Bright Eyes

18.1. Teach Me to Fight

Somewhere in the darkness, someone was calling his name:

    "Mister Bautista. Mister Bautista."

    There was something uncomfortable about the way he slept, and he couldn't tell what it was exactly. All he knew for sure was he didn't want to wake up yet. Not now, please. Later. A chorus then started to echo in his headspace, something that sounded like a popular Green Day song, Wake me up when detention—

    "Mister Bautista, wake up. It's past twelve o'clock. Detention is over."

Damien's eyes flew open, and he sat up, his head spinning for a moment from the sudden rise. He glanced down, catching sight of a wet spot on his Math questionnaire, his answer sheet safe and dry underneath it. Then he looked up, his eyes meeting his Math teacher's bespectacled brown ones. Everyone else had left, save the both of them.

    Cheryl had left as well.

    Dang it.

"Good morning, Mister Bautista," said the teacher, a witty smile etched on his face. "Hope you had a good night's sleep."

Damien merely nodded. It was a strangely vivid dream—the good kind.

"Oh, hey, Damien!" said another voice. "You're up."

Damien darted his eyes over to the teacher's table, where a tall sophomore boy with messy brown hair was fixing some papers. "Max," Damien managed to say, "what are you doing here? You don't have detention." A pause, a sudden thought. "Do you?"

"Nah," said Max, setting a pile of papers down on the table. "Just spending some time with my dad. He told me he's substituting for Mister Grisham. So I asked if I could come over."

    Damien simply nodded.

The teacher's eyes flitted from one boy to the other. Then he said, "Mister Bautista, your questionnaire and answer sheet, please?"

Damien handed the papers over to him, without a word.

The teacher walked over to the teacher's table, sorted Damien's papers—the stapled set on one pile, a single sheet on the other. Then he looked up at his son, and said, "Max."

"Yeah, Dad?"

He lifted one of the piles, the one with less papers, placed it carefully into Max's hands. "Kindly bring these up to the faculty room. I'll follow with the other pile, after I talk to Mister Bautista here. Then we'll head over to The Raven's Nest for lunch with your mom and Brienne. All right?"

    Max nodded, glancing for a second at his friend who stood in the aisle, a bewildered expression on his face. He shifted his sights back to his father, and then said, "Yeah, sure." But there was a tinge in his voice, Damien noticed, that didn't sound sure—that sounded nervous.

    "Thanks, Max," said the Math teacher, patting his son on the shoulder.

    With that, Max exited the classroom, but not before shooting his friend a worried glance. Damien caught sight of it, though, but in a second of a heartbeat, he gave Max a reassuring look, telling him he'll be all right. Max understood.

    The teacher breathed in. "Mister Bautista," he said, gesturing that his student come closer.

    Damien obeyed, walking over to the teacher's table till he stood directly in front of Mr. Gascarth.

    A brief glance at the topmost sheet of the pile. "Damien, isn't it?"

    The brown-skinned boy nodded. "Yes."