I am far too tired for this right now.

It's going to take about two more coffees to get me through this morning's assembly for the incoming freshmen. Being the art teacher, I don't actually have a homeroom class so I'll get a break while the students receive their schedules.

Still, I'm expected to attend the morning's assembly to help direct students and show my face, something the principal cares far too much about in my opinion. If need be I am expected to discipline as well but freshmen tend to be too nervous to try anything on the first day.

I take another gulp from my chipped mug, already accustomed to the bitter taste of the faculty lounge coffee. A few more sips and I'll have to join the other teachers who have already begun to head towards the gymnasium. They mostly have herded off in groups, making small talk with each other about their respective summers. None wait for me though; they all already know me to be a bit of a loner.

After I wash off my mug, I tug the sleeves of my suit down, adjusting it from having been seated. It's expected of all faculty to dress nicely during the first week of school while they meet the students and their parents.

Plenty of meet and greets go along with the beginning of the semester but thankfully teaching art means no parents are prioritizing meeting me.

Ironically, you'd be hard pressed to find me not wearing some form of a suit. People regard it as odd for the art teacher to dress nicely. They expect some hippie, but I'm far from that. I've been called cold and calculated since adolescence. It both seems to turn people off or drive them crazy with intrigue.

I brace myself and head towards the gym, ready to get this part over with and back into my art room, the one safe haven on this campus.

Before I can even reach the entrance to the gym, I hear the students chatting all too loudly from their seats in the bleachers. I enter and immediately take note of how much larger this freshman class is than the last. Public schools becoming more and more crowded, what's new?

I take my spot against the wall by the main entrance. Just because I have to show my face does not mean I plan on standing with my peers near the principal. Instead I opt to be the disciplinarian perched at the door, something I am a good candidate for because of my height and overall composure.

From there I survey the students, noticing the same predictable trends displayed by freshmen. For the most part I see over excited chatter about finally being in high school while wearing an outfit that was obviously meant to impress but instead makes them look uncomfortable and/or insecure.

Thankfully the principal calls the students to attention. The assembly goes by slowly but seamlessly. The principal gives a speech with a cheery smile, the kids chatter away any chance they get, and finally each teacher assigned a homeroom assembles their students and leads them out of the gymnasium.

Once the majority of the freshman homeroom teachers have led their classes out, I make my way to the art room to avoid any chit chat about my summer, which I do not care to share about.

All I did was keep to myself and work on my portfolio. I did take some classes but they were once again disappointing. I was disappointing.

I open the door to my classroom and am immediately comforted by the familiar scent of paints and canvas. After homeroom I will have my first class, Drawing I. My semester schedule looked about the same as the last one.

The schedule is structured to follow an alternating A and B day system. This means that each student has eight classes, four each day, and it alternates every other day. So I'll teach Drawing I today, Wednesday, Friday and then again next week Tuesday and Thursday, and so on and so forth.

I teach three classes per day and am mandated to supervise only one lunch period a day. That's a relief because last semester it was two and unlike the students, I hate lunch period. It is the kids at their most rambunctious and I'm forced to stand and watch.

My first class is extremely basic. Just some introductions and a fun assignment to match the students' excitement. Everyone, even the teachers, know that the first week is a joke or otherwise known as syllabus week. I provide a syllabus for the students and their parents to sign, one that explains all the mumbo jumbo standards I must abide by according to our shit state education system.

Luckily, another pro of being an art teacher is art is all about bending rules, something I employ in all of my curriculum. I used to more in the past but admittedly the years get bleaker and bleaker as the students get more self-absorbed and more focused on their internet presence than their talents.

I look forward to the more advanced classes consisting of students whom I've gotten to know better over their time at this high school. None of them are too spectacular but they tend to keep to themselves like me, only bothering me when necessary which I appreciate. Very few students seem to take to art at this school, which is why it is still missing an advanced placement program.

Believe me, if I could I would teach AP but it seems the interest isn't there. In the meantime I just keep trying to cultivate the few artistic minds I do come across.

The second day of school proves to me more boring than the first. At least I had more free time on day one. What's especially disappointing is that I have a fourth period class on B days, Art Basics. This means I can't escape earlier in the day if I really wanted to. Knowing that meant I skipped out early on day one. The consequence of that being I have to stay later today to take care of the beginning of the semester paperwork I've been putting off.

At the beginning of fourth period, I give out the syllabus accompanied by the usual start of the year speech. I set the students off to do whatever they want for the rest of the period, directing them towards the endless art supplies that have gathered in this room over the years.

I get on my computer and start sifting through the menial tasks I'll have to finish before leaving today. At some point I get up to make my rounds of the students. Some ask me question and I put on my comforting voice and reply as best as I can.

