How to Get Caught Sleeping With Your Teacher

Chapter 7 - Pistis

The layers of snow melting on top of each other caked the ground as more dots of white played pile on. The room was silent except for the soothing sound of Mr. Gillian's voice echoing throughout the room. He didn't have a loud voice, nor did he have a soft voice. He just had a very medium voice that bounced off the white tile floors like rubber. The girls watched his every move to the point of making him uncomfortable, while I hung onto his every word. I'm sure I looked like one if his groupies, but I didn't care. I found vacation in his words, letting my mind take personal time off.

I didn't even bother returning the gesture when Thomas has wriggled his feet behind his chair in an attempt to play footsie with me. I didn't notice my phone vibrating in my pocket, which I later learned was Lucia texting me to skip seventh period with her. I almost didn't notice the note that landed on my desk until a couple seconds before Gillian walked by my desk and picked it up. He didn't stop his lecture to read it aloud like most teachers would, instead he shoved it in his pocket and kept walking.

I didn't really care what the note said, and I didn't really care if Gillian read it or not; I knew it probably wasn't anything important. I assumed it was just from Thomas or Kierra, a girl I talked to on occasion, who treated note passing as a sport. We were kind of each others back up friend; in the sense that when we had no other friends in the class and needed partners or something along that line. It was an easy relationship, we didn't have to talk alot to maintain the closeness of our friendship.

The next few days were pretty radio silent. I'd yelled at Chad the next morning, and made him promise to tell the team the photos were fake. I'd assumed he did so, because I didn't get more than the usual number of guys that tried to picture me naked in the hallway. The following Monday we started our ballroom unit in dance class, and even though we were mostly watching videos of the different types of ballroom dance, I still found it interesting. I'd bonded with my group a little bit more, especially Joel. I couldn't quite figure him out yet, but I didn't really feel the need to. He was just entertaining and intriguing to talk to because of his fickleness.

Micky was gone more than usual throughout that entire week, but by Monday he was back to his usual hours. We'd never talked about what happened the previous Wednesday, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to bring it up or not. I knew he'd try and shut me out if I asked, so I figured there was no point in asking in the first place.

That was a rough week for Lucia. She was having a lot of issues going on with her family. Her mother was bipolar and her father with a gambling addiction. She had an older brother, Chris, who'd already moved out, and a four year old sister who looked just like her. It was the first week of the new semester, but she'd already missed a couple days of school. Chris had landed himself in the hospital because of a head on car crash that Chris was lucky to make it out of. Chris's friend who was in the passenger seat ended up in a wheelchair, and the doctors' weren't sure if he would make it out of the chair.

The temperature the following Wednesday had set a record low for the year. The dry air turned to rain, which turned to sleet, turned to hail, turned back to snow. It was a vicious cycle that refused to approach it's terminus.

Wednesday morning Micky drove me to school due to the sleet. From the moment I got in his SUV, I could tell he had ulterior motives. Most of the ride was quiet, but I enjoyed it. That also meant that Micky was lying about something, or holding back the truth. Micky was a good liar, but when it came to people he cared about he always had a tell. Whenever he knew something more than I did, he stayed very quiet, hardly saying a word to me. I think it was because he was afraid he'd accidentally spill what he was trying to hide.

We pulled into the school and he parked instead of driving into the carpool lane.

"Have a good day at school, Nikita." He said with a smile, still trying to hide something.

I looked at him with intensity. He shot me back a look of innocence, like he'd never done anything wrong in his life.

"Quit it." I said sharply.

'Quit what?" He kept up the act.

"Quit pretending like there's nothing you have to tell me. Quit pretending that what happened last week is just water under the bridge." I said, annoyed with him slightly.

Micky sighed heavily. "Look, Nikita, I have to go out of town for a little bit." He revealed with regret.

"Out of town? You're always out of town." I muttered under my breath.

"This is different. I'm going to have to be gone longer this time." He added.

I looked up at him with pain in my eyes. "Is this because of what happened last week?" I asked bluntly.

Micky didn't say anything and looked away; I knew that meant yes.

I laughed in annoyance. "I'm not sure I know how long I'm going to be gone." He started. "It should only be about a week, but it could be longer; which is why I called in a favor of an old friend who going to stay at home with you while I'm gone."

"You're kidding right? You got me a babysitter?" I said, cutting him off.

"Look, Nikita, I know you can take care of yourself. It's just--" He started, but I cut him off again.

"Take care of myself? Of course I can take care of myself!" I yelled at him. "Have you forgotten about all the shit I've been through?"

I noticed a few passer-byers looking over at us in the car, but didn't care.

"How could I forget that?" He was now yelling back. "I think about it every god damn day, Nikita! It makes me sick to my stomach to think about what they did! Do you want to know the real reason I hired a babysitter?" He asked, without stopping to let me answer. "Because I'm afraid for you, Nikita. I fear every single day that they'll come back for you. I can protect you while I'm here but..." He paused, lowing his voice to almost a loud whisper. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to you while I was gone, because it would be my fault." He ended his monologue, looking down in shame.

"It wouldn't be your fault, Micky. All of this, everything that happened is my father's fault." I consoled him, feeling him tense up at the mention of my father.

"You should get inside, I don't want you to be late." He added, changing the subject.

And with that I said goodbye and got out of the car, running to the front of the school to avoid the sleet. I walked inside and went on with my day. Lucia wasn't there that day, and it was very lonely. I had many other friends, but none of them understood me like Lucia did. None of them knew as much as Lucia did. Lucia knew very little about my past in the grand scheme of things, but she knew more than anyone else at school did. She didn't tell other people what she knew and she didn't ask questions, that's how I always knew I could trust her.

I was sitting at my desk in room 814 working on a textbook preview sheet while the class roared off into miscellaneous chatter. I kept listening in on other people's conversations, even though I knew I shouldn't have been. A guy a couple rows behind me was talking louder than he should have been about getting laid last night. Another girl to my right was stressing about her GPA because she was too busy focusing on her softball scholarships. I found that I was smiling to myself as I listened to some of the entertaining things people said when they thought no one was listening. All of a sudden, a little white piece of paper landed on my desk.

I put my hand on it to pick it up, but another large and warm hand landed on top of mine. I knew it was Gillian without looking up, because of his distinct scent of peppermint. I turned my hand over underneath his so that my palm was facing up with the note in it. He slid the note into his palm as he slid his hand off of mine. I looked up at him and he shrugged as he walked over to the printer in the back of the classroom.

This happened twice more throughout the remainder of class. We had about fifteen minutes of class left when Gillian walked over to my desk and tapped on my shoulder. I looked up at him with questioning eyes.

"Can I speak with you outside, Nikita?" He asked, obviously nervous. His voice lowered to a soft, but loud whisper, one I could only barely hear over everyone else's voice.

"Is everything okay, Mr.Gillian?" I asked, concerned.

"Yeah I just..." He trailed off. "Please come into the hall with me."  He added. I nodded and rose from my seat to walk out into the hall. I felt him following closely behind as he towered over me.