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- End of summer - Gina (+ Ricky)
“I think my dad is depressed.”
Gina looked away from the half-hanging shelf she was still trying to put on the wall to where Ricky was slouched on top of her pretend bed (reads: a mattress with a blanket on top). “What?”
Ricky had offered to keep her company while she started working on her new room, changing the music and talking as she absolutely didn’t let him choose where to put the stuff.
He moved from his sprawled position, showing that this conversation was more than a casual talk. “Miss Jenn broke up with him, like, 3 weeks ago, and he has been strange since, more, I don’t know… like he was when my mum left.”
Gina dropped the box of stuff in her hands, moving to sit next to him on the mattress.
“Wait, really? What happened I thought they were doing great.”
In all honesty, she had never thought it was a great love story. Way too quick and in a snowball of awkward circumstances. And even in Shallow Lake, she felt a weird edge in Miss Jenn’s voice when she talked about Mr. Bowen, but she had never mentioned it because she was proud of Ricky for feeling comfortable letting the two adults make the decision.
“So did he. But from what he told me, she sounded different after visiting us at Camp. When he asked her about it, she sat him down and told him she couldn’t do their relationship anymore.” Gina squeezed Ricky’s hand, sensing that this was getting to him a bit more than he was letting on. “She mentioned somebody else, Gi. She didn’t say who exactly, but my dad says he knows who it is, but he refuses to let me in on it.”
Oh.
So Ricky had no clue.
Gina (and almost everyone else in drama club) had her suspicions. Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara had always had an odd tension between them. One that overcame their little feud. They spent a little too much time together and their eyes lingered a little bit too long on each other for it to be all friendly.
While she knew for sure Mr. Mazzara had a thing for his colleague (not only because he was extremely obvious about the whole thing, but also because EJ had once shown her the raw footage of the Quince), Miss Jenn had always looked a bit eerier and confused about the whole thing.
Maybe, since she was in California, she decided to make a visit to an old coworker who had recently taken a job at Caltech, and that cleared her head.
Not that Gina would tell Ricky about any of this, of course. She settled for pacifying his emotions, hugging him for as long as he needed.
2. First day of the school year - Carlos
“Madrina, you are never gonna guess who is back.” Carlos barged into Miss Jenn’s office, where she was sitting at her desk, already writing something down in her brand new notebook, even though the first day had just started
“Mr. Mazzara.” She answered, her eyes barely leaving the paper so she wouldn’t lose her train of thought.
“Mr… Wait how did you know?” With a slightly annoyed pout, Carlos sat down on the chair in front of his teacher.
“We have teacher meetings before you start school, remember?”
“Oh yeah that.” the boy changes his position on the chair, ready to drop the rest of the information he has “But anyway, imagine how surprised I am to enter the classroom and see a man who supposedly took a job miles away from here. And who reverted to his old habits apparently, by the way he was talking today. Do you know anything about that?”
“I don’t know Carlos.”
Unfazed by his teacher’s uninterested four-word response, Carlos kept pouring his thoughts out for her to hear.
“Do you think he saw our documentary. I know there wasn’t any lost love between us and him but he could have done it out of curiosity. I was going to ask him, but that felt too diva and I didn’t feel like getting called out on day one so…”
This time, Jennifer didn’t even let him finish his sentence “ I don’t know about any of this Carlos.” and went back to the job at hand, waiting for him to get bored of this one-sided conversation… but he didn’t.
“Why do you think he came back? I mean, a well paid job in Cali doesn’t begin to compare to Salt Lake City Utah…”
“I don’t know, Carlos, I don’t know about any of that because he stopped talking to me!” Jennifer’s voice came a little higher than expected, her hand colliding with her desk and her pen hitting the floor in the same move.
Carlos’ posture went a bit straighter, not used to her ever raising her voice at him. He hadn’t realized the teachers weren’t talking anymore. Especially after how cozy they had looked at the end of the previous year.
“Can we please just drop this subject?”
Seeing the tears shine in his Madrina’s eyes, Carlos backed off, even if he couldn’t understand how could this be affecting her this way. They had been enemies for longer than they had been friends and everything between had looked so inconclusive, why would she have this reaction?
With some half-hearted excuse about having to meet Seb, he left the teacher’s office, only stopping to squeeze her hand once, still marinating his theories on why would this get to her so hard.
It wasn’t until a few days later when he sees the two of them have an awkward conversation in the hallway and sees the tiny shine on Miss Jenn’s eyes again, that he realizes.
Oh.
Maybe their “friend breakup” wasn’t that much about friends after all.
- A few weeks into the school year - Ashlyn
Listening to Mr. Mazzara talk about how incredible Caltech is almost made Ashlyn question a teeny tiny bit if she was 100% sure she wanted the theater to be her main job. Almost.
