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“What about you Olivia? Are you into anyone?”
Rosemary’s voice brutally pulls Olivia out of her near trance. She’s on the bleachers, two rows below her. Olivia had been tuning everyone around her out, focussing on the book in her hands instead. She’d gotten it from the school library yesterday and she’s been absorbed in it ever since.
“Sorry?” she asks, coming out of her daze, looking down at Rosemary and the friends around her.
“Do you have a crush on anyone?” Dot asks, moving up a row and smiling brightly as she waits for an answer. She’s clutching a sandwich tight in her hand—like she’s scared it’ll be taken from her—and Olivia catches Susan rolling her eyes at the overeager way Dot asks the question.
Olivia puts her bookmark in place and thinks about the question. She hasn’t really had a crush on anyone. Sure, there have been boys she thought were attractive—Gil, for example, no matter how much it pains her to admit it, but were they handsome enough to call it a crush? That’s up for debate. Either way, she can’t tell them what she thinks about Gil. They’ll think she’s insane.
“Not at the moment, no,” she says instead.
“No one you think is attractive?” Rosemary asks, visibly disappointed. Judging by the look on her face and those around her, Olivia is the first one not to answer the question with a juicy new piece of gossip.
She considers the question again. He thinks many people are attractive—girls, mostly. They always look like fallen stars that landed on Earth and became human—it’s the playful sparkle in their eyes when they talk about things they’re really passionate about. Boys don’t have that, at least not as far as Olivia has noticed. It’s their softness—their rounded edges, so to speak—the well-kept curls in their hair and their smooth, flawless skin and their gentle words (well, not Susan’s, but other girls’). But that’s not the kind of answer Rosemary is looking for, so instead she says, “I mean, I guess Mr. Daniels is attractive?”
This gains her a gasp from all the girls, who all lean in and continue talking in hushed voices. A chorus of I know right and do you think he has a girlfriend? and I would take Honors English just for him all around her. Pleased that the group is moving on from her, Olivia picks up her book again and continues where she left off.
Unfortunately for her, while she thought the conversation was over, the girls keep trying to rope her into the conversation, commenting more on how handsome he is and imagining what it would be like to date a teacher. She sighs quietly and listens to all of their thoughts and hums at the right times until lunch is over and she has to go back to class without even reading a full chapter.
A few days later, Olivia is roaming the halls at lunchtime, looking for a quiet place to read in peace. She cannot spend another lunch period with the socs, it’s just too much. She passes the Honors English classroom and sees Mr. Daniels sitting at his desk, grading papers while he eats his lunch.
Olivia knocks on the open door and he looks up. “Olivia, hi. Can I help you?”
“Would it be okay if I stay here for a bit?” She holds up her book. “I’ve been trying to read this for a few days, but there’s not a single place in this entire school where I don’t get interrupted every five seconds.”
“The Catcher in the Rye? Excellent choice,” he smiles. He gestures in the direction of the benches in front of him. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you.” Olivia smiles at him as she walks in and sits down. Mr. Daniels keeps looking at her as she flips open her book and continues where she left off—Olivia doesn’t notice.
Spending her lunch period with Mr. Daniels becomes a habit. She enjoys the relaxing atmosphere there is in the English classroom. After a while, he starts recommending books to her, and she gratefully takes his suggestions. He seems to have her taste in books down, because she falls in love with every single one he recommends.
Most days, Leonard sits behind his desk, catching up on grading his students’ work or reading a book himself, but some days, lunchtime isn’t spent reading. Some days, he and Olivia just talk. It starts out as comparing their opinions on the books they’ve recently read, but they never stop the conversation from drifting away to a different topic, like their families or their weekend plans.
Olivia enjoys his company. He’s nice, doesn’t bother her too much when she’s not in a talking mood and always lets her stay in the classroom, even when he’s not there to keep an eye on her. He trusts her, and that’s always a nice feeling.
Of course, Olivia’s disappearance from lunchtime with her peers doesn’t go unnoticed, and when Rosemary sees her in the classroom with Mr. Daniels—whom she still believes Olivia has a crush on—a month into their shared lunch periods, of course she doesn’t keep it to herself. The Rydell gossip train gets going and by the next day, rumours about Olivia dating her English teacher are everywhere. She ignores them, because what’s the point in worrying about something as trivial as high school gossip anyway? She knows it’s not true, and that’s the most important part.
About a month and a half into their arrangement, Leonard closes the door during lunch. It’s a bit odd, the door always stays open, but Olivia doesn't question it too much. It’s even better for her, because the closed door mutes the last of the noise high school lunchtime creates—the faint excited chatter, the occasional dropped tray, the slamming of locker doors. All of that disappears when the door closes.
But when she looks at Leonard, she knows something is off. It’s not just the closed door, it’s the strange look in his eyes. He looks more on edge than usual, a little twitchy. Olivia can’t remember a time she’s seen him nervous before.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She’s just being nice because it’s clear he wants to tell her about it. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have closed the door.
