In Your Skies

Chapter 3 (Part 2)

A chorus of muffled giggles broke out.

“B-but miss, I was listening” I cry out, thinking of my next alibi

“Mmhhmmm, I knew you were that’s why I’m giving you extra work because you’re such an attentive student, I would seriously recommend you to this semester’s Scholastic Decathalon” that bitch Rayne said, smirking and cocking her head. Decathalon, I can’t help but gag at the thought. High School Musical and a singing and dancing Zac Efron popped in my head.

I examined her from head to toe and seeing her slim frame wrapped in a gray tweed suit with black striped linings on the sides, a cluster of pearls dangling on her sagging ears. She reminded me of Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. What a sad woman, trying to hide the solitude of her life’s fine lines behind a thick coat of foundation that apparently was two shades lighter than her real skin tone.

I dropped my head on the wide ruled pages of my notebook, feeling the pages smoothing on my forehead. The bell rings, the symphony of zippers, chairs and yawns filled the room and I was still seated on my chair, frozen. Anya whistled, waving at the door; I raised an open palm, signaling them to wait outside.

I gathered the strength to stand up; I put my weight on the soles of my red Chucks and went ahead, dragging my Aztec style rucksack in my right hand.

“Mr. Louis,” she called on to me, her chin sitting on her clasped hands “, come here”

I see her hands all wrinkly, the veins appearing as they’re going to rip the skin apart, I notice her gold plated ring with an Amethyst the size of a quail egg on her ring finger, I didn’t know she was married, everyone said she was an old maid.

“I apologize for apprehending you earlier but I was just trying to save you from yourself”

“Excuse me?” what is this witch talking about.

“I’ve been teaching for years, Andy, I could tell from 80 yards with no glasses on a person who is desperately in love.”

Not only is she a witch, she was also psychic. “I’m sorry, you must’ve been mistaken—“

“Uh-uh, I know, Andy” she cuts me off “let me tell you this, now’s not the time for that. I’ve been living for 60 years now and I can tell for sure that young love is just not written in the stars.”

I kept quiet.

“You see, young folks are blinded by the thought the one’s they think they love now would be the person who’ll be able to spend their entire life with. They take things so fast like a car in a highway and look what happens, one wrong move and everything crashes, everything ends in an instant leaving a brutal part of them desecrated, scarring them for life.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about but she’s talking way over my state now but I must admit, she was partly right.

“Take it from me, I’m speaking from experience. Enjoy your life living single, being a lone star ain’t that bad after all.”

No wonder she’s so bitter, like me, she’s also perennially single, well not totally, but presently, she is. She was going on sixty now, still teaching and still alone. I imagine her going home from work with a hundred cats meeting her at the door, eating alone in a dinner table, reading a book or maybe knitting or formulating equations in her rocking chair, the other one motionless and empty and lying in bed all by herself, and then I felt bad for her but she was happy. Maybe being all by yourself for too long makes people wiser, and grouchier.

“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks, I guess,” I manage to reply, my shoulders up and left.

“Don’t forget your punishment, that’ll get you mind off that trivial affair of yours,” she laughs

I got out of the stuffy classroom and I saw the guys leaning on the walls

“What’s with her?” Alvin asks me, brushing his arms against mine “she offered herself to be your bitch?”

“Well you know Andy, being the MILF magnet he is” An teased, backing up Alvin, putting her arm around me “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” she snarls at me.

“She just gave me an excerpt from her upcoming book ‘Young Adult’s in Luurve’” I joked “and gave me what seems to be ‘motherly advice’ about love.”

“Yuck”

“Yeah, yuck” they complain.

“So where are we headed after school, Lover Boy err Girl err Boy?”

“I have to finish three tormenting chapters of Algebra if you didn’t hear.”

“Oh, right, so where are we heading?” Anya persists

“I’m going to finish this, I will” I break out of her arm and walked backwards “I’ll go now” and ran off

“That Andy, clueless about love” she sighed

“And life,” Alvin adds.