Hold my hand and we'll jump.

She looked at me with such concern, her pale cheeks flush with anxiousness. Crossing her legs as she sat with them dangling over the table, she took a breath. Behind her eyes, fear spat yet a glimmer of hope slithered through, allowing me to seek slight comfort within her gaze. I imagined her the night before, sitting at her computer hesitantly hovering the mouse over the send button of her email to me, chewing her narrow finger nails until they were red raw. She knew I didn't like to talk about anything other than work, but she also knew that something wasn't quite right.

My homework was sloppy or sometimes even incomplete. A few words scrawled along a crumpled up piece of paper, completely unlike me.

No timekeeping skills, strolling in fifteen minutes late with not even a Sorry plastered across my lips.

Hair Unbrushed and equipment lost within the pit of my bag. Falling in and out of slumber against the cold brick wall that laid between me and my desk.

Something was wrong, but I didn't want her to know that the problem I had was her . I did not want to tell her that I'd fallen in so deep for her that I couldn't even function as myself.

She knows something, but I don't think she's quite ready to find out what is actually going on with me.

Teacher / student relationship book