Chapter Text
You didn’t realize the magnitude of your decisions until you found yourself sitting at gate A22 in Terminal A of Newark Airport, waiting for your flight to San Francisco.
After a series of… unfortunate—to say the least—events, you decided that a new start was the best choice for you. In the span of about a month, your cat died, your then-boyfriend broke up with you, and a sudden and very unexpected death occurred in your family. New York City no longer felt like home to you anymore. All this led to you finding an apartment and a new job across the country and putting in your two weeks notice and breaking your lease. You knew you would miss your old job—working at a publishing house was one of the better jobs you had worked—but you knew it was time for a fresh start.
Newark Airport was the same chaos it always was—security took what felt like years, and finding your gate was nearly impossible through the crowds of people. All this was made worse due to the fact that it was a Saturday morning in the beginning of August—prime vacation time.
Once boarding the plane and settling into your window seat, you took out your notebook with the hopes of writing. You needed to start brainstorming an idea for your next book—you had finished the previous one just before everything in your life started going haywire. Though, you eventually lost those hopes and continued with your lesson planning—it would be your first time teaching in years, and you couldn’t reuse your old ones, as you were teaching a completely different grade. After you graduated college, you taught eleventh and twelfth grade English. But now, you were going to be teaching sixth graders and needed to prepare for not only the change in material, but also for the students themselves.
Though, you did fall asleep at one point during the six and a half hour long flight.
Your old apartment was like a luxury penthouse compared to your new one—which truly felt like a shoebox. The stairs and hallway up to your unit were cramped and dimly lit. They scared you—they felt like they would appear in a scene in a horror movie where someone would be kidnapped or killed. You enjoyed those types of movies, but wouldn’t like to live in one. The floors were extremely creaky and each step you took echoed and bounced off the walls.
You fumbled with the small silver key and eventually jammed it into the lock. After a few moments of fiddling with it, the door swung open .
Despite the scary hallway, it was a nice apartment and you knew it would soon feel like home. Once you had all your furniture in and all the decorations you wanted, that is. You hoped your new classroom wouldn’t feel like a boring box. You also hoped your colleagues were nice enough and weren’t a pain in your side.
It was the Monday before the school year began. You were beyond stressed—you only had today and tomorrow to set up your whole classroom, along with finishing up the rest of your lesson plans. You liked to plan far in advance.
The moment you stepped out of your apartment, you regretted your choice of clothes. Clearly jeans and a sweater weren’t appropriate clothing for this time of year, but alas. You only put on the sweater because you felt that a band t-shirt—one with your favorite band’s logo on the front—was too casual and you wanted people to have good impressions of you.
Upon arriving at Grover Cleveland Middle School, you needed to stop by the principal’s office—well, your boss’s office—to get the key to your classroom. The halls of the school were mostly empty, save for a few other teachers and a custodian you saw. All of which offered friendly smiles. You were there early, you didn’t expect a lot of your coworkers to be here yet.
Your very beat-up Converse—ones you owned for who knows how long—hit the linoleum floor as you made your way to the office. You had a habit of wearing your shoes until they were quite literally crumbing into pieces, but you should probably get new ones soon. You noticed how a lot of the classroom doors were decorated.
The layout of the school was very confusing to you. There was one large building with two ‘wings’ sticking out from them. (You couldn’t think of a better way to describe them). The main part of the building had the main office and the gym, cafeteria, and auditorium—which was one big room. A gymcafetorium, as the kids at your elementary school called the one there.
Eventually, you found your boss’s office and went inside.
“Hello?” you called into the office, spotting your boss—Principal Johnson, an older white man on the shorter side—going through papers in a filing cabinet.
He turned around. “Y/N Y/L/N!” You smiled at him. “I knew you’d be here soon.”
”Yeah, I figured I’d stop by first thing today to get the key to my classroom,” you replied, leaning against the doorway to the office.
He waved you in and gestured for you to sit in the chair parallel to his desk. “Oh, right, give me a moment.” He began to open each drawer to his desk and rifled through each one. “Where did I put it…” he whispered to himself.
You sat down in the chair and crossed your legs, anticipating that this might take a little while. Especially given the state that his desk was in—papers and binders and folders everywhere. A few framed photos sat in one corner. It reminded you of one of your old coworker’s desk, which was in a similar state. He made small talk while you waited. You tapped your foot.
Principal Johnson eventually found the key and handed it across the desk, dropping it in your hand. You stood up and began to walk toward the door, realizing you didn’t even know where your classroom was.
”Where, exactly, is my classroom?” you awkwardly asked, standing in the doorframe.
Staring at the boxes inside the trunk of your car made you realize that you might have brought too much to carry. All the way to your classroom. At the end of one of the wings.