That afternoon’s robotics club meeting had ended up circling around one subject only: Mr. Mazzara’s summer job. At first, the group was shy to ask, knowing the teacher was notoriously famous for being private, but after he answered the first ones so sincerely, they didn’t want to stop anymore.
That’s how they had all ended up sitting in a circle of chairs, the metal pieces they were supposed to be working with forgotten on a nearby table
After an unexpected full hour of conversation, Ashlyn is the first to hear a soft knock on the door. When she turns to check, she is startled to find Miss Jenn, leaning against the doorframe, her hand resting on her hip and her eyes filled with what looked like adoration and locked on Mr. Mazzara in the middle of the room.
"I'm so sorry to interrupt your story, but I have to steal one of your students." No one seemed to notice the change in both teachers' demeanor, but nobody else knew them as well as Ashlyn did. Miss Jenn hid her smile perfectly as any great actress would, but the small trace of hope was still there. As for Mr. Mazzara, his voice dropped and so did his shoulders, what seemed like the shock of having her speak to him in such a soft tone getting to him.
"Ash, the production crew wants to talk to all of you together." Miss Jenn kept going, even if her head never turned to the student.
Out of a sudden, Ashlyn felt nervous about being at the Reunion. Because now it felt real and not like some very vivid dream. But she wouldn't show that in a room full of her peers.
"Go on, you don't want to keep the people waiting." Mr. Mazzara’s comment was supposed to be directed at the student, who was trying her best to grab all her belongings to leave, but by the way Miss Jenn deflected, something else could be there.
~
It was near the end of the hallway when the nervous energy was getting too much between Ashlyn and her teacher that she decided to talk.
"Thank you for the advice this summer. You have no idea how much you helped me." She let out a little laugh, before being pulled to her teacher's side, who hugged her as best as they could while they kept walking.
"You are welcome honey, I'm just glad I could help"
"I'm sorry about your breakup with Mr. Bowen,by the way." The girl sensed she had crossed some type of line when Miss Jenn dropped her arm almost instantly.
"It's ok, it was a friendly breakup." Jennifer said, before adding under her breath "I think."
It only took a few more steps for Miss Jenn to talk again, this time with a little more determination and a much shakier voice.
"Actually, Ash, can you keep a secret?" the girl nodded, eager to have her teacher's trust "What I told you about the fireworks isn't exactly like that. Sometimes you can think they are there, with your current partner, but you are just trying too hard to get the feeling you have with someone else. That spark you felt with a person in some moment."
Ashlyn tries very very hard to get Maddox's smile away from her thoughts. For that to happen, she had to focus very hard on anything else.
Miss Jenn felt the fireworks with someone else?
Oh.
Now, Ashlyn didn't want to jump to conclusions, but she knew her teacher wouldn't tell her who she was talking about, so she had to make her own story. And her conclusion was that what she had just witnessed between her and Mr. Mazzara had been exactly what she thought it was: heartache.
After almost a full year of being the president of the speculation about the nature of her teacher's relationship, she was now almost sure that there was something there.
Before she could answer, they had reached the crew, getting rushed and talked to by what seemed like hundreds of people at once.
All she could manage was to give Miss Jenn a final smile, that she wished showed all she wanted to tell her. I hope you two find your spark again soon.
- Middle of the first semester - Maddox, Jet and Emmy
"Are they always like that?"
It's been almost 20 minutes of constant yelling and even the newcome Wildcats were starting to get frustrated.
They didn't know their teachers, as well as the rest of their classmates, did, but if they were to judge by the shared looks of everyone around them, they should probably be worried.
Maddox, Jet, and Emmy had just transferred to East High and the various dynamics inside (and outside) the school walls were puzzling them a bit. Right now, Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara were the biggest mystery. They had gotten to know Miss Jenn a little in the two days their paths had crossed at Shallow Lake, but only in an "I'm a teacher who maybe cares just a tad too much about her students". As for Mr. Mazzara, his name had popped up in some conversations and stories, all of them a divider in his personality.
"No" Kourtney and Ashlyn said, at the same time Carlos started with "Yes"
After all the new classmates tilted their heads in confusion, Kourtney clarifies "They used to be like this, first semester last year, but not this aggressive which is weird. Than second semester they were in good terms, close even, I don’t know what happened.” Everyone gave her a glance look when her voice went up an octave.
"Have you ever thought that they had a thing? Like, a crush or something." sweet, naive Emmy says, clearly not reading how her older classmates were looking at each other like she was breaking into an untouchable safe and they didn't want to be witnesses.
Suddenly, Ricky was dropping his phone, stuttering lost words “Her… they…”
Gina was quick to change to his side, laying her head on his shoulder while he tried to get his sentence out.