He regains a bit of composure when she asks the question. It’s as if that single sentence was enough to calm his nerves. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”
Olivia smiles politely and goes back to reading her book, but Mr. Daniels seems to have other plans this lunch period. He walks towards her and half-sits on the desk in front of her, his hands tightly clasped together in his lap. “You’ve probably heard the rumours, right?”
Olivia looks puzzled, hardly looking up from her book. “About Gretchen being pregnant?”
“No,” Mr. Daniels scoffs, waving his hand for emphasis.
“Sorry, you’ll need to be a little more specific. There’s a lot of rumours at Rydell,” Olivia chuckles, slightly uncomfortable. The whole vibe is off and she doesn’t like it one bit.
“About… us.” He looks right at her as he says it, like he’s waiting for her reaction so he can plan out which direction to go with this conversation.
Olivia chuckles as she turns to the next page, pointedly looking away from him. “Right, yes. Ridiculous.”
“I’ve heard whispers about you being attracted to me,” he says, leaning in a little.
“Lies,” Olivia shrugs, acting like it doesn’t bother her. In reality, her whole body is clenched and frozen in place. This is going in a certain direction and no matter what she told Rosemary, she doesn’t want it to go that way.
Leonard laughs it off. “Oh, come on now, you’ll hurt my ego.”
Olivia doesn’t have a fast enough reaction time to pull away when he suddenly reaches for her, places a hand on her neck and pulls her in. His lips are on hers and he’s kissing her and Olivia’s body and brain have disconnected. Her brain is screaming at her to pull back, push him away, slam her desk forward into his abdomen so she can get away, but not a single muscle in her body is listening. She’s frozen. All she can do is sit there and wait for him to move away.
When he finally does, Olivia doesn’t know where to look. Definitely not at him, but everything in this classroom screams his name.
“I have to go,” she says, her voice hoarse. Finally, her body is able to function again. She grabs the book from where it fell to the floor when he kissed her. When she’s back upright, he gently takes her arm and is about to lean in again, but she puts a finger to his lips and says, “Maybe not now.”
Maybe? Maybe? Why did she say that? Definitely. Not now, not ever. Never again. She scurries out of the classroom and practically runs to the bleachers next to the football field. When she sees Susan and her friends sitting there all together, she knows she can’t join them. Instead, she hides underneath the bleachers for the remainder of lunchtime.
Olivia doesn’t go back to Mr. Daniels’ classroom the next day or the day after. She spends her lunch periods hiding in the bathroom instead, avoiding everyone. When Friday comes, she has no other choice but to see him. On Fridays, she takes Honors English, and she can’t miss the class. She briefly considers leaving school and going with her brother—he told her he wouldn’t be going to class this afternoon—but she can’t have another strike on her permanent record.
She waits until the very last moment to go in, and Mr. Daniels smiles at her when she finally does. She chooses a seat all the way in the back while he starts his lesson. For a second, she really thinks she can pretend Tuesday never happened and he’s just like any other teacher, but when class ends and she’s about to walk out, Leonard stops her.
“Olivia, can I see you in my office please?”
She scours her brain for an excuse. “Oh, I really have to go. Mrs. Smith doesn’t like latecomers.”
“This won’t take long,” he smiles.
She knows she should leave, but he holds up the assignment she handed in last week and part of her believes he really just wants to discuss it. And so, she follows him into his office. As soon as the door closes behind them, he puts the papers down and kisses Olivia again. This time, she pushes him away with all the force she has in her.
Leonard looks taken aback but regains his composure relatively quickly. “No one is watching,” he assures her, as if that’s the problem. He doesn’t give Olivia a chance to react before his lips find hers again.
He’s jinxed himself though, because McGee’s scream fills the room. Immediately, Leonard jumps a few feet back, away from his student.
“What is going on here?” McGee asks.
“I—I don’t know,” Mr. Daniels says, raking a hand through his hair like this whole thing has him puzzled, as if he wasn’t the one who started all this in the first place. “She just—kissed me. I was about to discuss her assignment, and she kissed me.” He points at the papers on his desk to ‘prove’ his point. Olivia wants to fight this, tell McGee he’s lying, but she knows it’s no use.
“Olivia,” McGee says, her tone gentle. “If you could make your way to the principal’s office please?”
Olivia curses herself for going to class today. She could’ve just taken the detention for skipping class and none of this would’ve happened. She should’ve gone with Richie, wherever he was going. If only the socs would’ve left her alone at lunch so she could just read on the bleachers undisturbed, none of this would’ve happened. If she’d just told Rosemary she thought girls were more attractive, or even told her she might like Gil, the gossip wouldn’t have been as bad. People might’ve said she was just sucking up to Mr. Daniels to get better grades, and he never would’ve kissed her.
The ifs drive her insane, because no matter what she does next, nothing will undo the harm that’s already been done. She will never again be the same as she was before she started spending her lunch periods in the stuffy Honors English classroom.
She’ll never be the same.