Why did I decide to bring all of this?
You stood there with your hands on your hips, thinking of the best way to carry everything when you heard talking coming from your left. Huh, you thought, I could’ve sworn no one else was out here. You looked over at them. It was two women, one tall and the other short. One had long light brown hair, the other had short dark curly hair.
For a moment, you contemplated asking them for help before pushing all your doubts away and just doing it.
”Hey, uh, can you help me bring some of this to my classroom?” you asked, holding one of the heavier boxes and gesturing with your elbow to the rest of the ones in the trunk.
The shorter woman with curly hair jogged—it was more like speed walking, though—up to you and the other followed.
“Yes, of course,” the woman with light brown hair said and reached for one of the boxes. “I’m guessing you are the new English teacher, right?”
You nodded. “I moved here from New York. I decided I needed to… shake things up in my life.” You picked up the lone bag in the trunk and threw it on your shoulder. The bag contained some string lights that you planned to hang on the walls or somewhere in the room. You always thought that warm lighting was much nicer than the harsh fluorescent lights that were in each and every classroom you’d ever been in.
“Change is nice,” the curly haired woman said. “I’m Michelle, by the way.”
“And I’m Aubrey,” she said, almost immediately after Michelle finished speaking. The first thing you noticed about Aubrey was her eyes—they were so blue it was almost scary. ”And you?”
”Y/N,” you replied. All three of you were now holding at least one box—Michelle was holding two smaller ones and you had the bag—you began to walk inside. (Only after you struggled to shut the trunk of your car with your elbow). You knew you were at least somewhat socially awkward, but you didn’t realize the extent of it. You had to spend a moment encouraging yourself in your head just to make small talk. “So what do you two teach?” you ask, hoping your voice came out steadily enough.
The custodian you saw previously held the door open for you three as you walked inside. You said a quick ‘thank you’ to him as you passed.
“Art,” Michelle simply said.
”Huh, you don’t strike me as an art teacher,” you said, though it was more like thinking out loud.
“That’s exactly what I said!” Aubrey chimed in.
“I don’t get why people keep saying that,” Michelle started, “I don’t even know what criteria you would use to tell if someone seemed like an art teacher or not.” You chuckled. “Ok, but I don’t think you could guess what she teaches,” she said, pointing at Aubrey.
You took a good look at her. If you had to guess, Aubrey seemed more like an art teacher than Michelle. She couldn’t be, though—why would a school of this size have two art teachers?
“Hmmm.” You were thinking aloud. You needed to stop doing that! “I’m going to guess… history? No, that’s wrong…” You trailed off. By then, you reached your classroom.
The door was open, as you had stopped by to drop off your backpack and check it out, so you went in, Aubrey and Michelle following shortly behind you. All three of you put down the boxes, one on each desk. You put the box you were holding down with a small slam—it was heavy and it was starting to kill your arms.
“You’re so lucky,” the light brown haired woman began, “you got one of the good classrooms.”
You raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘one of the good classrooms’?”
“All the classrooms in this part of the school are newer and so much nicer than the rest of the school. My classroom is on the second floor and every time it rains, water leaks through all the windows.”
You let out an empathetic sigh. “That sounds horrible.”
“But at least your windows open, Aubrey,” Michelle said. “I had a kid puke last year and the whole room reeked of vomit for a few days afterward. Couldn’t air it out.”
The three of you stood there for a few moments before Aubrey said, “I should really start cleaning my classroom.”
“Yeah, me two,” Michelle said. “It was nice meeting you, Y/N.”
”It was nice meeting you two as well,” you replied.
As Aubrey was halfway out the door, she turned around. “If you ever need help or anything, I’ll be in room 215.”
You smiled at her. “Thank you, Aubrey.”
”Also, you were right. I do teach history.”
Soon enough, your classroom started to feel like a place you wouldn’t hate spending so much time in.
The posters you spent the past week designing in your apartment in the middle of the night were hanging on one wall. You put a carpet in front of the white board. You were indecisive on whether you should put the desks in rows or groups. That was a decision for another day, though. There was an hour and a half left before you had to go to a meeting, and then you could go home, and you decided to put up, or at least try to put up the string lights.
Music played quietly from your phone on a desk in the middle of the room—quiet enough to not disrupt or annoy anyone, but loud enough to hear. You loved music. It always felt comforting to you. Music never made you feel like you were completely alone. Music never made you cry yourself to sleep.
You loved 90s and 2000s rock and anything loud enough to drown out your thoughts. Your brain was too much sometimes. You were always the person people went to for music recommendations. You liked that. People actually enjoyed your music.
Wait. What were you doing?
