"Bye Chlo! Good luck on your first day," Beca said as Chloe walked into the school building.
Chloe went to her classroom and started getting everything organized before a woman about her age walked into the room. "Hi! I'm Heidi. I'm the literature teacher."
Chloe smiled. "I'm Chloe, I'm the new english teacher. It's really nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too! So just to let you know, if you ever need anything, I'm right next door so just knock on the door."
"Thanks so much! When do the kids start coming?"
"Ten minutes. You'll spend the entire day getting to know your homeroom."
"Great thanks so much." Chloe smiled as Heidi walked outbid the room.
Once all the kids were there and Chloe took attendance, she stood at the front of her class. "Umm so I didn't really get the chance to introduce myself, so I'll tell you a little bit! For starters, my name is Ms. Beale. I have 1 daughter, I adopted her from England last week, and I have a cat named Ginger. I enjoy baking, watching movies, and hanging out with my best friends, Beca and Anna. Beca and I are singers as a side job for me because I have vocal nodules and the full time singing was getting to be too much for my voice. I'm really excited to be here and teach you all." The kids sat in silence, staring at her. "Do you have any questions for me about anything?"
A boy raised his hand. "Uh, hi, I'm mark, what happened to your leg? Cool brace though."
Chloe smiled. "Haha thanks. It's kinda a long story, basically I was in a car accident and I broke my leg. Any other questions?"
A girl raised her hand. "Hi, I'm Norah, when does class end?"
Chloe laughed. "Sorry Norah we're in here all day for the first day. So I was thinking we do something fun for the first day." She started passing out blank sheets of paper. "Pretend this entire sheet of paper is your brain. Separate into different sections and write what takes up your brain in each section. I'll do one too, and then we'll share them if you want. If you don't want to share with the class, put them in the green bin." Chloe sat down and got to work with the kids. "Oh one more thing, don't just include good things. We all have things about ourselves we don't love. Try to express that."
After about 20 minutes, the kids began to turn theirs in and present until recess. Chloe took a particular interest in Norah's drawing. As the kids filed out of the class for recess, Chloe called her back into the classroom. "Hen Norah, can I talk to you for a minute. I mean it can wait if you want to go hang out with your friends."
Nora stood over by he desk. "What friends." She smirked slightly.
"Just about your drawling."
"I swear I was being completely honest."
"No it's not that, it's just...pull up a chair. So you just remind me a lot of myself and I thought we could talk about it." Chloe pushed the drawing towards Norah. The sections were divided into many things, most of them were bad things."
"I was being honest..."
Chloe handed her the drawing she had made. "So was I. Read what I wrote."
Norah read them out loud. "PTSD, anxiety, agoraphobia, self esteem issues, meds, side affects, pain." She paused for a minute and looked up at Chloe. "Ms. Beale, how do you even get out of bed in the morning?"
Chloe sighed. "It's hard, I admit it. My friend Beca helps me a lot. She tells me how amazing I am and she's so supportive."
Norah laughed bitterly. "Well I don't have all the support."
"What do you mean?"
"My parents are always on work trips, my older sister is too busy with friends and parties to care, and I have no friends." Norah sighed.
"I'm here for you," Chloe said quietly. "You have me."
Nora smiled. "Really?" Then she frowned. "You have your own problems to deal with. Don't worry about me, I'm gonna be ok. I'm not that bad off anyway."
Chloe read the girl's paper. "Anxiety, depression, worried about failing class, no friends, body image issues, antisocial." She held Norah's hand. "That's a lot for a 13 year old. I'm here for you."
Norah smiled. "I'm here for you too."
Chloe laughed. "So I guess I should kind of explain what I'm going through...." She continued. "Ok so I had mentioned I was in a car accident. It happened about 7 months ago, me and my friend Emily were driving and the roads were icy and we slid off the road into a ditch. We were pretty bad off in the first place. Emily's arm and knee were broken and I was unconscious. Then the engine caught fire and she had to drag me out of the car. I was falling in and out of consciousness but I was out when the ambulance came. Emily was fine, but I was in a coma with severe head trauma. I had whiplash, a broken arm and leg, and I was on life support. I woke up not remembering anything, but my memory came back and it kind of hit me hard. I suddenly was afraid to leave my house, and then my boyfriend left and I started noticing all of my imperfections. All these scars from the accident make me feel so bad about myself. And then I started having horrible nightmares, so i found out I have PTSD, and the meds for it are horrible. They give me terrible migraines and sometimes I get sick, it's just the worst. I'm also in constant pain because of everything. It's like physically hard for me and I hate it. But I'm working on it and I'm gonna get through."
Norah wiped a tear away from her eye. "Wow, Ms. Beale, I'm so sorry. I guess I should probably say something.... Alright, so I've never been that popular or anything and I've never found the right group of friends so right now I don't have any....at least at school. I have two groups of friends outside of school. My and a bunch of my internet friends have a fan account group chat on Twitter, and I have my friends from the theater. But I mean I want friends I get to see all the time."
Chloe smiled. "Well at least you have some."
"Yeah I guess. My parents are ALWAYS traveling for work. They missed my 13th birthday last year. My older sister only cares about her friends and her boyfriend. I also suck at school, and it kills me. I try so hard and I'm just so bad at it."
"Aw it's ok, Norah. Hey, at least you try, some kids don't try. What was last year like for you?"
"Last year was amazing! I had this amazing English teacher and...oh...sorry...."
"No, tell me about her."
"Weirdest person alive, I just loved her and me and her...well we didn't have a lot in common. I just tried to be like her. She was just so cool....then she left. And she promised she wouldn't. She didn't even tell us personally. She let us follow her on Instagram, and then she blocked us. I actually found out at a concert. It sucked. I miss her and I haven't seen or heard from her since."
"Norah that's horrible, how could she do that?"
"To be honest, it's not the worst way to say goodbye. I mean she kinda ripped the band aid off real fast and I'm over it. I did kind of fall into a depression and anxiety. Sort of trust issues."
"Well I can see why. That's horrible, I'm so sorry."
"It's ok. I'm pretty good now, I just wanted to be honest on that activity."
"Alright. Hey, are you busy this weekend?" Chloe asked.
"No, my parents will be away and my sister will be on her phone all day."
"If your parents are ok with it, would you like to come for dinner on Saturday night? Beca can help and it'll be nice."
"Sure..." Norah said hesitantly before seeing the smile on her teacher's face. "That would be great." She stood up to go to lunch. "Thanks so much, Ms. Beale, for everything, really."
Chloe gave her a hug, "no problem sweetie, I'm always here."
A/N:
I'm really excited about this! Chloe has a great bond with Norah and I think it'll be cool to see them work together to get through this tough time in their lives.
