Ten Months: Chapter 1

-

I know a lot, a few things you could teach me about.
Welcome to the school of professionals.
Anything goes when it's easy to score.
There won't be a move you can ignore.
So here's your lover, instructor today.
Any questions you may have after class, i'll demonstrate.
Huh, well, let's get class on and go to work.

-

This year is going to be utter hell.

I figured going through my senior year would be annoying enough. Listening to the incessant "Oh My God! Prom!", "Oh My God, the SAT's!" and of course the "Oh My God! What if I don't get into the college I want?!?!". I just wanted school to be done and over with like the other 20% of my peers who were actually sane.

I wasn’t looking forward to being the powerful upper class who looked down on all the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors and I sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to my senior prom. The only thing I was looking forward to was my graduation so I could get that pretty piece of paper and be done with this place.

I believed anyone who actually liked school needed some serious serious help. Who actually wants to get up every morning at the crack of dawn to get ready to go through a day of sitting at a desk and listening to the underpaid and naturally annoying teachers talk about what some guy did 100 years ago and make us learn all these rules of science? I tell you, Newton had way too much time on his hands. I think his one goal in life was to spread his evilness upon the upcoming generations by creating all this science crap.

It was so pointless.

School was only fun for two kinds of people. The first kind was the kids who sat in the front of the class and whose ears perked up at the words ‘extra credit’. The other kind of person is the barbie sitting next to me fixing her makeup. The kids who come to school every day just to be superior to everyone else. The popular kids.

Am I being stereotypical? Hell yeah. I get stereotyped enough. But am I being unfair? No. I’m not bitter, I don’t wish I was them or dream of being with the head football player or cheer in the pep squad.

Because the sad thing is, is that if I wanted to be like that… I could. All thanks to my lovely older brother, Ben, who ruled this school as one of those irritating popular kids some 6 years ago.

He was your typical high school jock. His days started by getting up and running a few miles, coming home and showering and then primping for his day in school. Then he’d come home after football practice, irritate me during dinner and then be off to hang out at the 'popular hang outs' with his friends. When weekend came, he’d always be somewhere surrounded by a million people, basking in his awesome glory. And then he’d do it all over again on Monday.

And I love the idiot to death. But that’s just not the life for me. That was his life. The attention, the love from everyone.

Me, I’m the recluse. The one who sits in back with their hoodie up with an IPod in their ears, waiting for the period to end and trying desperately not to fall asleep. The one who goes home as soon as that bell rings to go to sleep, wake up and eat dinner, watch a few episodes of The Sopranos or 24 and then go back to sleep again.

And I was hoping I would be able to just do that day after day until senior year was up. But of course, no such luck.

It figures that the thing I never even dreamed of happening... would happen.

It’s just my fricken luck, isn’t it?

So, you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about, yeah?

Well, the reason for my utter and total loathing just walked through the door and wrote his name on the black board. With a Mr. before his last name.

God, this can not be happening. The girls are squealing and freaking out and I can feel my world spinning out of control, no matter how dramatic that sounds, it's the truth. I suddenly felt like the only thing shocked still in a swirling, fast paced moving world that was circling around me.

“Okay people," A loud voice broke through the squealing and excited chatter. "My name is Anthony, but since Principal Wilks will probably have a spaz attack if you call me that, you're gonna have to call me Mr. Edwards. At least while we’re in school.”

I stared at the guy standing at the front of the class. His dark brown hair fell into his eyes and he ran his hand through it to push it back to the top of his head. His light brown eyes were smiling and looking around, turning to a group of football players as they called his name out and greeted him.

Of course they knew him. Who didn’t? He ruled the school along side my brother just 6 years before. My brother's best friend.

I am so going to kill Ben when I get home.

“Hey Katie.” I suddenly heard and broke out of my trance only to find him smiling at me. No, smirking. He smiled when he looked at everyone else but it would figure he would use that evil smirk on me. He always did.

And he knew I despised being called Katie. This could not be happening.

Ben had told me that Anthony had been taking classes to become a teacher, only god knows why, and he might have mentioned something about him getting a job teaching a class somewhere… but It’s not like I paid much attention to him. I tried to zone him out as much as I could when he talked about Anthony.

That was me being bitter. Why? Because when I was 12 years old I had the most insane crush on the very same guy standing at the front of the class smirking at me. Yeah, it was cliché. Liking your older brother's best friend, but every girl's entitled to a ridiculous crush once in her life.

And ridiculous is what it was since I was 12 and he was 18 and also one the most popular guys in Krenbrook and surrounded by girls his own age and only saw me as Bens little, much younger, sister.

