December 19th 2021

Chapter 353
Our Support For Change

It was going to happen sooner or later, and now here they were… last day of class. After today, all that was left was to see off the graduating class of 2033, and then it would be summer. Whether or not she could call it that just yet, she would be on leave. Was she looking to come back before the following year was over? In her heart, yes, very much so. But how realistic would that be? It was easy to say they would do this thing or that one at the moment, when the babies were not born yet, but how would she feel once she had three little infants on her hands? They would be… four, five months tops if she aimed to return after the holidays, and wouldn't that be too soon? But then if she waited longer, what would that look like? Would it be better for her to take the entire year? She couldn't decide that now, she knew that, but she couldn't help thinking about it, and that was a feeling she was all too familiar with.

"Mom?"

"Yeah… Are we here already?" Maya blinked as she saw that they were stopped in the school lot.

"Did you fall asleep?" Ella asked with a small smile.

"Might have… just a bit…" Maya slowly admitted. As good as her grandmother's pillows had been to her, they could only do so much to combat her discomforts at times, and last night had been no exception. "Apparently I can doze off easily so long as it's not my own bed… or any bed. Couch, yes. Desk chair, car seat, absolutely. Toilet seat…" she closed her eyes, recalling that night. It had been hers and Lucas' little secret up to now, and Ella had the courtesy to try and keep herself from laughing too much.

"Sorry."

"No, please, I'd be laughing if it wasn't, you know," Maya gestured at herself, and Ella nodded. "Damn it…" she sighed.

"What? Did you forget something at home?" Ella asked.

"No, no, nothing like that, I've just been thinking about next year, not being there in the fall, and when I'd get to go back, and I just remembered… I'm going to miss your senior year," she explained, reaching over to take her hand. Ella squeezed back.

"That's okay," she promised. "You'll still be there… Not in the school, but you'll be involved. And I will tell you everything. What happened in your class, and in all my other classes, all of it…"

"Wow, all access pass?" Maya joked.

"One of a rare few," Ella affirmed. "You, Dad, Lea, Taylor... Marianne might have a junior pass," she added, reflecting.

"If you tell her that, you might need to make her an actual pass, one she can hold in her hands..." Maya smiled.

"And show to everyone she can," Ella replied, now making her laugh. "I might do that. I know she's not looking forward to me and Tori going back to the apartment, so... well, it might help."

"Wouldn't hurt," Maya sighed, recalling just the mood she was referring to manifesting itself. "You going to make mine, too?" she asked in quiet innocence.

"Will do," Ella nodded.

After ferrying in the boxes of diaries into class for her, the last time of the year, Ella headed to class, and Maya sat down in her chair. She looked around the room, her room, for six wonderful years already. Her memories exceeded the telling, and many had been immortalized in the pages of a sketchbook, but nothing could capture... all of this... so much as just sitting in this chair, in the morning, before class started.

If she didn't cry at least a dozen times today, she would be very surprised.

"Morning, Mrs. Friar," Bodhi was the first through the door, and there was Cry #1, her eyes welling up as she looked at him and felt the press of four years rushing through her mind.

"Pretend like you can't see this, please?" she gestured to her face.

"Do you need help setting up?" he asked, showing a complete lack of seeing 'that.'

"No, no, just go in there and grab whatever inspires you. Show me... graduation, new chapters..." Maya invited.

"On it," Bodhi nodded at once, setting his bag at his station before moving to the supply closet. He was easily the most skilled of her seniors this year, had been most skilled in all four years. No one could touch him. Giving him freedom of medium was generally the best course if you wanted to see something extra special.

"There is something you can do for me," Maya resettled in her seat and pulled the cover off the senior box. "Will you hand these back when the others come in?"

"Sure," Bodhi nodded.

"These, well..." she smiled, pulling out the pair of diaries, bound together, and passing them to him. "Four years, and you're the only one who's spilled over into a second volume every time. That's the kind of overload I'm very familiar with, I mean, you've seen my shelves back home."

"Yeah," he laughed. "I was thinking of doing something to the spines, so they all become a big picture when they're together." She didn't even need to ask. He promised to send her pictures.

The day kicked off before long, and just as soon as she'd said her farewells to the seniors - until graduation - she was doing the same with the sophomores. Being with them, what she couldn't stop thinking about was again her not being in class in the fall, yes, but… More than anything, her eyes would turn to the trio in their corner. Stevie, Henry... Cade...

She'd heard that Mr. Foster had briefly considered pulling his son out of school, sending him somewhere else next year. On the one hand, she could see why he'd think that was the way to go, after everything Cade had been through over the past two years. But on the other, she sympathized just as easily with how much the boy didn't want to go. He refused to be chased away, to let them win. More than that, he knew that all the bad things were not worth his losing the good ones, like his best friends. Tearing him away from them, sending him somewhere else, as a stranger? That would be the worst scenario. After much debate, Mr. Foster had agreed to let Cade stay.

"You know, even if I'm not here, it won't mean that I won't be there for you, alright?" she told him, before he left the class. He nodded. "Whatever happens, just..."

"Don't make trouble to get out of it," he promised.

"Yeah," she smiled. "And talk to people if you need to. Mr. Orlando, Mr. Matthews, those would be my top recommendations. And Mr. Day… if I do get him as my sub..."

Four years ago, when she'd been about to go on leave before Marianne's birth, when she'd had to let her students know that she would be absent in the fall, her clearest memories were of how Stella had reacted, and Rochelle... Her shy bird had looked afraid, while the other had given her the impression that she would shut down, that whatever progress they had made together all year would be lost. In both cases, it was plain to see that they did not cope well with the disruption of a hard-earned stability in their lives.

When the freshmen came in after lunch, she found a new iteration of this in Ava Nash. Whatever she had been evolving into all year, the slowest shift of all, there were suddenly some... flare ups, flashes of the girl who had been a stone wall back in September. To Maya, those didn't feel like anger so much as fear. Something was happening and she didn't like it, didn't like what it was making her feel, and she wanted to make it go away as soon as possible.

"You know, I've been talking with my old boss at the theater, about the Stage Ready camp," Maya told Ava after calling her to stay at the end of the period.

"I'm not doing it this year. It's a waste of time," Ava frowned. Maya indicated the second chair across her desk. After a couple beats, she came and sat across from her teacher.

"I started the program... nearly eight years ago now, and it became so much more than I envisioned it would be. It's in other cities, other states, and this year they started a few in other countries. There's the camps, in the summer, over the holidays, and it's still great, but you gave me an idea."

"Me?" Ava asked.

"Something else we could be doing out there, which we really should have been doing all along, because it all just goes hand in hand. We're going to test it out this summer, and I'm hoping you'll consider it."

"You haven't told me what it is..."

"Backstage Ready, I guess you could call it. Same as the other side is angled on voice, and dance, and acting, and everything in between, this one would have you working with hair and makeup, and costumes, sets, props, lights... administrative... anything you'd like to delve into. You could learn a lot, about more than you'd imagine... What do you think?"

Going by the looks she gave, and her posture, it would seem as though she was thinking a lot of things, and she didn't necessarily want to show them. Finally, she looked back up to her teacher.

"How long do I have to decide?"

"There's a spot with your name on it. You can take it on the first day or the last one, it'll still be there," Maya shrugged.

"Then... I'll think about it," Ava declared and got up.

"Great. Have a good summer, Miss Nash."

"Thanks. You, too, I mean... with the babies and all."

"Much appreciated."

Just like that, she was looking into her last full box of diaries, the juniors', before they made their way in for the final class of the final day of their penultimate year in high school. This brought on Cry #11, right as expected.

"Ah, you again," Maya teased when Ella arrived, Taylor and Lea right behind.

"Your ride is here," Lea laughed, nodding to her best friend.

"And she drives like her father," Maya squinted.

"Best teacher," Taylor declared, and Ella nodded in agreement. He'd wanted Dylan to show him, but Dylan himself had thought it better for Lucas to take up the task, as he would be too nervous.

"You should have seen him when we were both learning. I couldn't have him in the back while I had my practices, he'd keep correcting me!" Maya 'complained.'

After class ended, while most of the others cleared out in haste, Maya called Taylor over and asked him if he knew anything about whether or not Barton Day would take the sub job next fall. He was close enough to the family that maybe he'd know, right?

"I think he will," Taylor told her. "It's just... it's hard." The cause was right there, and they acknowledged it in silence. "And it would have been..." Lambert's senior year, yes. So many thoughts, all of them making her own concerns from that morning feel like they were nothing to worry over. "He wants to be here though, that, I'm sure."

"We'll help him," Lea declared. "All of us. The Born Curious Network, yeah?"

"I'll bet," Maya smiled.

"Until we have our freshman, Lara will see to that class," Lea added. Maya gave her a look. "She doesn't want to be on the team, I didn't ask but she told me. She wants to play basketball, so she won't want another thing on top of that. Trust me."

"Always... Right about now, you're not quite the captain, but if we're talking about next year, then the... Network... is in your hands."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners