Reconnecting

Gut Feeling

After the first week of school, the principal and I decided that since it was my first year teaching I was just gonna teach 6th grade. So I taught 2 classes every day and I only had 30 students total.

My class walked into the room. It was the third period of the day and I loved them, but boy were they loud. "Can I have quiet please?"

It took a moment but it got quiet in the room. "Thank you"

One of the students, Lauren, raised her hand.

"How can you have a question? I haven't said anything yet" I joked. She smiled. "Go ahead"

"Did you get engaged?" Lauren asked.

"How could you possibly have known that?"

"She can see your hand" Kelly said. "When did you get engaged?"

"Yesterday" I told them

Everyone got really excited and really loud.

"Are we invited to your wedding?" Brian asked

"I don't know" I laughed

"What does your dress look like?" Sarah asked

"This is not what we're supposed to be talking about" I reminded them. "Please take out your books, and read chapters 12 and 13"

As they were reading, I was grading tests, but I was also watching Gracie. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on. She hasn't fallen asleep in my class since the day I spoke to her about it, but I was watching her grades slowly get worse and worse. She wasn't focusing, and I didn't think it was because she didn't want to. I didn't know what it was, I just had a bad feeling.

2 weeks later, I was sitting in my classroom, watching my students take a test. My eyes kept making their way back to Gracie. Her arm looked bruised, but she was wearing long sleeves so I couldn't really tell. That was when I got a really dark though. I left work around 12, after teaching my second class. I picked up Tori from daycare and we went home. When Logan got home, Tori was napping and I was sitting at the table reading something on my laptop.

"Hey" Logan said and kissed me

"Hi" I said without looking away from what I was reading.

"What's so interesting?" Logan asked. And before I could answer I guess he saw what I was reading. "Signs of abuse in kids. Ace, what the hell?"

I turned to face him. "I have this student, and I don't know if my brain just goes their because of my own..." I didn't want to use the word 'abuse' even if it was technically the right one. I hated that word. "Experience. Or if my suspicion is justified, but I can't shake the feeling that something's going on with her"

Logan sat down across from me. "Tell me" he said "what is it that you're seeing?"

"She doesn't talk. At all. To anyone. Ever. I had one short conversation with her where she told me that it was always really loud in her house at night and she wasn't able to sleep because of it. She didn't say what the noise was though, just that it was loud. I've been watching her grades get worse for 2 months. I mentioned calling her parents once and she seemed genuinely scared that I would. She can't focus, it's like her mind is always somewhere else. Today I thought it it looked like she had bruises on her arms, but I couldn't really tell because she was wearing long sleeves. And today I noticed something that remind me of myself"

"What?"

"After I left Nathan and I was living alone for the first time, I would get startled really easily" I told him. I went from living with my mom, to college, to being roommates with Paris in New York City while I was working and she was in medical school, and then I met Nathan and eventually we moved in together. I never lived alone until I left him. "Everything made me jump. A car alarm going off, a knock at the door, my phone ringing...the sudden noise, it was like it brought me back to being in that apartment with Nathan. I saw that in this kid today. It was loud in the classroom and everyone was kinda laughing and excited because we just finished a unit which means they get a movie day. But the boy next to her jumped up and yelled something and this girl's whole body tensed up. She looked scared"