“Man, you look like shit,” Samantha commented as she walked into the office.
“Gee thanks. Just what every girl wants to hear,” Hannah replied bitterly. “Sorry,” she apologized instantly after seeing the other woman’s shocked face. “It was a rough night.”
The only thing worse than having a random day off in the middle of the week was having it paired with a night like last night’s. Although Hannah got home sooner that she had originally planned, she spent most of the night crying to herself until finally she drifted off to sleep. Unfortunately that left her with a massive headache that was not helped at all by the early morning alarm clock.
“Oh yeah? What happened?”
Groaning internally, Hannah slumped down onto the ottoman next to the teacher’s work area. Although she didn’t mind telling Sam the details, the wounds were still pretty raw and she really didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to fight back the tears. But it is impossible to say such a statement without giving any follow up information.
“I saw Mamoru last night,” she murmured. Her head was bent back against the wall so she could stare at the ceiling; the ceiling was a non-intimidating conversational partner. “He told me that he loves me, and I told him that I don’t want to see him again.”
Samantha froze and stared at Hannah for a minute then shook her head. “So a guy, who you really like, confesses to you and you tell him to get out of your life. No offensive but no wonder you are single.”
“It wasn’t like that!” Hannah snapped. Leaping to her feet, she paced around the room while constantly running her fingers through her hair. “He said he loved me, but it was implied that he was never going to tell me that. Even though I have already confessed before, he was still too afraid to act on his feelings.”
“What a jerk,” Sam said. After grabbing a few books off the shelf, she moved towards one of the smaller classrooms in the main office. “At least you are getting off early tonight. You can get drunk a lot sooner,” she yelled over her shoulder.
“Nope.” Hannah shook her head. “Got a surprise trial. Apparently this guy called early this morning and insisted he have a trial with me today,”
“Wait what?” Sam poked her head out of the classroom. “He insisted he have a trial with you?”
“Yup. Seems like he has looked at our website and blog and felt like I am the teacher for him.”
Samantha’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “And that doesn’t sound creepy at all.” Shaking her head slowly, Sam looked up at Hannah and frowned. “If I were you, I wouldn’t go home alone. Seriously, wait for me after work. This guy sounds creepy and could possibly be waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Yeah, I’ll probably do that.” Hannah glanced at the clock and sighed. “Only three more classes to go. At least my last one is the 30 minute trial. Let’s hope it goes well.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
The last half of Hannah’s day seemed to drag on forever. Her little girl had to cancel at the last minute and her adult loved to talk, so preparing for the class took hardly anytime. Normally Saturday was one of her busiest days; teaching several wild children required a lot of before class preparation and even more after class cleaning. After last night, Hannah welcomed the normal Saturday craziness to help keep her from crying. So of course this was the week that everyone decided to cancel or rush through their work.
No matter how hard she tried to distract herself, sitting in an empty classroom always inspired Hannah’s daydreams. Sometimes they were wild and crazy, but most of the time they were reflections of what she wished would happen in real life. Most of the time they involved Mamoru.
The break between her last class and her trial lesson gave Hannah plenty of time to compose new dreams. But the daydreams never came. Instead she kept replaying the night’s events over and over until she could feel herself starting to cry. Whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see was Mamoru’s horrified expression when she said good-bye. Although he had hurt her many times in the past and cost her more tears than she wants to admit, Hannah felt a little guilty for upsetting him. The part of her that still loves him, which is a fairly large part, never wanted to hurt him. But what’s done is done, and now that she has said those words, she can never take them back. All she can do now is hope that they can both move on with their lives.
Suddenly the sound of footsteps echoed through the hallway. Since all of Samantha’s had already cancelled and the footsteps were too slow to be a deliveryman, she knew that the footsteps likely belonged to her trial student.
As the footsteps got closer, Hannah felt herself becoming a little nervous. Though this was definitely not her first trial, she was very unsure about this lesson. Her note was as helpful as ever; all it said was that he was a man somewhere in his twenties and possibly a high beginner or intermediate. There wasn’t even a name on the sheet. The fact that this man specifically asked for her didn’t help soothe Hannah’s nerves at all. The story about the blog could be true, but it would also come off as a little ‘stalkerish’ in her opinion.
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