“It was him! He was the ‘somebody else’ she talked about! And my dad knew and…and…”
Oh was all Maddox managed to let out, the dots connecting quickly in her head
Jet, who has been suspiciously quiet during the whole exchange, suddenly straightens his back a little, clearing his throat low, breaking the awkward silent looks that the Wildcats were sharing.
"So let me see if i got this right? Miss. Jenn and Mr Mazzara hated eachother but somehow managed to randomly get a crush on eachother too. Meanwhile, Miss Jenn was having a vibe with Mr. Bowen. Than something happens at the end of the year and Mr. Mazzara leaves and Miss Jenn choses Mr. Bowen, only to dump him after a month because there was somebody else. And that somebody else and her are now fighting nonstop."
The group assents, too lost in their own heads, trying to find sense in the whole story, to say something.
"Dude, this school is even cooler than they make it out to be."
- End of the semester - Nini and EJ
The little tensions between some members of the group had come to dissipate with time and space. Now, at the end of the semester, they were able to keep a video chat going without anyone feeling the awkwardness lingering (too much, at least).
When their call hits a slump, with everyone laying down on the stage instead of sitting, words are starting to lack. At least until the door flew open, and what sounded like a hurricane entered the scene.
“I don’t want to keep having this fight over and over again, I just can’t.” Miss Jenn has visible tears filling her eyes and is followed closely by Mr. Mazzara, trying to find words.
“I don’t us want to.”
“Than what do you want? Because it feels like nothing I say is good enough. You keep pushing me away! I’ve apolagized, I’ve forgave you. I don’t understand what else do you want from me.”
Mr. Mazzara tries to hold her hand, her arm, her , but she brushes him off with a low “no”.
“I just want you to tell me the truth.”
Miss Jenn stays staring at him, lowering her head and turning around when he doesn’t break eye contact.
“There’s no truth to tell. Just fix the light and leave.” Her voice breaks “Please.”
They don’t seem to notice the kids, now trying to make a quick escape.
When the group is crossing the hallway, away from the thick air and the echo of Miss Jenn’s sobs in the Auditorium, EJ decides that the only thing to ask is:
“You knew. Right?”
They nodded, a bit too stunned to develop the idea. And when they asked EJ how he knew, he explain the full timeline between Carlos’ Quince and the Beauty and the Beast opening night…
~~
Later that night, when Nini is having dinner with her mums, she asks if they know anything, and when they share a look , she is sure that whatever she sensed in Miss Jenn at the beginning of the summer had been right.
+1. Last day before break - Benjamin
“Jennifer you are gonna catch a cold, c’mon!” Benjamin was following after her to the parking lot of East High, umbrella in hand, trying not to notice the water entering his shoes.
They had been getting closer again, a few lunches here and there and more talks than fights. Even if they hadn’t, he knew her well enough to realize that something was up with her that day. He had been talking to some of the crew and noticed her leave seconds before the scene that was being shot was due to start, which got him a bit worried.
“What’s the problem now?”
“You.” she turned to him, hair sticking to the sides of her face and drops of water falling from the tip of her nose “You are the problem. You have been the problem since the day we first meet. You were the problem when you tried to get me fired. You were the problem when I started falling for you against my will. All summer when I was trying to be a good girlfriend, you were the problem, always in the back of my mind, thinking about what would have happened if I had said yes to you that night like I was dying to do ,instead of choosing to let you follow your dream. You are the problem right now when you look at me like that and I'm helpless.”
He stays looking at her, stunned, not even bothered by the pouring rain anymore. Benjamin wasn’t expecting this. He was expecting her to tell him that the reason this was all happening was because he had ruined their friendship. But now they were standing there and she was telling him that she felt something too and he couldn’t even breathe.
But she didn’t understand that. How could she, if his brain refused to communicate with his mouth to form words? So she kept going.
“You wanted to know the truth and I wanted to let it out.” She was starting to sound restless, impatient even “And by the look on your face I finally managed to scare you, wow, great, just forget about this.”
Jennifer was about to walk away like she had done so many times before this semester alone. But this time, Benjamin wasn’t going to let her go.
He grabs her arm, pulling her close to his chest and running a hand through her hair before pulling her in.
She softened into the kiss immediately, her own hands coming to rest on his face, warm and soft, contrasting with the cold outside.
When he tried to pull back, she just followed his lips, making sure they didn’t leave her just yet.
This wasn’t fireworks, this was wildfire. Wildfire is pretty in a different way. It burns slowly and out of control. It bewitches you even when you try to run the other way.
It doesn’t matter if fireworks are a better metaphor, put one against the other and fire will always prevail.
Together they were fire. It started with a spark, innocent and soft, and turned blazing and all-consuming.
Together they were fire. And they were more than glad to get burned.