A/N: My apologies, this one's a bit shorter than the last. I noticed my mistake on the "Mrs." and "Ms." thing, and I've fixed that in this chapter. Simple mistake. :P Anyway, I'm not sure whether this chapter is complete and utter shit, so leave me a review and tell me?
xx
An open field. She's alone.
Why is she alone? Where are her friends? Her sister? Her family? Anyone?
She looks frantically, finds nothing but more open field. She looks down at the grass beneath her, cushioning her bare feet from the harsh ground and tickling her skin. She looks up at the sun as if it holds all of the answers, too confused too realize it doesn t burn her eyes.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" Her voice echoes throughout the open space, but no response is given in return.
Almost as if on cue, a light breeze passes her by, tickling the skin of her forearm, teasing her. When she reacts with nothing more than a frown, she feels it again; the wind whips her hair around this time, more harshly. Urgently.
She furrows her brow, watches the grass part as the wind blows through it.
Something even stranger occurs then. As the grass parts, she feels a rumbling beneath her feet. She wiggles her toes as if to check that they re still intact, looks down curiously at the ground below her. Notices it's created a grass free path.
She bites down on her lip, not sure whether to follow it or not.
Her decision is made when a violent gust of wind whips her hair in front of her face. Without a second thought, she continues down the path.
She walks endlessly, wondering how long she has to stay on this perpetual path. She sees a figure in the distance. It's waving to her. She can do nothing more than awkwardly wave back to the unknown figure. She can't make out the details, but she thinks it s a women.
"Hello? Who's there?" She calls out, picking up her pace as she approaches the indiscernible figure.
She finally reaches the figure, her breath catches in her throat, her heart drops to her stomach.
"Emily," The women says pleasantly. She can't help but distinguish the tone as affectionate.
"Ms. Campbell..?" She whispers, disbelieving.
The woman nods, her beautiful blonde hair being pushed from her face by a gentle wind. A wind that was much harsher with her than it was being with the other women.
Her teacher reaches out to cup her cheek. Her heart speeds up, threatens to break through the barrier of her chest.
"Wake up, Emily," She coos, rubbing Emily's cheek softly with the pad of her thumb. She furrows her brow at the women, about to ask what's going on when she speaks again.
"Emily, wake up."
"Emily, wake up! Wake up you lazy bitch. You re going to make me late for college. Again. And I swear if Cook takes my seat on the bus one more fucking time..."
After a few moments, Emily began tuning out the sound of her twin sister; it had become something of the daily routine lately.
She sat up in her bed, frowning as her sister finally finished talking with a roll of her eyes and retreated to the bathroom. Emily was still stuck on her dream. What was that?
She knew she shouldn t be having dreams about her teacher. Not dreams like that. But what exactly was that?
She spent the rest of her morning trying to decipher the meaning of her dream, putting herself on auto pilot for the time being.
She'd been completely consumed with her thoughts until Katie had yanked her up from the chair she'd been sitting in, giving her a stern look and leading her out of the house.
"But I haven't finished my breakfast," Emily whined.
Katie merely rolled her eyes, shutting the door behind them and continuing to drag Emily to the bus stop.
She stood there in silence, staring off into the distance as she thought about her dream for the umpteenth time that morning and Katie tapped away furiously on her phone.
The bus arrived in shorter time than usual. Emily liked to count the seconds before the bus arrived, normally staying in the time frame of 1,252 and 1,796. This morning, it arrived at only 952 seconds.
She retrieved her phone from her pocket, discovering that the bus wasn't late; they were. They'd taken an extra ten minutes to leave the house, probably due to Emily's strange haze.
She'd been like that all week, walking around dreamily, hearing words that she didn't really hear at all, completely out of the conversations of the group. The only time she seemed to perk up and concentrate was when they were all in homeroom. Ms. Campbell's classroom.
Emily's heart fluttered at the surname, allowing Katie to drag her through the doors of the bus as her mind continued to wander. Katie went to take her usual seat next to Effy, but was denied.
"I'm sitting with Emily today," Effy explained calmly, grabbing Emily's arm and pulling her down into the seat.
Katie scoffed but didn t protest, sitting down next to Cook, much to her displeasure.
Emily's thoughts had all but dispersed, replaced by confusion. She raised an eyebrow at the enigmatic brunette sitting down beside her.
Effy offered her an all-knowing smile, making Emily squirm slightly.
"Any reason you're not sitting next to Katie today...?" She tried, still uncomfortable under Effy's penetrating gaze.
"Because I'm sitting next to you," The brunette replied simply, her eyes never leaving Emily's.
Defeated, Emily nodded, sinking into her seat and staring straight ahead as Effy's intense stare burned a hole in the side of her head.
Eventually, she'd completely forgotten about the brunette sitting beside her; her thoughts consuming her whole once again.
She found herself wondering not for the first time why Ms. Campbell hadn't disclosed her first name. Emily had thought it was customary, as all teachers at Roundview were introduced by their first, not last name. In fact, she wasn t sure she knew any of her current teacher's last names.
Emily had decided that Ms. Campbell's name was probably something pretty. Something that would suit her. Maybe Lily. Or Genevieve.
After hours and hours of silent contemplation throughout the past few days, she had come up with various names for her new teacher.
Another thought had occurred to her just then, remembering Ms. Campbell's speech to them in class on the first day. She had revealed that she was around the same age as them; sixteen or seventeen.
Although she did look quiet young, she didn't look that young. In fact, she wasn't sure that teachers were legally allowed to be hired at such a young age without a certain amount of qualifications. There wasn t a way in hell Ms. Campbell could have possibly gotten everything she needed in a short sixteen years to become a certified teacher so quickly.
Emily shook her head of the thoughts, knowing she was being far too analytical over the entire situation. Why would Ms. Campbell lie to them? None of her other classmates were suspicious of their new teacher's explanation, so why should she be? If she said she was their age, she was their age.
"You know, I read this book once," Effy's voice freed Emily from her thoughts, making her flinch.
She turned her gaze towards the brunette to find her holding eye contact with that same knowing glint in her eyes.
"About a student who fell in love with a teacher."
Emily swallowed harshly, trying to rid herself of the lump that d formed in her throat, her heart beat picking up.
"They had secret meetings. Hid their relationship from everyone. Friends. Family. Co-workers. Everyone."
"What happened to them?" Emily squeaked, knowing she wouldn t like the answer.
"Teacher got caught. Sent to jail. The student was teased by her classmates so ruthlessly, she had to move out of the country," Effy raised her eyebrows at this, a small smirk dancing across her lips.
"Why are you telling me this, Effy?"
Effy shrugged, finally bringing her gaze from Emily. "Thought you'd like to know. Interesting book. You should read it."
And with that, the conversation came to a close.
That was it. Effy knew. But what exactly did she know? Emily hadn't voiced her attractions to anyone; she'd barely admitted it to herself. It wasn't so much a crush as she just wanted to... get to know her teacher better. Nothing was going on between them. For fuck's sake, she probably wasn't even aware that Emily was in her class. But Effy knew. Somehow, she knew.
This is going to be a long day.
Emily followed her herd of friends as each of them piled off the bus, keeping a safe distance from Effy and her unnerving psychic abilities.
Instead, she stayed close to Cook, cloaking herself behind his boisterous laughter and vulgar behavior.
It wasn't long before they reached the door to their homeroom, and again she felt it. A small breeze, mimicking the first she'd felt in her dream, tickling the small hairs of her forearm.
Emily shivered, dismissing the rather frequent breeze that only she seemed to feel. It had been happening more often than not lately, and each time she tried bringing it up to the people around her, they looked at her as if she belonged on the short bus. Being the last one of her friends to walk into the classroom, she shut the door behind her, quickly making her way to her seat behind Katie.
As the class began, Emily was on high alert, taking in every word their teacher said, examining her when she was sure no one was looking.
There were definitely signs of aging; a hint of crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, laugh lines that had obviously taken more time than sixteen or seventeen years to develop.
Stop it, Emily admonished herself.
If Ms. Campbell told them she was their age, she was their age.
Instead of over-analyzing the details of the women's signs of aging, she allowed herself to become lost in her beautiful voice, hanging on every word. She wanted to record it somehow and listen to it over and over again. She shook her head at herself, warding off those thoughts. That was definitely illegal and on a whole new level of creepy.
Before she could process that the class had ended, the entire classroom had been abandoned, not a single one of her friends waiting for her at the door.
"Problem?" Ms. Campbell asked, raising an eyebrow and looking directly into Emily's eyes from across the room.
"N-no! Um I was just, uh, wondering if you'd maybe like some help...? Sorting papers or something?"
Emily wanted to smack herself in the face for the amount of stuttering she was doing. Why was she asking to stay after class? To make an even bigger fool out of herself? But she couldn t stop herself. Not when those beautiful pools of blue were staring at her. Not when that sweet voice called out to her. Not when they were alone in a room void of any other hormonal teenagers.
"Well I haven't got a class next and I suppose I could write you a pass. I do need some help. I'm a bit behind on grading,"
The smile she was offered almost made Emily melt in her seat, rendering her speechless.
Instead of risking the chance of rambling on again if she opened her mouth, she dropped her things onto her seat and walked slowly up to her new teacher's desk, more than aware of the throbbing of her heart with each step closer.
"Um, is there anything in specific you need help with?" Emily asked, clearing her throat and trying her best not to sound as pathetic as she felt.
"Grading, remember? I'll give you some papers."
Snap out of it, Emily. You're making a fool of yourself. Calm the fuck down.
"Right, right. Grading, yeah," She said quietly, waiting to be handed the papers she was supposed to be handling.
Emily was more than surprised when she was given a large stack of papers, taking her seat in the desk nearest the front and setting them down.
Had they really had that much work in the course of the week? Maybe she hadn t been paying as much attention as she thought.
After setting the papers down, she walked to the back of the room, unzipping her bag and finding a red pain to mark them with.
"So, which are you?" A voice interrupted her thoughts as she d began marking papers with the proper grades, causing her to look up at the source.
Emily felt her heart drop, fighting the small frown that tempted to cross her features. Her teacher really didn t know who she was.
"I'm only joking. I can tell you two apart. You're Emily," Ms. Campbell stated matter-of-factly, obviously amused at Emily's reaction.
"How?"
"Easily. Your voices are much different. You're quieter. More attentive. Your hair's just a shade lighter. And if you look closely enough, you can tell your lips are shaped differently."
At this, Emily s heart sped up again.
"So you've been looking closely at my lips?" She said before the words could be stopped.
She saw what could only be discerned as a slight blush blooming across her teacher's cheeks, but in a second, it was gone.
"I think you've done enough work for today, Emily. You can go now."
Emily nodded weakly, slipping out of the desk and grabbing her things.
Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she offered her teacher a curt nod, who didn t even look up, her jaw set. Emily frowned, walking out of the classroom and shutting the door behind her.
She'd ruined it. She said the wrong thing at the wrong time and it'd obviously offended her teacher.
She sighed, running a shaky hand through her hair and sliding down the wall she was leaning up against until she was sitting down.
After a few moments of silently mulling over the happenings of a few moments ago, she came to the conclusion that she would apologize to Ms. Campbell. Tomorrow, when her head was clear and not thinking about how her teacher had unintentionally admitted to staring at her lips.