Miss Grande

Chapter 54: Second Semester

Winter break came and went, and the second semester of school started. The whole 'new year, new me' was an overdone cliché, but this year just felt different.

I finally figured out my situation with Ariana, I got closer with my friends, and I was the best soccer player I had ever been with my final high school season about to start.

Now all that was left to do was to win state, graduate, go to college, and marry Ariana. Simple enough.

This year really felt like it was going to be the year.

I had spent majority of the break at home or with my friends, being stupid and making fun of each other. We went ice skating, which I wasn't any good at, and I planned to take Ariana before it closed, though I still hadn't figured out how yet. We also went out looking at the Christmas lights around town and watched movies regularly. It was our last chance to just be teenagers and live before more was to be expected of us.

I had also been keeping up with Ariana a lot. We were always texting, and we would FaceTime every other day. She would tell me about her family life and some of her nightmare students from her past few years of teaching, and I would tell her about whatever dumb thing Camila had done recently.

I had also told her about my messed up schedule. I dropped one of my classes, and she had arranged for me to be her TA during her last hour of the day which would allow us more time together.

I ended up having a free period right at the end of the day, after my period as her TA, which happened to be her planning time, meaning we would have 2 class periods together, back to back, right before the end of the day when we'd be leaving for practice or games.

   Honestly, with all of our time together I was scared that she would grow annoyed with me or get tired of my company. I tried to reassure myself that it was the same amount of time regular couples would spend together, since we couldn't do things like go out on dates to the movies, but it didn't ease my worries. It was a problem that I would deal with later.

   The first little bit of the semester went by smoothly. I spent my first few classes switching between barely being awake and being too excited to focus. I could only think of my afternoon periods where I would be with Ariana.

During her teaching period, she would ask me to do errands for her. I would be going to the printer room or helping her mark papers. Sometimes I would help students as well since I had already taken the course. It was fun doing those things for her, knowing I was actually being helpful, but my favorite days were the days she would let me just do nothing.

I know what you're thinking. Yes, I am lazy. However, that wasn't the reason I enjoyed doing nothing. Those days I would get to sit in the back of her classroom, usually places I should not be sitting like on top of an empty desk or sometimes even on the ground, and I got to just sit and watch her with nothing expected of me. No notes, no essays, no distractions. I could sit and just listen to her do what she loved most: teach.

It made me happy to see her like that.

   I got to admire the way she controlled the room effortlessly. I got to see her be passionate and see the way her students appreciated how fun she made her class. I got to hear her teacher voice, which was somehow firm and gentle simultaneously; it was really hot. It's small things that you don't always notice when you're worried about your grade.

You did still get a grade as a TA though. TA classes are an A or F class. You either pass with an A or fail with an F and aren't allowed to TA anymore since some TA's were still juniors or even sophomores who took extra courses their freshmen year. They were very hard to fail though. Most teachers never asked for much from you, but some students would disrupt the classes they were meant to be helping. Failing was not something I was all too worried about.

After her last teaching period, I would always pretend to be cleaning at the end as everyone collected their belongings to leave. It always gave me an excuse to stay after even when students had to stay behind and ask questions or make up missed assignments and assessments. Her room was by no means messy, but there was always something I could do to keep me busy until the students had all left.

We spent her free period doing various things. Sometimes I would sit beside her at her desk and help her grade. I would help her plan her lessons for the following week and give ideas to get the classes more engaged. Other times we would just sit and talk.

We never did anything more than that.

We had decided, without ever really speaking about it, that we were going to start over. That meant taking it slow. We spent this time getting to know each other more. It was kinda weird at times, when it felt like we were only just trying to be friends, but we both realized that lasting connections don't form overnight. If we truly wanted whatever we had to work in the long run, we had to build it on a strong foundation, and if not, we were both wasting our time.

She would share embarrassing stories from her childhood and even well into college, and of course, I had a plethora of my own to share. We teased each other about the stories endlessly, soon developing inside jokes around them.

Times like that made me the happiest while also bringing me down slightly. I would get to see her beautiful smile and hear her angelic laugh. Being the cause of her happiness filled me with a lightness I could only attempt to put into words. It was like being filled with helium, a feeling of floating almost, but even that didn't really express how I felt. Moments like those made me want to lean in and kiss her, to completely eliminate the space between us, but I couldn't. Kissing while inside of her classroom was a boundary we weren't going to cross anytime too soon.

She was scared of rushing things and messing up what we had, and I was scared of pushing her or making her uncomfortable. Instead, we both gave each other longing stares until one of us snapped out of it and changed the subject to rid ourselves of the tension, but it never really left. It was always there, just piling on.