But that didn’t stop me from liking him for a whole 5 years, all the way up until last year when I realized how annoying Anthony was and how much I despised guys like him. The arrogant jock type that I had to deal with every day in school.

Looking back I can at least say I wasn’t one of those annoying girls who drew hearts around his name and tried to get his attention at every possible second. I actually took the opposite route and avoided him like the plague. And I think that was how I came to see that the crush was ridiculous since I didn’t even really like him. In fact, I absolutely loathed him.

The annoying way he smirked at me, or the way he insisted on calling me Katie even though everyone else in the world either called me Kate or Katelyn.

Let’s just say the crush was squashed dead as soon as my immature eyes woke up to realize I had still been seeing him as my older brother's amazing best friend who had threatened a bully for me when I was in 6th grade.

He wasn't a saviour, a hero. In fact he was more of a villian if anything else.

How pathetic. Honestly.

And here I thought that I would never have to look at him again and remember how ridiculous I was to have a crush on the pathetic jock type that annoyed me every day of my life seeing as though he was away in college doing his own thing and I rarely saw him anymore and only heard stuff about him every once in a while from Ben.

So it had to just be a mirage that I was seeing of him standing in front of me. Maybe I was just dreaming. Maybe this was all some really horrible nightmare because this could not be happening.

“You know him?” I heard a stunned whisper from next to me and held back a groan.

No, this wasn’t a nightmare. At least not the kind you have while unconscious. This was a real life nightmare.

He could not be my teacher.

I looked up at him through narrowed eyes where he stood, hands in his pockets. His stance screaming out the arrogance that expelled from him at all times.

He didn’t even look like a teacher. There was no way he was going to be taken seriously. The former star player, badass, playboy of the school.? This was insane.

“What, I don’t get a hi?” He asked, his smirk only growing till the dimple on his left cheek winked at me. Something I used to watch for in rare moments that he would smile, or even the moments he was annoying the heck out of me and smirking like a demon.

“You can’t be serious.” I found myself blurting out before I could stop myself and had everyone turning to me with questioning eyes. I could see some of the girls giving me glares. This is not happening.

“Serious?” Anthony, or Mr. Edwards, questioned while rubbing a hand over his mouth to try and smother a chuckle. My eyes narrowed.

“There is no possible way that old Wilks actually gave you a job here. You used to terrorize this school, he practically fainted in relief when you finally left.” I said with complete honesty. It was nothing but the absolute truth. It was something that always appealed to me, the badboy side.

The class was now silent but I didn’t care. Any second my brother was gonna run in and laugh and tell me this is all some sick joke.

He had to.

Anthony grinned now, rocking back and forth and shaking his head from side to side slowly. “I see you haven’t changed, Katie.” He said. I gritted my teeth and by the flash of amusement in his eyes he knew he was annoying me. “But believe it. I will be your teacher this year for Con-Literature.” He said as if talking to the whole class though his eyes, and his smirking grin, stayed on me. “…And since I will be your teacher, you should probably talk to me like you would all of the others and call me Mr. Edwards and not be so snappy.” he winked before turning around.

He, Anthony-asshole-Edwards, best friend of my brother, the guy I have known forever, did not just say that to me.

This could not be happening.

I could hear him talking to the rest of the class but it was all kind of a blur. There he stood, the guy I have lusted after for 5 years of my life and despised for the past year.

My teacher.

“…okay so I’ll see you all tomorrow and we’ll really get started. Don’t let the fact that you know me fool you. This year’s going to be just as hard as it would be with any other teacher.” I heard him say as students began to file out and somehow though my limbs felt like they weighed a ton, I rose from my seat.

“Hey Katie, wait a second.”

I turned around slowly from where I was almost out the door to find him walking over to me, that irritating strut he had down perfectly since he was 13 years old.

He obviously realized my glare met that I wasn’t going to say anything else so he smirked and continued.

“Ben asked me over later for dinner… tell him I’ll be a little late, okay?”

Dinner? Yeah, Ben is really gonna die. This is too much.

“Actually, Sir, I think you should do that yourself. Since I’m going to be your student you should probably see me like you would all the rest of your students and that would not entail being your errand girl.” I threw his words back at him.

His eyes widened, part shock and part humor as I walked out.

So much for laying low and hoping senior was over fast. Anthony would make sure to make my life hell and use his teacher position to make it even worse.

I slammed my locker shut and stalked to my next class, hearing a million different conversations around me about the new hot teacher.

This is going to be hell.

But it wouldn’t be so bad. It really wouldn’t be so bad at all…

… but somewhere deep down the first thing I acknowledged before the shock of him writing his name on the board, or the annoyance of his smirking… was that he was still utterly absolutely gorgeous.

That can’t possibly be good.