“Fucking hell,” I complain, having barely gone to sleep a couple of hours ago.

“Call in again.” She wraps herself around me.

“Can’t my mom will have a cow. Plus, don’t your parents come home today?”

“Ugh!” she buried her face in the pillow.

“Come on.” I slap her naked butt and sit up.

She groans but sits up.

In the restroom, as I brush my teeth, I notice my eyes are bloodshot from how exhausted I am. Plus somewhere between Saturday and yesterday the no hickeys rule went out the window and I am covered in them. Sigh.

“Can you take me by my house to get my stuff?” she asks from the doorway.

“Yeah, I’ll just drop you off that way no one sees us together.”

She frowns but doesn’t fight it.

I quickly get ready, taking the extra time to cover up my visible hickeys and grabbing my laptop and necessary papers in my bag. Maddison throws on what she was wearing when she got here and I drive her to her house it is 6 in the morning.

Her house is only a couple blocks from my own, no wonder why it was easy for her to follow me. It is a typical suburban house. Big driveway and two stories. It’s white with a red door. In the front lawn was a small garden with a pink flamingo. Typical.

I turn to Maddison. She fell asleep in the passenger seat.

“Maddy.” I shake her awake.

“Emm.” She complains.

“Maddison.”

“Five more minutes.”

“I need to go to work, get up.”

She sighs and forces herself to sit up. Then she stretches and looks at me.

“Today would be nice,” I say.

She smirks and leans over and kisses me. I kiss her back. Then she breaks away and gets out of the car.

“I’m sleeping in your class today.” She declares shutting the door.

I roll my eyes at her and watch her walk in before driving away. It’s only when I get to work do I realize if forgot to forge my stupid fake note. Ugh, Maddison distracted me. while in my car I quickly get onto my computer and in 10 minutes have one ready to print.

I walk inside and got to my classroom, Janet is waiting for me. Ugh, fucking Janet.

“Scarlet so glad you are feeling better, I promised the sub I’d give you his notes. Here is what the kids did while you were gone. Don’t forget this week is test prep, and since you weren’t here Friday it’s your job to get the donuts this week.” She says.

“Thanks, Janet, this past week was brutal. What would I do without you?” I force a smile.

“You’re too kind. See you in the halls, and hope you have a good rest of the day.” She smiles and walks out to her classroom right across the hall.

I know she talks about me behind my back, E.J told me she does. In fact, all the teachers do. They don’t like the fact that I only got this job because of my mom. Well, they can suck it, nothing they can do about it anyways. They try to act all nice to me and include me in stuff but I know these fuckers just want dirt on me.

I quickly print out the note and put into the box in the office for the ladies at the front to file it away.

Ugh, fucking test prep. I hated this shit when I was in school. Taking those fucking practice test does little to help anyone, all it does is cause extra stress. Ugh!

I glance over the work the sub did, wow this guy must have actually taught them something, ha they probably realized what a shitty teacher I am. I grab a granola bar from my bag and some coffee from the teacher's lounge and head back to my classroom.

The bell rings for the first class to start. Damn 7:20 already?

Before I can retreat into my class someone embraces me from behind. I turn and see Maddison. I raise an eyebrow.

“Ms. A I missed you. I’m so glad you’re back.” She plays it off and snuggles deeper into my shirt.

I can’t hug her back being as my hands are full.

“Well, I’ve missed you too Maddison, but you should get on to class I’ll see you later today.” I keep up the act.

“Okay.” She gives me a final squeeze before skipping off.

I make eye contact with Janet who likes to monitor the halls. She is giving me a look that says what the heck? I just shrug and play it off as if I have no idea what that was about. She shrugs too.

I head into my class.

By the time lunch rolls around I already want the day to be over.

“Knock, knock.” He says from the doorway, he is carrying food from my favorite place.

“E.J” I frown at him.

“Look I know I must have fucked up somehow but please, let me make it up to you. I miss you.” He walked over and set the food down, pulling up a chair.

“Look I know I was harsh but the truth is, it’s not you it’s me.”

“Really?” he rolled his eyes.

“It is! Okay don’t laugh but, I’ve sort of been a little bi-curious lately.”

“That’s why you dumped me?”

“Yeah, I know it’s so weird and random, but I just don’t want to be with a guy right now. If you catch my drift.”

He sighed and pulled the food out.

“I can’t eat this, that’s so not fair of me.”

