June 16th 2023

Chapter 167
We Must Turn the Page

The last day of class, the students chose their projects. That was just the rule. What this year's final turned into was everything that Maya could have hoped for from them, whether or not they would return to her in the fall, because it showed that, no matter what was happening beyond the four walls of her classroom, they would carry a piece of it along with them. That was what they showed as they drew, painted... and all of it was put at the heart of a growing mosaic, with the seniors at the center and the other classes radiating out, almost as though they had organized it together. Honestly, she wouldn't have been surprised if they did.

The seniors were still riding high from their prom when they showed up for their last class, which for some of them turned into nostalgia and a load of eyes bordering on puffy redness and tears. It showed her how much her class meant to them, so Maya was right there with them. She wouldn't be surprised if she started getting letters from some of them as she did with other students in previous years.

"I hope you're still here with Mary's in high school," Meadow Bailey-Ryan told her, after she'd lost her battle with the tears.

"I'll do everything I can," Maya promised her with a smile. That was still a good dozen years away, and with the climate of their school as it was, there was no telling what kind of school Mary Bailey-Ryan would be in for, but if that wasn't a goal worth striving for, what was? She would do everything in her power to be there the day she'd start freshman year, and if she wasn't, then some other art teacher would be, but there would be artistic opportunities for the girl and her classmates.

It was always a sort of comforting balm, in saying goodbye to a class of students, to remember that she would continue to see some of them as semi-regularly as she already did, whether because she knew them directly or through their parents. It was still very much the end of an era, the one where they were teacher and student, but it also signaled the beginning of another, and that was something they could all look forward to together on this day.

Maya was not ashamed to say that she had spent the entire period between the seniors and sophomores' classes just observing each piece contributed by the exiting group as she waited for the next to come along. They just found her standing there, hands joined and close to herself like she was too giddy to keep it together, and she gave a very good 'busted' snap back, moving away from the display to welcome them for this final class with her. She quickly set aside thoughts of her outgoing seniors to focus on the sophomores now on their way to be juniors in the fall. It was always like this, always felt like time was moving so fast, too fast, and suddenly her new kids would be halfway in, halfway out.

Austin Abbott had been changing before her eyes, before all of their yes, sure, but ask anyone close enough to tell and they'd say that most of this change happened through his being on the cheer squad, where she was one of his coaches. Given the space, physically, mentally, emotionally, you could not ask for anyone better out there, and both Maya and Betsy had been doing their best to do just that.

Then you had someone like Agnes Killian, who from day one had been as kind and helpful as they came. In the pages of her diary, Maya had gotten to know how much that part of her was genuine, while at the same time there was a whole other side of her that hardly got to be seen in the day to day, at school, at least so far as she'd gotten to witness it, whether in class or with the musical, or the quiz team… It gave her the sense that Agnes was trusting her with this part of herself, and Maya believed it supremely important to treat this trust with the respect and privacy that it deserved.

She saw some of that with other kids, too, like Noor Kaur and Freddie Jacek, and the work they put in over the pages of their diaries. In those two sketchbooks and in her interactions with the pair, she got the impression that they were weaving in and out of contact with one another. Some things felt very in tune, but others suggested a distancing that she hoped the approaching summer would bridge.

After lunch, when her freshmen rolled in, the first to come were Max and Max and Kinsey. The last of the trio did not attend her class, true, but she'd felt it was important to accompany her friends over before heading off to her own class, and they both appreciated this in their own way. Kinsey walked off with a tip of the head and a 'Coach' to Maya, after which Max and Max walked in and quietly took in the work of the two groups that preceded them. Max Farrell spoke on about this bit and that one, and Maya didn't know that she had ever appreciated how much he had of his older sister in him. He and Kelsey were very much their own people, but there was an inherent attentiveness in the both of them, and it was on full display here as he provided a buffer for his best friend, lost in her thoughts.

Most kids would be looking forward to summer, but Maya had a feeling that Max McAllister was partially dreading it, like maybe having school as a thing to distract her had been a good thing, and now she wouldn't have that anymore, which would leave her alone with herself and the baby growing inside her. The work she would add to the mosaic that day would absolutely show that turmoil in her head, and Maya only wished she could do more to alleviate it.

