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A few days later, something happens. He stops becoming a constant in her life. He breaks his promise.
She was at school, and everything was going fine. Tori and Robbie were being as annoyingly ever and Cat was being overly perky, but really, everything was fine.
"I have great news!" Sikowitz announces, throwing the door open in his excitement.
Sikowitz sits down in the front row, not saying anything.
"Well what is it?" Tori asks, annoying as ever.
"Oh? Are you talking to me?" He asks, taking a sip of his coconut milk.
Jade rolls her eyes.
"Tell us the big news!" Jade snaps.
"We have a new student teacher. He's going to introduce himself. He will be staying here for sixteen weeks. Now everyone, this man is very young and very aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. Please control your teenage hormones and leave him alone," Sikowitz says pointedly, taking a sip of his coconut milk and opening the door.
And then, suddenly, everything is not fine. It is very very very far from it.
Jade is playing with a pair of her scissors when the door opens. She hears a bunch of whispering around her, gossiping about the new student teacher.
"Hi, my name is Beckett Oliver. I'm the new Student-Teacher. You all can call me Mr. Oliver," he says, glancing around the room at the teenagers. The girls all swoon.
Jade recognizes that voice. It's the same one that disturbed her in the bar the night they met. It's the same one that had growled out her name in bed the first night they had sex. It's the same one who had told her he loved her a couple days ago.
Her eyes snap up immediately, and sure enough, it's him.
And now everything is ruined.
"Fuck," she blurts, getting everyone's attention with her sudden outburst.
She grips her scissors tighter in her hand.
"Jade," Sikowitz warns.
"I got a paper cut," she lies horribly, holding up her script as proof. She waves her hand at Beck, pretending she doesn't know the boy standing in front of her. Beck's eyes are glued to hers in disbelief.
Jade feels like crying.
She had finally found another constant, and he is going to leave just like the others.
"Mr. Oliver, why don't you take a seat in the back of the class, and you can observe. Cat, Andre, on stage. Start with scene 5," Sikowitz tells the class.
"He's hot," Tori whispers, like it isn't obvious. Jade ignores Tori.
Jade feels the bile building in her throat as she tries not to cry.
The bell rings, and Jade knows Sikowitz doesn't teach another class until lunch. Which means his classroom is going to be empty.
"Jade," Beck says, making her stop walking. Tori glances at her questioningly and Jade looks at the ceiling, waiting for Tori to leave.
Jade locks the classroom door.
This is it. It's not right for a teacher and a student to be together.
Yeah. She knew that.
"Beck."
"You never told me you were in high school," he comments calmly.
"You never asked."
"God. How old are you?" Beck asks, sitting down, running his hand through his fluffy hair.
"I'm seventeen," She admits, making him sigh.
"What are we supposed to do?" He asks. He sounds like a child who doesn't know how to fix a shattered flower vase before his mom finds out and grounds him.
"I- I don't know."
"We can't be together anymore. It's against the law," he tells her, and she feels tears in her eyes. Normally, she would hide them, but she couldn't. Not this time.
"We already broke the law. You're not even my real teacher. We've had sex countless of times. What difference does it make?" Jade cries. She cringes at the desperation leaking from her voice.
"I didn't know that you were a student. We haven't gotten caught yet. If I get caught, I could be fired, they might not let me become a teacher," he tells her, making her heart break.
"You said you'd never break up with me," she hears her voice crack, and she winces at the sound.
"I didn't know this was going to happen."
"You said you loved me," she says barely a whisper.
"I love you. I swear to god, I love you, Jadelyn," he takes a step toward her, placing his hands on her cheeks. His eyes look like a puppy that got kicked in the face.
She starts sobbing, and she can't stop. This feels worse than losing Momma and Amelia together, because Beck brought hope.
He lets her sob onto his chest, and she sobs even harder, knowing that she's losing someone special. She told him about her mom and about her dad and about Amelia. She trusted him. She trusts him. She loves him.
"Will you wait for me?" She chokes through her tears. "Please? I can't lose you too," she cries. She hates how pathetic she sounds.
"I'll be here student-teaching for four months, Jade. Can you wait?" He asks. She nods.
"Yeah," she chokes.
"I'll wait," he tells her, making her give him a watery grin. "I love you," she mumbles as she kisses him for the last time. He laces their fingers together.
"I love you too," he tells her, kissing her knuckles.
"I have to go," she rips her hands out of his, leaving the room and fixing her makeup.
When Tori asks why he wanted to talk to her, she growls and says "mind your own business."
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They next day at school is torture. Sikowitz teaches her class about Irony.
"Can anyone list and explain the three types of irony?" Sikowitz asks.
Jade raises her hand and starts explaining Irony to her incompetent classmates.
"Verbal irony is when someone says something and means the other. Situational irony is when the outcome of a situation isn't the intended one. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that a character doesn't," Jade rolls her eyes at her classes lack of knowledge.
"Very good, Jude," he says. She rolls her eyes at the dumb nickname.
It's funny, Jade thinks.
It's ironic how months ago, she met this boy in a bar. It's ironic how he was her boyfriend, but then he was her student-teacher, and now he's not.
Being in the same room as him hurts; she can't look him in the eyes. Her friends don't notice how she rushes to leave the room when class is over, and how when they talk about how hot he is a lunch, she doesn't contribute.
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