“Well you didn’t bring your lunch, and just cause we aren’t dating anymore doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” He set it down in front of me.

“You’re too sweet you know that.” I smiled at him.

“I’ve heard. You know all you had to say was you were questioning your sexuality I would have understood. You didn’t have to go put my ego down like that.”

“I’m sorry, you were sort of cock blocking me at the time, caught me off guard. I guess I sort of flipped out on you.”

“You already found a girl?”

“Sort of. She’s moving away though so we agreed to just be friends.”

“So your single?”

“Yep, but I’m taking some time to figure myself out.” I dug into the Japanese take out.

“That’s good, I was---” he gets cut off by a new knock at the door.

It’s Carmen.

“Hey, w-what are you doing here?” I stand up to meet her.

“I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.” She gave a sad smile.

“You’re leaving already?”

“Yeah, back home, then to California. Offers still open if you changed your mind.”

“Carmen you know I can’t.” I grab her hands in my own.

“I don’t want to leave you behind.” She pouts.

I sigh.

E.J clears his throat.

“Oh, uh Carmen this is E.J, E.J, Carmen.”

“Hi.” She waves at him.

“Hi.” He says back.

“Please come with me,” Carmen begs.

“I can’t.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

She leans into to kiss me and just before our lips touch another knock is at the door. It’s Maddison. I quickly pull back.

“Maddison, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I really needed to talk to you Ms. A.” she clips her words.

“Can’t it wait?”

“Nope.” She crosses her arms.

I sigh.

“I should get going,” E.J says.

“Thanks for the food, we’ll catch up soon,” I assure him.

He gives me a light hug and then leaves.

“I’ll call you later,” I say to Carmen.

“I don’t believe you.” She admits.

“Then you call me.”

She sighs.

“I’m sorry but I have to get back to work.” I indicate to Maddison.

She sighs and turns to leave but before she does she sneaks in a quick kiss.

“Couldn’t help myself.” She says as she walks out.

I just sigh and shake my head.

Maddison closes the door after she is gone.

“This isn’t acting normal.” I point out walking back to my desk.

“We aren’t even back one day and they already swarming you like flies.” She snarks.

“Do you even have a real reason to be in here, or did you just want to see me?”

She walks over to me and pouts.

I pat the seat that E.j was sitting on. She takes it.

“Open,” I demand as I grab some rice from my rice bowl.

She does. I pop the rice into her mouth. She hums in delight and a smile spreads on her face.

“Better?” I ask.

“More.” She opens her mouth.

“Save some for me.” I joke popping more rice into her mouth.

We eat lunch together, sharing the food E.j bought me. We mostly eat in silence as I type up some work, she scoots her chair closer and rests her head on my shoulder.

The rest of the day goes by uneventful, and Maddison really does fall asleep in my class. Sigh. When the bell rings she as always takes her time getting her stuff.

“What are you doing after work?” she asks me.

“Honestly I’m gonna go home and crash. I'm so fucking tired, thanks to you.”

“Fine, but be prepared tomorrow I wanna have a little fun in your class.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“What do you mean by fun?” I step closer to her.

“You’ll just have to wait and see, Ms. A.”

“You little tease.” I run my hand up her chest.

There is a knock on the door and I quickly pull back, Maddison acts as if she were about to leave. It’s Carl, aka Principal Manetta, or Mani as many of the students call him. He eyes the close proximity of me and Maddison.

“I’ll see you in class tomorrow right?” I direct at Maddison.

“Of course.”

“Okay and don’t forget to read the extra passages and if you still have trouble understanding just come see me after class again.” I make up bullshit.

“Okay, thank you Ms. A.” she nodded before walking out.

“Hey Mani, what can I help you with?” I ask.

“Scarlet, glad you are back and in good health. You seem to be really popular amongst the students here.”

“What can I say, I speak their lingo.”

“Right, well I just wanted to let you know with standardized testing coming up I will be sending monitors to the main classes this school struggles with including all English department classes. They will just be there to sort of help you, think of them as a T.A they have to takes notes on your teaching methods and make sure you are meeting state requirements. I know this will be your first time so, I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Thank you. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out.”

“Right, well I won’t hold you up any longer, have a great rest of the day.” He smiled before leaving.

Shit! Damn, shit, shit, shit. Ugh! A class monitor. Now I really have to start actually teaching these little bastards something or else. Fucking hell. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate to worry about actual fucking work. Ugh!

I hate Mondays.