On the flipside, she could see plenty of kids looking forward to the start of summer among her freshmen, and easily at the top was Amy Dixon, closely followed by Jake Bennett. Maya's neighbor from up the road had started out her year with the certainty that the boy was easily the finest specimen of his gender, and while she shared this opinion with a sizable chunk of her classmates, she had the distinction of being the only one to elicit a similar response from soon-to-be graduate Maia Bennett's little brother. This was still a fairly new revelation to the general public, as only when the freshmen had had their school dance back in March had Jake worked up the nerve to make his interest known by asking Amy to go with him. Maya could have made Amy aware of this as far back as the fall, for having seen the boy's diary, could even have told him in the beginning, but this was much better. Now summer was approaching, and they couldn't wait to do everything together.

Waiting out the afternoon was never difficult for Maya, as this so often involved a visit from her youngest daughter, and she was almost relieved for having the 'distraction' of heading in with the juniors for last period, as it was dawning on her that, by the coming fall, she would officially have run out of out-of-school children. Aubrey would be starting preschool, joining Mackenzie, and then… no more little visitors. She might have a fix there if Ella felt like bringing the baby out to the bench to sit with her a while…

Last period with the juniors was always extra energetic and adding in the end of the year always made that even more so. If that wasn't enough, this year's batch of juniors had to go and include both her kid brother and her cousin-in-law. It was a wonder that they weren't shut down for a noise complaint, especially seeing as they had a principal just looking for a reason to interfere. Maybe they could chalk it up as the small mercy of 'it's the last day, what can you do?'

Maybe the only one of the group who was not looking like he was having fun was Lamar Whitley, who had just sort of… fallen into the shadows after his breakup with MJ. He was still there, still did the work, but sometimes it was like he went out of his way to be unnoticeable. From what she'd heard out of him, and his siblings, and his former boyfriend, she did not expect to see him on the roster for senior year art class, and she could only be sad to see him go.

She did not see herself having this kind of issue with her other exiting juniors, least of all MJ, Lydia, and Ash. Those three had very easily slipped into the spots highest familiarity and contact, for obvious reasons. One of them was not only her brother but the next in line to become a resident of her house, something she knew he was eager to do even as she would already be hosting three others of her siblings for another year at the least by the time he came around, and he wanted to come enough, so much that he would sleep on the couch if he had to… or the floor. It wouldn't come to that, and if anything, he and Wyatt were already plotting to share the room along with Finn, but she could also see him changing his mind, so he might go and share a home with Lydia, and Ash, and of course Maia. Wherever he landed, wherever all of them landed, she only needed to look at the trio as they worked on their last project of the year to know that it wouldn't be far from one another.

When the last bell rang, there were a lot of speedy goodbyes, but no one stayed around very long. Maya wouldn't have required it of them, and she was kind of looking forward to doing the cleanup on her own once the dust settled. She had a few minutes of this before she sensed another presence in the room and she turned to find one of the juniors standing there, just not specifically one of her own.

"Shouldn't you be making a run for it with all the others?" she asked Marie Nilsson. The redhead, younger but taller than her graduating sister, Miley, appeared to be at a loss for words as she looked to her, and Maya didn't know what that was about at first except… Except… "No…" the word tumbled out of her, a thought too massive not to emerge, and its origin would be etched on her face because of that, impossible for the girl not to recognize it and confirm it with a quivering nod. "Hey… it's okay…" Maya moved toward her, closed her arms around her for a moment.

"I thought, after we found out about Max that I could be, but the test said no. Guess it was too early, because now I took like three and they were all positive, I…" she bowed her head, and Maya hugged her again, gave stability as the girl sobbed in her arms.

She hadn't told anyone yet, none of her teammates, not even her sister, but with her permission Maya went ahead and called Miley over so she could collect her and get her home. It was about the opposite of what the end of this day had been shaping up to become, and after giving her classroom more than its share of a cleanup, Maya headed out, all of her thoughts on the coming fall and Marie… and Max… and Madelyn… She'd be there for all of them, no question about it. They were going to need all the support they could get.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners