January 6th 2024

Chapter 6
The Opening of All Doors

Having Angie Anna and Deanne in the room over lunch had been as good of a way as any to make it so that, when some of her friends and colleagues came around to join her, she had the means to make it so that her secret was kept safe. If she looked distracted, she wouldn't risk having any of them figure out that she was in fact early on into this new and still hidden pregnancy. She had two students just a few feet away, one of them feeling not completely well and the other finding herself attending a new school and likely having a lot of Big Mom Feelings. Secret baby or none, she would be thinking about those girls, and that would be all.

She was thinking about the baby, too, and she had aired out those thoughts in the time while her students had gone to grab their lunches, hidden away in the supply closet. It had felt good to not pretend as though it was business as usual, if only for a few minutes, and just the sound of her husband's voice told her that he was smiling, same as she was, back at the ranch. She'd gotten to talk briefly with Ezra, and she could picture him, too, holding the phone against his face with both of his little hands and making sure no one could take it away from her. He was going to make her a picture, he promised, and she assured him that she couldn't wait to see it when they all got home that night.

Lunch slipped by a lot faster than they ever thought it took, and after the girls had thanked her and been invited to return as often as they wished, Maya brought the next box of diaries out, this one for the second half of the freshmen. Along with the AP group from morning, they would be part of the first graduating class to have started and ended as part of their art school, and that status was not lost on Maya or any of the faculty. To them, this would always be the way their school had been, no split once the new way had been introduced, no memories of Sandra Davenport's era…

"Hi…" a boy's voice drew her attention, and when she saw him…

"Elijah?" she asked, chuckling. He nodded.

"You got taller," she noted. She couldn't have seen him that long ago, last time would have been… Lamar Whitley's graduation, all of a year ago. He'd gained inches since then.

The boys had no shared DNA between them, no more than they did with Martin McNeil, who would be in last period with the juniors this year, but they were all brothers in some shape or form. She couldn't forget how this tall boy now standing before her, on his first day of high school, had barely been walking when she'd first heard of his existence. For her, it had all started with Rochelle McNeil and her gaggle of brothers, whether her full-blooded brother Rolly, or her stepbrothers via her father's second wife, Tre and Lamar, or her half-brothers Martin - born of that same marriage - and Elijah, born of her mother and stepfather.

Elijah, strictly speaking, could only claim Rochelle and Rolly as his half-siblings, but with the way the families had gotten to stay close to one another, there was something of brotherhood between him and the other three. Last she'd heard, through Haley, Martin was feeling a bit awkward about Elijah starting at the high school with them, but only ever in the way that an older sibling might feel awkward about having a younger sibling roaming about.

"How's today going so far?"

"Okay, I guess," Elijah shrugged. "It's just…" he paused, looking for words like he was trying not to say anything that might be taken the wrong way.

"School?" she offered, and his eyes flickered aside. That was about it, yes. "Here," she moved to the box and pulled out his diary, holding it out to him. He may have been a regular, not advanced, but he knew about these, and he accepted it. He held it like he was surprised with how happy he was to hold it. Like many before him over the years, he wasted no time before going to find a seat and starting to think about what he might draw on the cover. It always made her happy to see it, but it was something else when she knew them.

Those she didn't know before they came along, didn't have an older sibling or any kind of reference to guide her, she did her best to welcome with the most open of minds. She wasn't going to judge any of them off of this first day if they weren't as engaged right away, or if they looked at all like what others would have written off immediately as 'trouble.' That being said, she did have to keep it all in mind… just in case. She only had to think of the likes of Cade Foster, or Ava Nash…

On this day, she met a boy called Logan Meyer, and… Well, he had her attention, she could say that. A few of the other students had already introduced themselves, and whenever any of them spoke up, he'd either be fidgeting with his diary, flipping the gold pen in his hands, jostling his foot on the stool… or he'd be quietly laughing, saying things halfway under his breath… He got told off by some of the others around him, especially the girl who'd found herself sat opposite him, but that was usually when he'd return to flipping his pen, until he turned his attention back to his classmates.

"I'm going to take that from you if you don't stop," the girl had finally had enough, and he held the pen out to her, inviting her to try, and with the smirk on him, she might not have cared that it was clearly a trap and he would for sure speed it back out of her reach the moment she tried to take it. He was amused enough that he never had time to react before the pen was taken, and he looked over to find it in his teacher's hand.

"Your turn. Why don't you tell us about yourself?" The girl looked satisfied by this outcome, and she sat back in wait. The boy looked moderately humbled, and he sat up.

"Logan Meyer," he started. "I'm fifteen, I play basketball… I have three older brothers, just us and our dad." He looked at her, his expression reading as 'is it over now?'

"I don't think I had any of your brothers in my class," Maya tipped her head, curious. "Did they go here?"

"You didn't, and they did," Logan told her, and he came off just awkward enough to wordlessly fill in the blanks for her. They didn't want to be in art, so they hadn't been. And if he hadn't wanted to be in art, with the change, he would have gone to some other school. But here he was. Maya set the gold pen back in his hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Nice to meet you," she told him. He didn't reply, just looked back to his book, fidgeted with the pen. He'd be quiet the rest of the period. "Want to go next?" Maya turned to the girl across from him.

