Chemistry

Ch. 4

Will drove home and started unpacking his bags, preparing snacks for when his children arrived home from school. After he set out the plates he checked the time to find that in about 5 minutes he would have to head to the bus stop to get his kids, so he had just enough time to scroll through Instagram. He searched "Jack Howard" and quickly found the young man's profile. He noticed that his account was private, so he sent a follow request and moved on.

When his children arrived home he ate snacks and watched tv with them for about an hour until Laura pulled into the driveway and he excused himself to the restroom. He opened his phone to find that his follow request had been accepted and Jack had followed him back. He contemplated messaging him, but decided against it.

The sound of Laura calling his name pulled him back to reality and he yelled back "just a minute" before quickly scrolling through Jack's profile, glancing at some pictures. He closed his phone and walked back into the living room.

-

The next three days went about the same. He would wake up, say goodbye to his kids, and have a pretty bland day.

Friday morning of that week he walked into his classroom with his bags and coffee in hand, unpacked, and sat down at his desk as usual. He pulled the curtains, turned on his humidifier, and began adjusting the desks. Once he was done with his morning chores he sat down once more, sipped on his coffee, and checked his email. He found that Principal O'Connor had sent him a message saying that today Jack would show up to shadow him. He was pretty excited but continued getting his lesson plans ready and preparing for the students to arrive.

About 20 minutes later they started trickling in, and after the bell rang Will began teaching his first period. He had heard that Jack would show up around 8 am, which would give him time to welcome all of the students into the classroom and run through announcements.

"Good morning everyone. I'm gonna give you some time to finish your activity chart assignment from yesterday because I know some of you had a few questions left. While you're doing that I'm gonna be putting lab grades in. Also, as some of you may have heard, Mr. Clemons recently quit. We're trying to hire a new teacher, so starting today we may have a guest in here so just be nice. We'll explain more later. Get to work."

The room grew pretty quiet as the kids completed the assignment. Some understood it better than others, but overall his class was doing fairly well. Before he knew it, someone knocked at his door and he peeled through the window to see Jack looking a bit nervous. The student closest to the door started to stand up to let him in, but before they could Will walked over to let Jack in himself. "I got it." He said.

"Hey! Glad to have you here." Will introduced while reaching out to offer Jack a handshake.

"Hi! I'm Jack. Wait, weird question, but didn't I see you at the zoo a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah! I knew I recognized you from somewhere. That explains it." Will answered awkwardly, trying to hide the fact that he was absolutely aware of the fact that they had met before this. "Anyways, welcome to my classroom. The kids are currently working on some notes about the activity series."

"Oh, nice. Being in here makes me glad to teach biology." Jack replied with a genuine laugh.

Will laughed alongside Jack, happy that their interaction was losing its initial awkwardness. "Yeah, I feel the same way when it comes to biology." He replied with a dramatic grimace. "So, you've taught before?"

"Yeah! This'll be my fourth year."

"Good, so you have some experience. You'll have a pretty troubling class, but there are some good kids sprinkled in. Luckily for you, you only have a few weeks with them. Hopefully you stay longer though." Will started driving the conversation in a more casual direction, and Jack seemed to be into it with smiles and other engaged facial expressions.

Jack opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a student raising their hand peeling Will's attention away from him.