There he was. I found myself staring at him again, hoping that our eyes would meet. I honestly didn't know what had happened to me. It was like a switch had been flicked on and suddenly I saw the world differently, in a whole new light. If someone was to tell me a month ago that I would be sat here searching for someone I barely knew, I would have called their bluff. But it turns out that I was that kind of girl and I was capable of a silly school girl's crush.
In all fairness he wasn't exactly a teacher. He didn't teach me and I doubted he taught anyone else. One day a few months back, he waltzed into my English lesson – and my life – determined to replace the school's previous helper. She was a middle aged lady, about six feet two with a heart of gold and bam, in comes Mr. I-think-I'm-so-hot-with-my-sexy-British-accent to replace her only days after she left. Granted, that was expected to happen. The school was barely capable of helping themselves, never mind the needy children within its walls. It wouldn't have bothered me if the guy was some stout old man whose life was beyond miserable and not to mention the beer belly and unshaven facial hair to act as evidence against him. But of course, the universe was against me. Instead, in comes some twenty something year old with brown tousled hair and a face that could have been chiselled out of solid gold. I only had one word for my current situation and that was doomed.
I had complete faith that he had caught many a girl's attention in his short stay here. To be honest, you had to be non-human to not notice him. He spent the majority of his time wandering around the department in a shameful attempt to help kids find pencils that were basically right under their noses. Again, this wouldn't have bothered me a few months ago and even in the first few days of his arrival it didn't bother me. It wasn't until that one day that our eyes met. Ok, at first I thought nothing of it. It happens all the time, right? When you accidentally look up at the same exact time someone else does and for that brief awkward second your eyes meet until someone decides to look the other way. But what does it mean when this - let's call it an awkward stare - happens on more than one occasion? What does it mean when every single time you happen to look up, you meet their eyes? Now that can't be a coincidence, can it?
Take it how you will but I have this thing that if I catch someone staring at me, I make the kinda egotistical assumption that they like me. It's a perfectly normal reaction, right? Why else would someone stare at a person? Unless of course I had left over tomato sauce splattered all over my face or mascara running down my cheeks but it's not like something like that would happen every single time. And believe me, this happens a lot. I have been told that I am 'really pretty' with my cute smile and bouncing blonde locks. I guess after repetitive notions of the words, it tends to go to your head. Just a little bit.
But I'm going on a tangent. When I did see him stare back at me - with my previous history - I thought, hey maybe this guy likes me. And bam, this is where it all started. Now don't go making assumptions that I do this allthe time with allthe male teachers in my school. No, I wasn't one of those girls that spent days, months and more than likely even years pining over a teacher that they knew full well was out of their reach. I mean I was - I am - a good student that gets the homework done on time and definitely only fancies the good ole American boys, not teachers. And here I was going against every word and every stereotype that I despised. Maybe it was because he was closer to my age than any other teacher. After all, I had one more year until I was far gone from this god forsaken place. My eyes looked up again and guess who was looking back at me. If by this point you are asking, who? You seriously need to go re-read the last few paragraphs.
The room was dead silent as most of us were half way through an exam. My eyes look down in an attempt to go with my previous theory that the 'staring' was by mere coincidence. I was on a mission to get this everyone-fancies-me out of my head because let's be honest it can't have been true. If it was, I wouldn't be single right now. Maybe it just seemed that they were staring back because I was staring at them in the first place? The fact is if I saw him looking at me, the chances are he would have seen me looking at him and so in a roundabout way, maybe he thought I liked him? It was confusing but it somehow made a lot of sense. But the truth was I didn't start to like him until I thought he liked me which apparently may or may not have been the same way he was thinking about me. Why did I get myself into this mess? I clearly needed to get a hobby.
