(Author's note: Sorry to have kept you waiting for this chapter. I got way too caught up is season 3 GMW spoliers. I'm planning to go to a live taping in July if I can get tickets. Feel free to follow me on instagram dorene_ahmad and as always thank you for reading my story. Reviews/feedback greatly appreciated!)
Riley's POV
We sat at our desks in history class waiting to see if my father would be teaching today. The late bell rang. Still no teacher.
"What if he never comes back?" Maya asked.
"He has to come back sooner or later, it's his job," I explained.
"I hope it's sooner," Zay said. "Mr. Katz tries, but he's no Mr. Matthews."
"It's June. There aren't that many days left in the school year," Lucas said. "What if he really doesn't make it back?"
"He's not even really sick," I answered.
"He's still gonna use up all his sick leave and avoid us until we graduate," Maya said.
"No!" Farkle exclaimed. "I'm never going to know what happened in Belgium in 1831 and it's all your fault!" He glared at me.
"Settle down Farkle, we'll get to Belgium 1831." My dad said as he entered the room. "Sorry I'm a little late, I was making photocopies and had a paper jam."
Farkle smiled. "Welcome back, Hambone."
"Thanks, Farkle. I'm sorry I missed class yesterday. It turns out I was unprepared. I needed a little more time to put together this lesson."
"What do you have for us today, Mr. Matthews?" Lucas asked.
"Harper told me she shared a quote with you yesterday." He said as he turned around and wrote the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on the board.
"You can't teach English!" Farkle called out.
"You're right. But I think you'll see that it's just as applicable to history as it is to literature," my father said.
"Who can tell me what historiography is?" He asked the class.
Zay answered, "It's what history and geography called themselves when they started dating."
The class chuckled at his joke. Lucas turned around to give him a fist bump.
"Heh. Good one," Lucas said.
My father looked perplexed. "Uh, no. Does anybody else want to take a guess?" Haley in the back of the room raised her hand.
"Is it sort of like a biography about history?" she guessed.
"You're on the right track, Haley," my dad answered.
"Historiography is the word used to describe writing about history," he explained. He picked up our textbook from his desk and held it up. "Historiographers write our textbooks. As you can imagine it's not easy fitting centuries of history into a textbook. Sometimes things get overlooked or left out. Who remembers our lesson about Alexander Hamilton? What did we learn about him?"
"He was the first Secretary of the Treasury," said Farkle.
"He's on the ten dollar bill," Maya said.
"He had a rivalry with Aaron Burr over a senate seat," Zay added.
"Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel," Haley said.
"Hamilton didn't believe the duel was right so he fired a shot into the air," Lucas added.
"Burr thought Hamilton fired at him, so he shot Hamilton, killing him," Farkle concluded.
"That's all correct," my father said. "That was all in this textbook, wasn't it?"
The class nodded. "Today we're gonna learn that there's a little more to Hamilton's story than what's in our textbooks." My father passed out the handouts he had photocopied.
"These are Hamilton's letters written to John Laurens. Who was John Laurens?"
"He's the guy that makes polo shirts," Zay answered.
I turned around. "That's Ralph Lauren."
"Oooohhh. My bad. As you can see, I'm not big on polo shirts." He gestured towards his plaid button down worn open over his grey henley.
"Farkle, help." My father said.
Farkle explained, "John Laurens was a lieutenant colonel who fought along side Hamilton and Washington in the Revolutionary War."
"John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton were best friends," my father looked at me, and then at Maya as he said that.
"Ms. Hart, please read aloud from the handout, the first paragraph." He called on Maya. Maya glanced at me nervously and then began reading from the paper.
"Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words to convince you that I love you," Maya paused. Her eyebrows raised in astonishment at the words on the page. She looked up at my father. He nodded at the paper, urging her to continue.
"I shall only tell you that 'til you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent of the caprice of others. You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent," she finished the passage.
"Ms. Matthews, please read the next paragraph," My father called on me this time. I picked up where Maya left off in Hamilton's letter.
"But as you have done it, and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have artfully instilled into me," I read aloud.
"So what do you make of this letter Hamilton wrote to Laurens?" My father asked the class.
"Well, I don't want spread any rumors or anything, but it sure does sound like he was in love with the guy," Zay speculated.
"But wasn't Hamilton married?" Farkle asked.
"He was. In fact, they both were. And Hamilton wrote letters to his wife too," My dad answered.
"So he loved them both?" Lucas asked.
"Whoa. Alexander Hamilton was bisexual?!" I exclaimed. Was that even really a thing back then?
"It's hard to say for sure. Hamilton's relatives crossed out sections of his letters, which insinuates that some of the things he wrote to Laurens were controversial, and perhaps scandalous at the time," my father explained.
"What about Laurens?" Maya asked. "Didn't he write back to Hamilton?"
"Many of Laurens' letters were destroyed by his relatives as well," my dad answered.
"Are you saying that it's likely that one of our nation's founding fathers was bisexual, like me?" I asked, catching on to the fact that this lesson, just like most of his lessons, was actually about our lives.
He turned around and erased the word "literature" from the quote on the board. He picked up the chalk and replaced what he erased with the word "history".
"Riley, please read the new version of the quote on the board," he said. I read the quote aloud.
"That is part of the beauty of all history. You discover your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong," I smiled and looked over at Maya. She was already smiling back at me.
"Whatever it is that you're going through in life, I can guarantee you, whether it made it into our history books or not, people have been dealing with the same feelings and the same issues for centuries," My father said. He continued, "You think you're the first person to feel this way? You think you're the only one going through something? You're not. So please, class, don't ever feel like you're all alone. You are not alone." He looked at Maya, and then he looked at me. "You belong," he said to me.
The bell rang. Farkle, Lucas and Zay hurried out the door with the rest of our classmates. As Maya and I got up to leave too, my father approached our desks.
"Will you girls please come over for dinner tonight?" I couldn't contain the huge grin that immediately spread across my face. I looked at Maya. There was a sparkle of hope in her eyes.
"Really, Dad? You want both of us there?" I asked him. He looked at Maya and nodded.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," he said.
"We'll be there, Sir," Maya promised.