The Teacher // Josh Dun

.:five:..

hospice care ; a healthcare service provided to terminally ill patients, clients, or residents. usually offered during the predicted last six months of one's life. not only is this a service for the patient, but also for the family. the goal is to make the patient as comfortable as possible in his/her last months of life and to prepare the family for grieving the loss of their loved one.

Now the first week of October, Josh and Devon had grown somewhat close.
They always drank coffee together in the morning and they had civilized conversations a lot more.

Josh waltzed into Devon's classroom on his lunch break, carrying his lunch bag.

"Um," Devon sat her pen down. "What the hell are you doing?" Even though they were starting to become actual friends, Devon was still her usual self. She had toned down slightly since the first few weeks and wasn't a rude as she previously was.

"Eating lunch with you," he pulled a chair up to the front of her desk and sat. "Where's your lunch?"

"I don't bring lunch," she looked back down at her stack of papers. "I usually just grade during lunch. Then I just eat when I get home."

"Well that can't be healthy," he opened his lunch bag and placed a bag of Oreos in front of her. "Eat something."

"No it's fine," she pushed them away. "I don't need them. I can wait."

"Damn," Josh chuckled. "Why don't you take anything from anybody?"

"Why can't you accept the fact that I don't wanna take anything from anybody?" She crossed her arms.

"Cause you deserve more than you think," he told her forwardly.

"Don't get all deep on me now, Mr. Dun." She picked up her pen and started going through her stack of papers.

"How do you even grade? I've been having a really hard time with that."

"Of course you don't know how to grade." Devon remarked.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Devon looked at him, her lips pursed. "You teach kids how to bang on pieces of plastic. It's not at all surprising that you don't know how to grade."

"Okay rude," Josh put his hand over his chest in mock offense.

"Okay rude," Devon mocked him, making an overly dramatic facial expression.

"Who made you cold?" Josh questioned joking.

"My father," she told him the actual answer. "I inherited his attitude."

"Is that him right there?" Josh pointed to a picture on the wall behind the desk.

Devon quickly glanced at it, even though she knew exactly what he was talking about. "Yeah,"

"It looks really old."

"I think he was like eighteen in that picture," she told him. "It's actually the only picture I have of him so.."

"Oh," Josh nodded. He didn't want to push on a touchy subject that could've been hard for Devon to talk about.

"He uh," she glanced down quickly but then back upset Josh. "He actually got killed while on duty. He was exposed to an explosive device and yeah." She explained to him.

Josh wasn't sure if sympathy helped, but it was the only thing that he could think of in that moment. "I'm sorry," he looked down and started unpacking his lunch. He felt extremely lucky because he could tell that Devon wasn't always fully honest with her feelings and usually didn't even disclose them.