Desire of the Soul

Chapter Five

Christina and Mr. Delgado grabbed a seat in the near-by Stonebuckle Coffee Shop. She could not beileve she was going on a date with her teacher. Was this a date? Okay even if it was, it's ok because he's just a sub? Right? What's the difference? Pay grade, right, so she's good. Right? Okay Christina calm down, she told herself. Christina sipped her Vanilla Mocha Iced-Frappe with extra whip cream, ducking behind him. Mr. Delgado smiled at Christina. She stopped scanning the room long enough to notice him watching her, "What?" she asked.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Making sure no one sees us."

"And if they do?"

"I don't know. That's going to be your problem not mine."

"Says who? You're as much at fault as me."

"How?"

"You're the one who accepted the offer," he points out.

"You have a good point. So why did you ask me out?"

"Ask you out?"

"You know what I mean, ask me to coffee, whatever," she says rolling her eyes. So this isn't a date for us, cool, Christina thought.

"Oh. I just wanted to. You seem like an interesting student and I wanted to get to know you better."

This is a date.

"Mmm, so do you feel this way about all your students Mr. D?"

"Please call me Ethan."

Christina looks at him strange. How weird was that?

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing, just a weird coincidence. Okay so ETHAN, how long have you been here?"

"Since I was born but I have been traveling."

"Oh where?!" Christina asks excited, ignoring his sarcasm.

"Well I've been to Spain, France, Cuba, but don't tell anyone," he laughs then continues, "Georgia, Connecticut, well basically all of America, even Alaska. I've been to Canada, ummm, let's see........China, Japan."

"Wow really?"

"Yeah and many more, too many to tell."

"Well what were you doing in all those places?"

"Searching."

"For what? A thing? An object? A 'person'?"

He smiled at his coffee before looking up at me, "Just something very dear to me."

"Oh. Well when did you get the time to do all this? You look like you're only in your early twenties."

"I am 22 actually. You'd be surprise how much world you can discover in that time and even now, you don't have enough time in a lifetime to explore it all."

"Wow, deep shit."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh I'm sorry it's the caffeine."

"Mm," he nods slowly.

"So what about your family? They must miss you right. You do have family don't you?"

Ethan clears his throat, "Um, my family?" Christina nods, continuing to sip from her drink. He continues, "They died when I was young from a fire. I was the only one that got out, the only one left."

Christina frowns and caresses his hand, "I'm so sorry to here that. It's okay though because now you have this great life and you're happy with what you do right?"