The string lights. Right.
You found the end of the strand and plugged it into the wall. With tape in hand, you stepped up on a chair and began to stick the lights to the wall above the door. Slowly, you moved along the wall with the chair, taping the lights across.
Your mind wandered off as you continued to think about your soon to be students. In just two days, this classroom would be filled with a bunch of sixth graders. You didn’t know if you were mentally ready for this. Teaching sixth grade was probably going to be a whole lot different than teaching upperclassmen in high school.
”Knock knock,” an unfamiliar voice said from the doorway and you were snapped out of your thoughts. The voice scared you, and you accidentally grabbed onto the string lights, pulling the tape off the wall. The lights fell to the ground, but not before hitting the person who scared you right in the head.
You hopped off the chair and immediately started apologizing profusely. The person—a tall man, with dirty blonde hair, blue eyes (or at least you think they were blue, you forgot your glasses at home), and thin wire framed glasses that were hanging off his face. The expression on his face was a mix of pure confusion and shock—and it was adorable. Gosh, what were you thinking?
“I am so so sorry, oh my…” You were 90% sure that your face was redder than a tomato. It felt nearly impossible to string together a coherent sentence. “Are you okay?” you managed.
He laughed. “Nice music choice,” he said, ignoring your question. Reptilia by The Strokes was playing.
“Thanks?” He stepped into the room, looking around at the half decorated walls and shelves. “You didn’t answer my question.”
”Oh, right. I’m okay,” he responded. Stepping toward you, he reached out his hand. “I’m Ryland Grace.”
You shook his hand. “Y/N Y/L/N.” You hoped your hand wasn’t that clammy. You hoped you didn’t come off as weird or too awkward. Why were you like this? You hated how hard it was for you to talk to people.
“Do you, uh, need help? With hanging up the lights?”
You looked up at him. “Huh? Oh, uh, yes. Please.”
The next forty five minutes consisted of you and Ryland attempting to hang up the lights and talking. The lights kept falling every few minutes. Each time they fell, both of you laughed.
“You know,” he began, “warm lighting has been found to help better creative problem solving.”
You chuckled—you already knew that. That was the whole reason why you wanted to have more warm lighting in your classroom. Plus you didn’t get migraines from it and it was easier on your eyes. You looked at Ryland, who was standing on a chair.
“Tape, please.” He looked down at you. “What’s that face for?”
You ripped off a piece of tape and handed it to him, your fingers just barely touching. It sent a jolt through your arm. You needed to stop. Ryland Grace was just the science teacher whose classroom was across the hall—and nothing more. He also just happened to be attractive and really kind and didn’t seem to mind your awkwardness. He probably had a girlfriend and was just being friendly.
“It’s—I knew that already.”
“Dang it! I really need to up my fun fact game for you then, smarty pants.”
You smiled at that. Something about the silly nickname made your heart skip.
Then, the loudspeaker went off.
”Just a reminder for all that are attending, the meeting begins in ten minutes.”
Crap. You thought you had enough time to put up all the lights. You and Ryland worked extremely slowly, though, as you were talking more than actually putting the lights up. He hopped off the chair and sighed.
“Finish this tomorrow?” you both said in perfect unison and then stared at each other, trying not to laugh. He laughed first. You soon followed. And you couldn’t stop laughing because Ryland’s laugh was so damn contagious.
You two were going to walk to the meeting together. You flung your bag on your shoulder, turned on the lights, and locked the door to your classroom. You were honestly very curious about what Ryland’s classroom looks like. From the conversation you had with him, he sounded like he loved teaching and prioritized his students’ education. But that was something you would see another day, as you started to walk down the hall together.
The hallways were mostly empty. You didn’t quite realize why until you walked into the gymcafetorium—okay, that’s starting to get annoying to say—and saw that the meeting had already started. You and Ryland gave each other a look—one of embarrassment. Quietly, you two sat down in the back row to try and avoid attention from everyone else in the room.
The meeting was extremely boring. You took your planner and pen out. Principal Johnson went on and on about the yearly schedule and a bunch of other things you didn’t hear because you zoned out. You had a habit of that. Zoning out. Also, you were somewhat freaking out inside because you were sitting next to a cute, talkative coworker who kept leaning over to whisper little comments to you. It started with something about how Johnson gives the exact same speech every year, word for word. You suppressed a laugh. Every few minutes he did this. You almost laughed each and every time.
You knew the meeting was ending soon, but something in you didn’t want it to end. You enjoyed Ryland’s little comments and jokes. Once the meeting ended, you stood up and grabbed your bag.
You smiled at Ryland. “See you tomorrow?”
”See you tomorrow,” he responded.
You had something to look forward to now.