“We’ll arrange a meeting to discuss the class sometime in this or the coming week.” Mr Hayer had told him on Monday evening, and ever since Mr Lee had been cautiously worried. 

Why had Skyler requested him as the co-teacher? They hadn’t spoken since graduation day, Mr Lee had never even bumped into Skyler on the street. 

Rubbing his thumb across Gengis Khan's face Mr Lee clenched his hands tight around the warm coffee mug. Even as spring began setting in and the weather got warmer, Mr Lee still spent every day frigid.

Taking a sip before setting his mug back on the desk, Mr Lee surveyed the class before him. They were all supposed to be spending this time peer reviewing a friend’s paper, but all Mr Lee could hear was chatter. He had told the class to quiet down and work a few times already, but it had made no difference yet, not for the kids Mr Lee noticed at least. No matter though, they would turn in another round of poorly made papers, and then they would all receive more poor grades. 

Looking up at the clock, he couldn’t help but sigh, there were still thirty minutes left in the day. Mr Lee had hoped to work on grading the morning class’s papers during this period’s work session, but his mind was too muddled. Although some small victory could be found in his distraction not coming from the weekend prior, or anything like that, debilitatingly distracted he still had been.

Sighing again he looked down at the papers before him, sadly as expected they were mostly disappointing, Mr Lee was sure he was conveying the material to them all, some students were getting high 90s on these tests week after week. Maybe he had just lost his touch, maybe he just couldn’t engage a full class anymore, not enough to retain the lesson’s information at least. 

Hmph. Mr Lee weakly laughed to himself at the thought, boy was that true. He even could feel himself grow tired at the tedious nature of lecturing to a room of kids who could not care less. The makeup of attentive and blow-off students had surely been the same when he first started as a teacher, did Mr Lee just let it all get to him more these days, had anything changed at all? Anything besides Mr Lee after all. What was painfully the same about him, and what was tragically different– all of that defined the tired man now. Not the joy and fervour for teaching he once had. 

Just thinking of it; the adrenaline that used to course through his very veins when a class started a new unit; the genuine joy he had when a student made a unique insight about the lesson; the joyful anticipation he held each day wondering how the students would react to his lessons, and if their responses would differ at all from his prior students’. Where had all of that gone, who had taken it from him?

Well, maybe the man didn’t take that joy, but Mr Lee damn well knew it was that perpetually on his mind man, that intoxicating yet toxic man, that– that damned man, who had made it all go away.

Still, as a teacher, he couldn’t blame his shortcomings on someone else. If he was falling behind, that was his fault; therefore, he was the sole solution to that problem.

At least it was Friday now, but could the weekend really give any rest to this tired man? If his old habits persisted, the surely not. Maybe if he stayed busy it’d keep him distracted, maybe he could do better this weekend, even if he was alone. 

C+ Mr Lee inked onto the top right of the page, before putting it onto the small pile of completed work. Sylvia’s work was next, and Mr Lee let out a small sigh of relief. A small break from the constant correction of basic facts would be nice. 

It felt like hours by the time the last thirty minutes of elapsed, and Mr Lee could send his students off with a final reminder of their papers’ due date. Waving with a smile to the last few students as they left, Leah and Sara. They were both sweet girls, and Mr Lee’s smile to them was genuine, but as soon as they left, his expression faded down again as he slumped into his chair.

The day was over, and it was now Friday night. Mr Lee usually would have left with a smile and met up with a few friends, or picked up takeout on his way home and watched some TV– but that was usually, that was previously. Nowadays, whenever he got home on a Friday, any relief at the week’s end would have been replaced quickly by thoughts of him, and that led down the same bad ride Mr Lee had been on far too often. 

‘I’ll grade some before heading home,’ he thought to himself, ‘this way at least some gets done’. Taking a grand swig of his coffee, Mr Lee finished off the mug. ‘Grade five, then another cup’ he told himself as he wrote the expected A on Sylvia’s paper before moving on.

Time moved slowly, and the quiet hum of the emptying school building was peaceful. After finishing two Mr Lee stood up and opened a window slightly, the cool breeze gave him a small shiver, but the ambient chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves made the chill in the air worth it. As he sat back down and wrapped himself tightly in the cardigan he wore, Mr Lee got started on Tim’s paper. He was a quiet kid, sweet, but always a wild card on the quality of his work. Some days he came to class half asleep, and others he he would come in early to ask Mr Lee questions about history not pertaining at all to a test, it was just genuine curiosity. As he started grading the paper, Mr Lee was glad to see this had been an instance of good quality in Tim’s work. Whatever caused that poor boy such ups and downs– hopefully he would have a better time in his senior year. A- Mr Lee wrote, putting it onto the pile of completed works before grabbing the last paper he’d grade before getting that ever-exciting next cup of coffee.

James’ came up next. And with a frown, Mr Lee looked at the perfectly completed assignment, that boy surely hadn’t completed it. That wasn’t Mr Lee just being upset a naughty student could be smart too, no. He had seen James’ actual writing from in-class writings before, it was horrible. This– this was written by a tutor, or his mother or– or–. 

It didn’t matter Mr Lee reminded himself, better to just let the years end pass over quietly. Saying anything would just cause Mr Hayer more trouble, and inevitably James would get the grade his mom wanted for him.