"Okay…" she replied, pushing her hair behind one ear like a well-practiced nervous habit. "Sure, yeah… intro…" the word was drawn out. When she turned her eyes up, she unexpectedly made eye contact with Logan. He said nothing, but it was enough to get her talking. "My name is Demi Baxter-Ray… Also fifteen… I don't have any brothers or sisters, just a whole lot of cousins, not that I see them a lot. I draw a lot," she shared, and like others before her who'd been very nervous at speaking up, bringing up this one part of herself had acted to will the air through her lungs enough to calm her down. Maya knew that she had initially put in for AP before changing her mind, and she might have asked her about it, but in the end she decided that it might not have been something she wanted to talk about in front of everyone. So, it was left alone.

The last holdout on introductions with the freshmen that year didn't give Maya the impression that she'd done so because she didn't want to talk. She was a listener. She was happy to sit and hear what everyone had to say, and it had been enough to keep her from speaking up for herself. But now it was only her, and it took a moment before she realized that no one else was taking a turn because they had all gone, except for her.

"Oh, me now?" she sat up, a little sprite of a thing, and Maya beamed.

"Yes, you now, Miss Baird," she quietly replied.

"My name's Isla," she started, "I'm fourteen years old, but I'll be fifteen in November. I live with my dads, and my little brother. We have two cats, but I want a third one. And I'm really happy that I'm here, with all the arts." That shine in her eyes, Maya could believe it. She'd want to do it all.

"Then I'm really happy that you're here, too."

With the group gone, as she prepared for the next, she couldn't help but smile to herself as she moved along. The first day of school always left her feeling so happy, so pumped up for the year that was ahead of them, and that feeling was never so strong as when she would get to meet her freshmen. Now she had some of them in both morning and afternoon, and the feeling had doubled along with the split.

"Maya!" a merry call startled her, all of a second before she felt a pair of arms close around her from behind. Having realized who this was, she smiled, reaching back to return her little sister's embrace. "This is kind of weird," Haley reflected, and she let go, pulling herself free to then dash and come face to face with her older sister and teacher. "I thought I'd never get here," she let out a breath of relief.

"That bad, huh?" Maya laughed.

"What? Oh, no, no, it's been great," Haley insisted. "But I still wanted to get here, and that took five classes and a lunch." She looked around, sped to the box of diaries, and found hers before returning to stand in front of her sister. "I wish Madelyn would have done AP with me… and Hunter… and Jonah…" she counted off.

"Uh huh." She didn't try to cover her smirk or make it look like anything other than the expression her baby sister deserved for that very unsubtle third place mention of Jonah Killian's name, as though there wouldn't be bright pink cartoon hearts floating around her head whenever he came up in conversation.

"Shut up," Haley hushed her before holding up a finger. "And you can't give me detention for that. It would be abuse of power… Baiter," she gave her a squint very much like their mother before marching off to sit down.

"You could have just stayed in regular with them," Maya pointed out.

"I could have," Haley agreed. "But I wanted to be here."

"Then I'm glad that you are."

They might have stayed chatting like this for a while except that they were in class, and soon more of their AP juniors started to trickle in. With some, it was a reunion after the summer break, with others, there was the knowing smile of the uncapped, who had been trying, for one year or two, to end up in her class without success… Then there were the others. For one, she had a transfer. Quinn Monterey had left his old school behind in favor of this one, and his reason could be little more than he loved some form of the arts enough that he'd take the leap, but there was more to it for him, and Maya was happy to hear it when he spoke of it.

Quinn had lost his mother when he was little, and from then on it had been only his father and him. His father was an artist, and he had passed that love on to his son. It was the great bond that united them, and Quinn's father had told him so many times about how, when he'd been young, his own parents had never supported that passion in him, had tried to make him leave it aside in favor of a 'real' vocation. So when they'd learned about what would become of this school, it had felt to Quinn that he needed to be here, because it sounded great to him and in honor of his father and what he couldn't do at his age.

Then there was Reese… Reese Quinland, older brother to AP freshman Mason, had been in her art class in freshman year, making very little in the way of an impression, a good one especially. She'd tried with him, had felt maybe that there could be something there if he just found a way to apply himself… and then in the summer before sophomore year he'd landed himself in juvenile detention. It wasn't something they would speak about, trying to keep the boy's privacy, though people had absolutely talked about him, and talked, and talked…

He'd been released a few months ago, and there had been a lot of talk about whether or not he'd reintegrate their school. Sandra Davenport had still been principal when the question had first come up, and she was very, very much against allowing him back. If she hadn't left it in the hands of Vice-Principal Alistair Song, Reese Quinland would have had to start over somewhere else. Whether or not this would have been a kinder solution for him, in the end, he was allowed to return. It was a great surprise then for Maya to find that he had put in for advanced art with her. She had accepted him without a second thought, only instinct. Now he sat in her class, and it was easy to see that he hadn't had the smoothest of landings back among his old classmates, but he was here, and he was doing his best to just get by.

"You know, my girls are kind of obsessed about your game commentaries," Maya told Martin McNeil when class ended and he was making his way out. He had his half-brother Rolly's smile, and he showed it now.

"If they want to, they can come out to sit at the microphone with me sometimes."

"You give them that power, they won't give it back," Maya 'warned,' and he laughed.

"That's alright." Before he left, he turned again. "How was it with Eli? Was he nervous?"

"Little bit, but he did fine," Maya promised. "He got tall." Martin nodded, laughed to himself.

"He's taller than me."

Maya held on to that 'big brotherly disbelief' and how it made her laugh and think of her own younger siblings who had more than once put her in that position over the years. Only two boxes remained, and while her Haley had felt that it had taken forever to get to this point, Maya just couldn't believe they'd already made it. And she was as eager now as when the day had started.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners