Charlie tried to put his problems on the back burner for the morning.

It was now Monday. He was set to arrive at Ridgewood by nine-thirty so he could be given a tour of the building and be shown his classroom. It was on the same lot as where his old middle school was but that original building had been torn down due to various structural problems. A new school was built there a couple of years ago. This would be his first time going inside.

He went to the main office after having a bit of difficulty finding it for it was much bigger than the old building used to be. There was a woman sitting at the front desk whilst on a phone call. He waited patiently until she was finished, then he smiled at her pleasantly. "Hi, I'm Charlie Conway. I'm here-"

"For the opening?" She cut him off, peering at him through glasses which were attached to a chain that went around her ears. "Yes, I know. We were expecting you."

He nodded, hands shoved down in his pockets.

The lady, Nora, checked a notepad. "Mr. Campbell is in a meeting still. I will be showing you to your room. You're to wait until Mr. Campbell stops by. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

He wondered if she was always like this. She was looking at him in a way that made him feel like he'd already done something wrong. She came out from the other side, stepping in front of him, leading the way. Without any other choice, he followed her. They went down to the middle of the hallway where there was a staircase to the left; going up, they made a sharp right where she took him all the way down the end. All the while, she'd been holding onto a keychain. There were dozens upon dozens of keys on there. They jingled obnoxiously, echoing down the hallway. She unlocked his door, pushing it open.

"There you are."

He went inside, having a look around. "Thanks. So do I get the tour now or-" He turned back around, noticing that Nora had already left. "Later..." He finished. Alright, so maybe later. Or he would have to look around himself. But he would have to wait until Mr. Campbell stopped by. He was pretty curious as to who this guy was. He just couldn't put a face to his name but it sounded really familiar.

His classroom was the standard size. It was bare, except for the student desks and what would be his own. He walked around, deciding to open up the blinds to allow the sunshine in. He exhaled. In spite of everything that happened within the past few days, he felt ready for his upcoming classes. To think, it was actually happening after all those years in school, the four years of trying to get through college. It was here. In just a few short weeks, he would have his first teaching job.

"Oh, it's true, you are here! I was starting to think I was hearing voices." He flinched at the unexpected noise, whirling around to find a girl around his age standing there. The first thing he noticed was her wildly curly hair. It was curlier than Averman's, coming down to rest on her shoulders. She made a face, looking apologetically at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you heard me come in. Guess not. Oh, I'm Emily, by the way. Emily Bowen."

With his heart slowing down to a normal rhythm, Charlie tried to suppress a blush that was surely coming over his face by now. He reached out to shake her hand. "Charlie Conway."

"You're the new hire, right?"

"Yes," He nodded.

She was positively delighted to hear this. "It's really great to meet you! I've been keen on it since I heard about you coming on board with us."

He furrowed his eyebrows a little. "Uh huh."

"Does that sound weird? Sorry, I'll rein it in. It's just that we haven't had any male teachers working around here. Zach is the only other guy in the building, besides a couple of custodians. You can imagine our surprise when we found you were a man."

"It's not...going to be a problem, is it?"

She looked surprised. "Oh, no. Don't worry. Sorry if I made it sound like that."

He relaxed a little. "Is there a reason that happened?" He asked, referring to the no guy teachers thing.

She shook her head. "No. It just happened like that."

"Oh," He said.

She started to sit on the edge of his desk but paused. "Oh, do you mind?"

"No," He shrugged. "Go ahead."

She was sheepish. "I do that in my room a lot. It gets uncomfortable sitting in that chair." She stretched her legs out. "I know it's probably something you've been asked a thousand times already, but what made you go into teaching?"

"I dunno, I mean it just felt right," He said lamely. It was difficult to answer. She was right, he'd been asked that a lot in the beginning when he announced what he was going to college for.

"I get it," She said. "I've been drawn to teaching since I was eight. Lucky for me, my dad was pretty encouraging and told me to follow it. I had a few that tried to persuade me out of it."

"Really?" He frowned.

"It comes with the territory," She said. "Can't tell you how many times my aunt brought up money. She about drove me batty over it. What about you? Any naysayers?"

"Not really. Everyone's been supportive. I think they expected me to do something with hockey, though."

Emily was interested. "Oh? Do you play?"

"Used to. I played for the Ducks since peewee. Now I play with my friends every once and a while but we don't get to like we used to."

"Ducks, Ducks," Emily muttered to herself. "Wasn't that the team that Gordon Bombay coached? They called him the-"
"Minnesota Miracle Man," Charlie finished for her. "Yeah."

She nodded. "I know nothing about sports but I do know that. I think everyone in Minnesota knows about you guys."

Charlie rubbed his neck. "Heh, I guess."

"So you said they thought you would've went with hockey, why didn't you?"

He shrugged. "No guarantee I'd go pro. That, and it wouldn't be too long before I'd have to retire if I did. I wanted something secure, you know?"

"Did any of them go pro?"

"Ken Wu is. He's actually traveling with his team now and sends us post cards from the places he visits. Julie Gaffney was going to but she's finishing up on getting her culinary degree."

"Impressive," Emily said. "I could never do sports, not even in gym class. I'm not exactly what you'd call coordinated. I hated running the mile with a passion. I remember this one time I tried getting out of it by pretending to sprain my ankle...only I ended up breaking it instead."

He let out a snort. It sounded like a stunt Averman or Goldberg would have pulled.

"Needless to say, I didn't do that again," She said with humor.

"You aren't from around here, are you?" Charlie would have remembered hearing about such a thing.

"Nope," She said. "Born and raised in Oklahoma until I was eighteen. What about you?"

"I've been here my whole life," Charlie said. "Haven't been out of the state except for hockey."

Emily was about to say something, her mouth opening when a voice from the doorway said,

"Well, well. Nice to see you again, Conway."

That voice. It sent Charlie back all the way back to middle school. Now he knew why the name Zach Campbell sounded so familiar. "You've got to be kidding," he groaned.

Emily seemed confused by this. Her eyes darted from Zach to Charlie, watching them intently. "Do you guys know each other?" She asked carefully.

Zach stepped further into the room. Some would interpret the look on his face as a smile, but Charlie knew better; that was a smirk, a look of satisfaction. The look of someone who had won. "We go way back, don't we, Conway?"

"He hates you," Zach cornered him with a nasty smile.

He was talking about Bombay, who had gone off to the minor leagues.

"He does not!" Charlie refuted quickly.

"Does too. You were too annoying, he had to get away from you. Why do you think he left so quickly?"

"It's not true!" Charlie burst out.

"Face it, Conway: he hates you. Your precious Bombay hates you and your mom."

Charlie shook his head, scoffing. Of course. Of course it had to be him. Because life wasn't going to give him a break.

"What, not happy to see me?" Zach mocked. "That's hurtful, Conway. I couldn't wait to see you."

Charlie scowled. "What, didn't get enough of torturing me during school and now you've got to do it here, too?"

Zach tisked. "Again with the assumptions. Can't we just put that all behind us? We're both adults here."

Not when that person is you

Had he not gone to Eden, Charlie would have dealt with Zach during high school as well. It was easier to avoid him after that; he lived in the next town over so it wasn't like they were at risk of running into each other.

Charlie exhaled, trying to squash the urge to give him a piece of his mind. He wouldn't do that. He wanted this job-needed it. Not only for Logan but because it was the only school nearby that was hiring. Anything else would be going out of his way. That wouldn't be feasible.

"Right," he said shortly.

Zach chuckled. It was without humor. "Can't tell you how surprised I was when I heard about your application. Didn't take you for the teaching type."

I didn't take you for the education type either

Than again, it was an authoritative position. Somehow it made perfect sense.

"Thought you would end up playing hockey," Zach continued.

Was he overthinking it or was that a slight dig? As in I-always-knew-you-weren't-good-enough. Charlie wouldn't put it past him. He wasn't fooled into thinking everything would be smooth sailing now. Adult or not, Zach Campbell was no upstanding citizen.

"Things change," Charlie said tersely.

"They certainly do," Zach said smoothly.

Emily cleared her throat. "Should I go...? You guys probably have stuff to discuss." She started to get off the desk but Zach stopped her.

"Not at all," Zach responded. "I should be getting back. I'm sure Emily wouldn't mind giving you a tour of the place."

Charlie crossed his arms. "Too good to do it yourself?"

Zach smirked once more. "Why, Conway, I'm getting the impression you want to spend time with me."

"Not in the slightest," Charlie said coolly.

Zach pretended not to have heard that. "I'm sure you understand how busy I am during this time. If you have any questions, you can direct them to Emily or Nora."

"Right," Charlie said, his jaw tightening.

"I'll leave you be, then," Zach was on his way out but he stopped just before going out of sight, giving Charlie a smirk that was all too familiar. "It's going to be an interesting year, won't it, Conway?"

Charlie's hands were clenched into fists. Even years later, Zach Campbell was still able to grate on his very last nerve. "Right."

"Let's just hope you won't run out before Christmas," Zach let out a bark of a laugh.

His words took a moment to sink in but when they did, it was too late. Zach was gone.

"What?" Charlie muttered.

What did he mean by that?

"Oh. They didn't tell you, did they?" Came Emily's quiet voice.

He met Emily's eyes. "Tell me what?" He asked slowly.

"Well," She started, "the kids...some of them have problems. No one really knows what's going on. They're a little rough around the edges. I know deep down they're sweet kids, but the school has been dealing with their behavior and poor academics since sixth grade. The behavior has gotten so bad that they keep that group of them together. It's easier to manage that way."

And no one thought to tell him this?

Charlie sat on the edge of the desk as well. "What exactly do you mean by poor academics?"

"They're struggling," She admitted. "Part of it is laziness. I heard plenty of the other teachers complaining that they just don't do their assignments. They get plenty of reminders and are told over and over again to ask questions but nothing changes."

"What's the other part of it?"

Sadness reflected across her face as she told him. "I hate to say it but so many have given up on those kids. They drove one of their teachers and the sub off. Both of them just quit with no notice. So many of the staff are at their wits end. No one knows what to do. All the eighth grade teachers have been warned ahead of time and I can't help but think about how sad that is. I want to help those kids but from what I've heard, they just don't seem to want it."

The room was quiet for nearly a minute. Charlie absorbed this information. It was a lot to take in. He knew teaching wasn't going to be an easy feat but he didn't expect to get the worst class in the whole school.

"If they're doing that bad, how did they make it to eighth grade?" It sounded like they should have been held back to sixth or seventh grade. This didn't make any sense to him.

Emily licked her lips, presumably taking a moment to figure out how to word this. "As bad as it sounds, the school doesn't want to deal with them anymore. We know they shouldn't even have gotten this far, but the staff just wants to send them off to high school and let them deal with the kids. It's just easier to slap on the lowest possible grade and go from there. Plus, Zach is convinced with so many of them, it would reflect badly on the school if we held all of them back."

Charlie was baffled. "So he thinks letting them go on is the answer? They're just gonna screw up later."

"I know. I don't agree with it but there's nothing I can do," She said, sounding resigned over it. "No one has a solution but no one has really tried either."

That was definitely not what he thought he would be hearing this morning.

"They probably didn't tell you because they didn't want to scare you off," Emily grimaced.

It would have been nice to know so this didn't come as a complete surprise. However, he knew that had he known initially, Charlie would have declined the job and looked for something elsewhere. That wasn't an option now.

"I hope you'll stay," Emily told him.

"I will," he said, to which she beamed.

"Really? You mean it?"

I don't have any other choice

"Yeah," He said.

"Oh, good! I wasn't sure how you were going to take the news, let alone your beef with Zach. Speaking of, has he always been like that to you?"

"Always," Charlie confirmed. Irritation came bubbling up within him, recalling every single instance of Campbell's reign of terror on him. "Ever since we were in school together."

She made a face. "I get it. This one girl in my gym class during freshman year hated me. She made fun of me for my bird legs, as she called them and once, she threw water on me to make it look like I wet myself and everybody laughed-oh, shoot. You're probably not interested in hearing my life story. Sorry, sorry. I tend to overshare. I'm working on that."

He couldn't help but feel amused by this. Emily was relatively easy to talk to. "It's fine."

She hopped off the desk. "I can give you that tour now, if you'd like."

He shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

They left his classroom and started to walk down toward the other end of the hallway. Evidently, unlike the other hallways, this one was not designated to a single subject. It should have been with the other English classrooms but it wasn't. His was the only one being used, all the others were empty. He asked Emily about that.

"They try to keep the kids away so they won't disturb the other students," She explained. "I don't like it but like I said, I don't have any solutions for them so I don't say anything."

He frowned.

"So," She said conversationally after pointing out where one set of bathrooms were located.

"Sooo," He echoed.

"I think it's pretty great of you to be teaching special ed," She said. "Not everyone has the patience for it."

"I don't mind," He said, shrugging. Technically, he'd planned on teaching general education but the opening was for a special education English teacher. He could teach for either in Minnesota without needing to have a specialized degree so he went for it. "So, what do you teach?"

She put her hands in her pockets. "Algebra one. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to teach kids about graphing at eight in the morning."

"Oh, I'd believe it," Charlie wore a small smirk.

"Not a fan of algebra?"

"Not a fan of any math class."

She laughed. "Well, I'll be down in the blue hallway if you ever need someone to talk to," she offered. "It'd be nice to have a teacher friend around here."

"You're not friends with anyone else?" He arched his brow.

She shrugged. "I've got friends outside of here. But not a teacher friend, you know? The others-we talk. But we're not close."

He understood. It would be nice to have someone he could go to. "I'll take you up on that."

He received a wide grin in response.