Roomies (boyxboy)

A Week Before School Starts

A/N:  I had a pic for Cameron that I was never happy with.  I love the ones for just about everyone else so I'll leave them up, at least for now. But I took down the one for Cameron.  Use your imagination.

They had about a week before school started again, for everyone in the house. Leah would be going to preschool. Thankfully there was one on site at the elementary school where Jess taught fourth grade. It was the same school that both Ryan and Cameron gone to as little kids, although they hadn't been in class ever together. They knew each other from recess sort of, at least by name, but they'd had nothing to do with each other. It was a big elementary school, with four classrooms for each grade level. Jess had started tutoring Ryan in fifth grade and kept up, an hour once a week for the last eight years. She'd developed a great relationship with the Moore family, working with Ryan on school stuff but also helping him transition to the private school in 6th grade, talking to teachers, getting him organized with team sports. Basically Jess took over every aspect of Ryan's school life; the Moore's were very career focused, but kept good tabs with everything Ryan needed and made sure Jess was on top of things. They depended on her and she always did right by Ryan.

When things got smooth with the Moores, Jess started working with several other families from Ryan's new junior high school. Everyone was thrilled. It was a win / win. The moneyed families got a credentialed teacher in their pocket, someone who knew the ins and outs of the educational system; the students got a tutor who was dedicated, friendly and supportive. The school was thrilled to speak to one of their own when it came to solving some problems. Even though she was a public school teacher, Jess knew the right things to say and how to make things happen. She thrived on helping her kids, as she called them. They came and went. No one stayed with Jess as long as Ryan had. But they all raved about her and she was in her element, loving every minute of it; while she juggled being on several committees at her own school and teaching her own classroom.

Cameron just sat back and watched it all. He was happy for his mom; he could tell teaching was her life's passion. He was happy for the extra money it brought in. Trying to live on a teacher's salary in their community was almost impossible. Most of Jess' coworkers had spouses who earned big dough; their teacher salaries supported their children's hobbies and maybe paid for a yearly vacation to Hawaii or Aspen. But Cameron and Jess went through periods where they ate spaghetti for weeks if Jess' car broke down. No vacations for them. But the tutoring money kept the water and electricity flowing, paid for miscellaneous bills that always popped up at the worst possible time. Without that extra money, who knows how bad things would be.

So yeah, Cameron was proud of his mom. He just never saw her. And when he did, she was so tired from helping all her "kids," that she usually went to bed as soon as she got home. But he was self sufficient. He knew how to use the microwave. They lived four blocks from his high school so he didn't need to drive. There was a small downtown, a few shops, a few fast food places maybe a 15 minute walk away. But he didn't normally head that way. He was a homebody mostly. 

And he loved to read. Maybe he couldn't go to Costa Rica like some of his classmates, but he could wander through Lothlorien with Frodo or visit the London underbelly with Sherlock Holmes. His mom was a teacher, so their house was overflowing with books. Whenever a teacher retired or just wanted to purge, Jess was happy to scoop up anything. Every wall in their living room was covered with overflowing shelves. Young adult books, classics, cookbooks, children's books, nonfiction.

Where some of his high school classmates had jobs in local restaurants or cashiering at the quaint downtown shops, it just made sense for Cameron to work at school. He stayed after school for an hour and a half, as a general teacher's assistant, making copies, grading papers, organizing the library. Mostly everyone at the school district knew his mom; all of the teachers had known him since he was in utero. So even if he didn't directly have much time with his mom, he had more aunts and uncles than most kids. He'd literally grown up running in out of their classrooms since he could walk, dragged to teacher inservice days because his mom couldn't afford a babysitter.