Pay Attention, Mr. Iero (Frerard)

5 - Arising Problems

"You have a crush on your teacher!?"

Once Ray and I had gotten back to our dorm and shut the door behind us, I was basically forced to tell him who it was that I liked. The whole walk home he had begged me to spill it to him after I had hinted at having a crush on someone and seeing now that it was just the two of us around, I figured that surely there was no harm in it.

Except, you know, Ray doesn't always take things well when they come from me.

"Yes, yes, but just a little bit though," I replied as I fell back onto my bed. "He's amazing, Ray. Who knew an art teacher could be so perfect?"

Ray shook his head, "Out of all of the people on campus, you had to fall for one of your teachers?"

I sat up, giving him a dirty look, "Well at least I'm not into a total geek".

"Mikey is not a geek! He's super cool when you get to know him!" Sitting down on his own bed across from mine, he added, "At least we actually have a chance together."

At first, I was pretty offended at his comment, "Way to be supportive, you dick". I lied back down and faced the wall, ignoring Ray. Sure, Professor Way was most likely out of my league, but I still had feelings for him. And I sure as hell didn't need Ray to tease me about it. 

But then I realized I had just interpreted what he had said wrong. From behind me, I heard Ray start digging through his desk drawers for something. It wasn't long before he approached me and set something down on my bed. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean that in a hurtful way, despite how it sounds," he suddenly said, and I turned back around to see what he had given me. On the bed was an open book, and Ray was pointing to a certain paragraph. "It's true though. Our school strictly forbids romantic relationships between teachers and students..."

I picked up the book to see for myself what he was talking about, "Wait why? What do you mean? What even is this?"

"It's this school's rules and guidelines. They made us go over it at orientation." Figures. I hadn't been listening to anything they had told us that day. Yet, there the stupid rule was- printed out clearly across the page. 

"But what does the school care?" I asked, becoming disappointed. "I'm legally an adult. Why can't we be together?"

Ray thought for a minute, "It probably makes the school look unprofessional and bad overall. Surely, if you went out with your teacher he'd be too biased. He'd favor you over everyone else and that's unfair to other students. I'm sure it would lead to some complaints, which the school certainly wouldn't want".

"Well, fuck the school," I groaned, throwing the book across the room. "I knew it was bad from the start. Why does this one have to be so professional and prestige?"

Ray grimaced when his book collided with the floor, but didn't say anything about it. Instead, he patiently waited for me to quit throwing a fit to continue. 

"It'll be okay, Frank," he encouraged. "I'm sure you'll find someone else around here. I've seen tons of guys already that I'm sure you'd enjoy talking to".

"But what about my teacher? I swear he likes me back".

"WHAT?" Ray's eyes shot open with surprise. "What makes you think that?"

I closed my eyes, remembering all of the questionable things Prof. Way said and did to me over the past week. The more I thought about them, the more I just convinced myself he was doing more than just being a friendly teacher.

"He just... treats me differently. Like a teacher's pet type of thing. I definitely get the special treatment with him. Plus, he winks at me a lot, he touches me more than he should, and he always sounds so playful and flirty around me".