment from that Friday night still vivid in her memory. She pondered long on that night, sipping wine directly from the bottle (for dramatic purposes of course), and she wondered what could she had done wrong to make him react that way. Men, in general, were always kind of difficult to understand, to her, so she figures he probably just wasn't that aroused anymore. Which is fine, she has to tell herself that at least a million times, because the rejection is so painful and overall embarrassing she doesn't know what to make of it.

When she walks in the classroom that day, to her surprise Aidi is already sitting at her desk, her pudgy hand wrapped around a brown crayon that she's moving in circles on the paper, drawing something YN can't quite make out.

It wasn't weird, the school offered pre-school from 6 am to the parents that had to work early in the mornings, what was weird was her presence that early, something that in the school year had never occurred before.

She wonders if Harry did it on purpose. Maybe he didn't want to face her, and she has to take a big breath before erasing that thought off her head. She shouldn't care what he did. As many years before, he was never hers, and nothing had changed. She feels a little silly of course for thinking that he may have had a special kind of feeling for her, and despite him telling her that he did, she's definitely convinced he was just playing around that night in his patio.

She makes her way to Aidi, and she crutches down next to her, "good morning, Aidi" she says softly as to not startle her.

"Mornin' miss YN" she smiles a toothless grin, her hand not stopping her movements.

"You're here early today, huh?"

"Yes" she nods, eagerly, "daddy's at work"

"Oh" YN replies

"This early?" Is everything she'd like to ask, but it's really wrong prodding on this poor child to get informations about her dad, so she erases the question from her mind.

"What are yeh drawin'?" She asks instead, to shift the attention from the feared topic. Despite her means not always being the most pure hearted, YN loves Aidi. She thinks she's such a precious little thing, and she genuinely loves spending time with her.

"'s a picture of daddy 'n me" she says, picking the drawing up in her hands and showing it to her teacher, "love him s'much"

YN smiles fondly at the picture, a small stick figure holding hands with a bigger one that she figures are respectively Aidi and Harry, the irrefutable mop of curly hair drawn with the brown crayon.

"I know he loves you too" she simply says, "very much!"

"Yeah" Aidi agrees, picking up a blue crayon to color the sky.

...

It's much later in the day, now, around four pm, and YN is waiting for the remaining kids to be picked up. The school is closing earlier today due to a mandatory rat disinfestation, that the parents were notified of about ten days before, and one by one every kid is picked up and ready to go home, every kid but one, she can't help but notice. Aidi.

She tries to not pay too much attention to the irony of it all, and she wonders to what means Harry would go to not see her.

Maybe he forgot about the disinfestation? She doesn't know, and despite fearing the answer to the question, she's his daughter's teacher. And she's an adult. So she takes her phone from the back pocket and with trembling hands she looks through her contacts until she finds his name.