With him almost out of my mind, I carried on staring down at the question that I should probably be answering; to what extent can it be said that Apple was to blame for the recent technology boom? I stared at the question again. Firstly, did the exam board really think we gave a rat's ass why Apple was to blame? Technology had steadily become our life and we were happy. We didn't care who started it. It happened and we're reaping the benefits. End of. I roll my eyes at the stupid question before looking back up to the clock in front of me and there he was, leaning – all so sexily - against the door frame and this time, I was pretty sure he was looking straight at me. I knew in my mind that I - for what seems like the first time - wasn't looking at him first. We held a gaze before the shy girl inside me decided to take over and coward out, looking back at my paper. I know I will look back on this moment in a few days and wish I had started a staring contest with him right then and there or maybe even bash out a smile or two, just to show that I acknowledged him. But we both kind of stared at each other with an expressionless face. As a normal hot blooded human girl, I found myself trying to look 'attractive' as I stared down at the sheet before me. How on earth was someone supposed to look attractive looking at a piece of paper? I sigh. I couldn't tell you what was happening to me because even I didn't know. But I did know that I couldn't blame puberty this time. I was way past that stage.
"How was your exam?" my best friend asks me, little did she know what was really going on in my mind. Normally I would tell her these things, hell, she would be the first person I would tell but I felt a slight withdrawal when it came to him. He worked at the school, the stakes were definitely heightened. It wasn't like this was just a normal crush. It wasn't like I could just go up to him and tell him how I felt. No, this was serious business and I had to get over it, fast.
"Stressful" I reply "the questions they ask are ridiculous! But I think I did alright, fingers crossed" she smiled as she munched on the carrot in one hand and scrolled down her Twitter feed in the other.
"I'm sure you did fine" she mumbled but I wasn't really listening. I learnt a while back that his name was Klaus and we all know what that means; hashtag facebook stalking. Of course, I couldn't find him on facebook as I didn't quite know his surname and with my little outburst over I decided to leave it at that. I was becoming a full blown stalker and again, it couldn't be healthy. I knew Bonnie would always have my back when it came to clearing my mind. She did it so well. Her face lightened as her boyfriend came running over, kissing on her cheek "babe, I didn't think you were coming in today" she smiled hugging him. Before long, he grabbed a seat in between us as he began eating the remains of her lunch.
"I thought I'd surprise you. I had no lesson but I also have nothing else to do when you're here" she smiled as he wrapped his arms around her waist, his head on her shoulder as he spoke "alright Caroline" he gave me the upward nod as I smiled. Jeremy was probably the only person out of our little group that actually called me by my full name. I've never liked the name Caroline it always felt very formal and sort of like I was an old woman. I much preferred people to call me Care, a bit like a Care Bear which made me sound like I was about five but it had to be better than sounding overly mature, right? I didn't make sense, hell, life didn't make sense. Why was being a teenager so hard? As if panicking over exams and grades wasn't enough, you're constantly bombarded with the pressure to get a boyfriend or to be socially accepted. It was pathetic and I didn't like it one bit. I hear someone call my name as I come back to the reality that I hated.
"Huh?" it doesn't take me long to realise that Bonnie was standing with her bag on one arm, boyfriend on the other as she glared down at me
"We have a lesson remember?" I stare at the clock. Had lunch seriously finished already? She rolled her eyes at my not-on-this-planet expression as I began shoving all my belongings into my bag. They began speaking among themselves as I continued to let my thoughts control my body. We stopped at the crossway, where a bunch of people 'attempted' to get through a single door at once. Luckily someone stopped, letting us past and then there he was again. I was behind my two friends and it was very clear his eyes were on me. This time I wasn't going to stare back. I smiled but as per usual his face stayed the same, unmoving and just like that we past each other without another glance. My eyes drifted back to Bonnie, who was looking at me in the strangest way. Was smiling at another person unheard of all of a sudden? I continued to follow them. Jeremy kissed her goodbye as we headed into our lesson and with an exaggerated blink of an eye, the day was over. I hoped that I would forget him. In fact, I wished that he didn't come into my life and yet I couldn't stop thinking about him. I go through stages of my day that I think about him more than others and in a strange way, it's like he doesn't want to leave my mind. Secretly, I hoped that I he was thinking the same of me.