THE TEACHER

Chapter eight

"Hey, Ms. Bennett," smiled Abby at the math teacher, passing her in the hallways of the crowded school.

It was another very chaotic day at the high school, and everyone seemed to be even louder than usual: the halls were filled with the echoing of voices and overlapping of shouts, and there wasn't the smallest space that wasn't already occupied by a student; still, even in the midst of that chaos, Abigail's eyes had been able to seek Ms. Bennett.

"Good morning," the other professionally smiled back.

The smile, though, didn't reach her eyes, and the action seemed very forced.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm just a little bit tired."

It had been just a few days after the end of Ms. Bennett's relationship with her boyfriend, and despite not having told anyone about her relationship, everyone knew that something was wrong: she wasn't known to be the biggest joker or smiler, but the indifference in her attitude was strange even for her. Sadly, no one was close enough to the teacher to ask her what was wrong, and the only few people that cared only received a skittish and short response to their questions and offers of help.

"Oh, okay. Have a nice day," said the young girl, spotting her girlfriend walking towards her, waving goodbye at the teacher.

The couple embraced, but were cut off when Charlie stopped by and leaned onto her locker, waiting to speak to her best friend.

"Hey Charles," said Alex, nodding slightly at the girl.

"Hey Lex."

Picking up the signals, Alex decided to leave the two best friends alone, and immediately jogged away to chat with some other friends from her art class.

"I see your relationship is going well," smirked Charlie, jerking off with Abigail. "Who knew you were capable of love? I thought you were born emotionless."

"Shut up," the other chuckled.

"I'm serious, love. Your grades are going up again, the way you swim is unmatched, you have a hot girlfriend... what more could you want?"

Abigail smiled to please her, but as Charlie explained how much her life had changed since the day she had met Alex, she too realized the impact she's had on her. The first two months of school had been very hard, and she hadn't felt like herself, but thanks to some very special people her life had finally taken a turn for the better; whether it was Alex or Ms. Bennett, something had changed.

"My life is pretty awesome, you're right."

The first sip tasted horrible, but the second was almost good. At least, that's what Abby thought when she tried beer for the first time, since she had already qualified for the Championship, and she didn't have any other meet until after the new year, meaning that she no longer had a strict diet to follow and could finally have some fun like all the other teenagers.

To celebrate her success in swimming and coincidentally the beginning of their relationship, Alex brought Abby in the same pub where they had had their first date, and the athlete agreed to let herself go a little bit more since she didn't have to stay as fit as before.

"I kinda like this," she admitted to Alex, who was staring at her in amusement as her face reacted at the first, glorious sip of beer.

"I told you. You seem the kind of person that would like beer."

The day after it would have been thanksgiving, so none of the two girls cared about staying sober: they were planning on getting wildly drunk and probably end up having sex in Alex's truck.