I see a lot of the same. After years of doing this, I'm accustomed to the typical first attempts at artwork: flowers, fruit in a bowl, a sphere on a table where the shadows are cast in impossible ways.

There are of course a few standouts. One sophomore boy drawing video game like graphics, a blue haired senior drawing female anime characters, a girl who I don't recognize drawing a portrait of her classmate.

It's well done but completely unoriginal. What's most unoriginal is the way her eyes dart back between me and the page in front of her, clearly looking to see if I'm impressed. I'm not.

There is one student however who piques my interest. A skinny girl with freckles and hazel eyes in the back corner, hunched over a notebook that has clearly been around for some time. There are only a few pages untouched and neatly stacked compared to the bound of ruffled pages preceding them.

The girl is focused, scribbling away with her jaw jutted out in a peculiar defiance. When I walk by her to peak over her shoulder she instinctively curls around it protectively.

I only catch a glimpse of smoke but I must say. It's magnificent, lined twice with blue and white, reminiscent of an older style. I immediately wonder what sorts of pencils she has to produce that effect, when she stops and turns to stare at me.

It is so strange but no student has made me feel as if I lacked a sense of privacy in my own art room. I stare back until she lowers her eyes quickly and turns back to her notebook, turning to a fresh page. She keeps her eyes trained on it, her head hanging low but I know what she is truly focused on is me.

In an effort to not antagonize her anymore I keep making my rounds and find myself back at my desk watching her. She keeps staring at the blank page until the bell sounds. I wish the class a good day and watch them shuffle out one by one, most of them happy to be done with their second day of school.

I immediately return to the class list and scan it to remember what her name was. That's it. Rey. When I had called her name during attendance, she had hardly lifted her hand to indicate that it was her name I was calling. Her aloofness then seemed typical of a teenager but for some reason now it hurt a little.

I open up the teacher's portal and click on the first form I have to fill out and submit and soon the girl Rey is off my mind. I work on my computer for about half an hour before attending a mandatory faculty meeting. The only consolation being the cup of coffee I get to guzzle down to re-energize and then it is back to my desk.

A few hours after the last school bell, I finally get to leave. It's a little later than I would like but admittedly that is because of my own feet dragging while working. I take relief in the fact that most of the students have left the premises by now and I can avoid as many people as possible on my short walk to the satellite lot where my shitty Toyota is parked.

It's late enough that I know the building's front entrance ought to lock behind me but I still check that it does as I do with most doors. The sun is still up since it's not even fall yet but it hangs low and casts orange across the courtyard. I lift my face to it, appreciating one of my favorite times of day as I make my way towards my car.

Then I see her. Rey.

The girl with the unusual stare and tattered journal. The mysterious girl shrouded in smoke.

She is huddled around her notebook scribbling away as she had in class, her backpack propped up behind her like a cushion and her knees pulled close to her chest. When the door clicks into place, her head pokes up reminding me of a deer in the forest.

It doesn't take her long to spot me. She stares cautiously for a moment before returning to her work. I can't explain why, but it takes everything in me not to approach her right there and then.

For the next several days I notice her perched there working in her book as I leave for the day, and wonder how long she typically stays there. I wonder plenty things about her. The more I can't get anything out of her in class the more I wonder. After a few weeks she still has not spoken to another classmate or myself for that matter. She's a complete enigma and I want to know more but don't know how.

Admittedly I did look up her class schedule but that is completely normal as a teacher that is concerned for her. It is not often I see a student alienate themselves as she does. It makes sense that I do it but that's because I am older. A girl like her should be about making friends of her classmates and smiling more often.

Instead, I see her perched each day at her seat after school while on my way home and I wonder what she could be drawing. Is it smoke again or is it something else?

After a few weeks I decide to stay late and see if she is still there. It'd been another B day and another unsuccessful attempt to get a better look at Rey's book and Rey herself.

I suspect based on her raggedy clothes and the fact that she stays so late to be picked up that she must be poor. Not unusual for my school, not at all but at least most of the students have been set up to at least take the bus home at a reasonable time.

My heart both soars and breaks when I discover her still sitting in her seat outside well past the building's closing time. I'm overjoyed that she is still here but I can see then that she is alone in this world. And I can't unsee it.

I watch for a while before a beaten down van rounds the corner of the student parking lot and makes its way to the roundabout for pickup. Rey hurries quickly to the van, slides the door open with some effort, and throws her bag and herself in.

It sputters a few clouds of smoke as it makes its way out. I curse myself for taking so long to approach her but feel relief that I will likely get the chance to talk to her again after school tomorrow.