Esther, Be Tender With My Love

Eleven

Maurice was sitting with Atticus at my usual lunch table. A wide smile formed on his face when he saw me and he pulled out the chair next to him for me.  I sat down and smiled, scooting my chair in. Barry and Robin sat down after grabbing their lunch trays.

"So how has your first day of 2020 American school gone?" I asked.

"It's alright." Barry replied first, just about to bite into his sandwhich.

"It's definitely different than what we went through." Robin added next. I turned to look at Maurice who was already smiling down at me.

"It's great." He said. From under the table, his hand grabbed mine.

Atticus began to ramble on about some girl in his math class who got on his nerves. Not going to lie, I zoned out shortly after he began talking. Something else had caught my eye across the room. I watched as Mr. Daniels talked to another female student. From the expressions on his face, I could tell he was flirting with her which made me sick. The sad thing is that it looked as though the girl was falling for it too. The girl laughed at a joke he made and flirtatiously hit his arm. Mr. Daniels looked up and our eyes met.

"What's wrong?" Maurice whispered into my ear. "You're so tense." He followed my eyes and saw Mr. Daniels winking at me. I immediately looked down and accidentally tightened my grip on Maurice's hand. "Ow." He winced.

"Oh, sorry." I apologized, giving him a sheepish smile and loosening my grip.

Lunch was cut short due to some assembly going on at the end of the day.

I said my goodbyes to the brothers and Atticus and made my way to the band room for jazz band.

--

"Dude, you can't even moon walk. You're not doing it right. This is how you're supposed to moon walk." Devin explained to Jace as I walked into Mr. O'Neill's class in sixth hour. Devin walked up to the front of the classroom and did a terrible moon walk. I rolled my eyes and sat down in my seat as Jace started arguing with Devin and saying he did it all completely wrong. Eventually, Kyle came in and joined in on the bickering. I heaved a sigh of relief when Maurice walked in.

"Ignore them. They're ALWAYS like this." I said as he sat down in the empty seat behind me.

"These must be the kids you were telling your mom about on Friday." I rolled my eyes and nodded my head, making him laugh.

"Any moment, Mr. O'Neill is going to walk in here and yell 'good afternoon class.'" I warned him and watched the door. Not a second later, Mr. O'Neill came in and closed the door.

"GOOD AFTERNOON CLASS!" He yelled so loud that my ears started ringing. Maurice was holding his hand over his hear in pain. "Oh! We have a new student here today! Mr. Gibb, how about you come stand up here and tell us about yourself." Maurice looked at me in slight fear but stood up none the less.

"Uhm. Hi, I'm Maurice Gibb. My family just moved here from Australia." He said shyly.

"Whoah. That's like all the way across the world!" Mr. O'Neill shouted in surprise. "What are some of your hobbies?"

"My brothers and I like to play music and I enjoy hanging out with my friends. That's about it really."

"Great. You can have a seat." Maurice smiled and walked back to his seat.

Mr. O'Neill began the lesson on logarithms. Class went on the same as normal. In fact, it was so normal that I almost forgot the one pecuiliar thing was sitting behind me.

After class, Maurice and I walked out of the room together. Apparently he had biology next. To his luck, he didn't have Mrs. Johnson. We said our goodbyes and left in opposite directions.

My last actual class of the day was career development. Thankfully it was pretty much just a slack off class. It was filled with troublemakers who spent most of their time in the office so we never really got anything done.

"Apparently there is an assembly going on so you can just leave your stuff in here and then we go to the gymnasium." Barry said as I walked in. I did as he said and followed him out.

The gym bleachers were almost completely filled by the time we got in there. I found a vacant spot at the top on the right side of the entrance and sat there with Barry. The rest of the bleachers were quickly being filled up and pretty much only the rest of our row was empty. Out of nowhere, Mr. Daniels came up and took a seat right next to me. I wanted to kill myself right then and there. Barry noticed and nodded his head at me in acknowldegment. Surely Mr. Daniels won't try anything in front of an audience.

I was proven wrong. Throughout the assembly, I could feel him slowly scooting closer to me. At one point his hand was on the bench and he'd softly run his fingers against my leg. I gasped and scooted closer to Barry who wrapped his arm around my waist and glared at Mr. Daniels. After the assembly, I could feel that Barry was still fuming over Mr. Daniel's actions. As soon as we found Robin and Maurice and got home, he let out his frustrations.

"Esther, you can't keep letting him do that to you. It's sexual harrasment!" He yelled.

"I know, I know. I'm just scared to do anything because he could come after me if I get him fired." I said, on the verge of crying.

"Wait what is going on?" Maurice asked. I forgot no one had told him about the situation.

"Mr. Daniels is a pedophile. That's what's going on." said Barry, angrily.

"He's been targetting Esther." Robin added.

"What the fuck? Why don't you do anything about it, Es?" Maurice asked getting as fired up as his older brother.

"Because! Why does it matter to you? You guys are just going to leave and forget all about me! It won't matter in a few days because we won't ever be able to meet again!" The tears were flowing down my cheeks like a river by this point. I felt so embarrassed that I just got out of the car and left. I ran. I ran down the street but I didn't make it very far as a hand grasped my wrist and spun me around. I fell into someone's hard chest as they wrapped their arms around me.

"I promise I'll never forget about you, Essie. Whether we'll be able to meet again or not I'll never stop thinking about you." Maurice said. He cupped my face, wiping away my tears with his thumbs and began to lean in closer. Gently, he brushed his lips against mine, unsure if this was what I wanted. I brought my hands up to his neck and smashed my lips against his.