Strolling through the rotunda and the blacktops, everything looked nearly the same as seven years ago. The mighty oak firmly stood amidst the grassy fields. The blue benches were rusting right outside the cafeteria entrance. The seagulls, insufferable as always, fought over bags of chips and food crumbs the students had left behind.

Theodore grew up in the neighborhood and found out a lot about himself in those brief four years he spent in Gillette High School as a teenager. He learned even more when he returned here as a teacher, greeting the bright, curious faces of his students on the first day of class.

“I believe you taught at Gillette a long time ago. Do you mind me asking why you quit?”

Theodore sighed. “I needed some time off.” The vice principal, Ms. Kirtran, did not know of the incident.

Ms. Kirtran glanced at Theodore. He seemed teary-eyed.

The two walked into one of the new classrooms belonging to the new buildings recently constructed in the last couple of years. Ms. Kirtran announced, “You will be shadowing Mr. Busco.”

Theodore asked, “What about the interview?”

Ms. Kirtran acknowledged, “You’re already hired, considering your background. Oh, well, you don’t have to stay the whole time for the shadowing session since you might have other plans for today. We can arrange for another date in the week if that is more convenient for you.”

“I called off work today. I should be good.”

“Alright. Great. Then, have fun, you two. Thank you, Mr. Busco.” Ms. Kirtran waved goodbye, leaving Theodore behind.

Mr. Busco introduced, “James.”

“Theodore.”

The two shook hands.

Mr. Busco urgently and formally articulated, as if he was in a hurry for a business meeting. “Right, since I’m going to be leaving in three weeks, you couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Do you have any questions?”

“Just want to know how your typical day goes.”

“Yeah. So, if you read the job description, the day starts during lunch. That’s when the students are out of class. We, as multiple subject teachers, act as supplemental tutors. If a student needs additional help in an area, they can come in here. Some students have a free period which is only available in the afternoon. Those students can come in, too. Those are usually the juniors and seniors. And then after school, freshmen and sophomores might start showing up. And we do this until eight.”

“Does it get busy? It’s finals week, isn’t it?”

“It should be busy. But it’s been very low key so far. There is a maximum occupancy of thirty students so you can put up the FULL sign if that happens.”

Theodore nodded. The classroom appeared like any other ordinary classroom. Just empty for now.

The school bell rang like a prison siren. You could hear the loud chatter and the flock of footsteps flooding out from classrooms.

“There’s lunch,” Mr. Busco muttered.

Ten minutes of retarded shrieks and conversations sneaked their way into the classroom, through the door crack, before the first highschooler showed up.

“Hey,” Mr. Busco said, “How’s everything going?”

“Good.” The kid, short and timid, holding a pizza slice on a plate, sat in one of the desks, retrieving a blue folder bursting with papers, the paint cracked and chipping off. They took out a worksheet and pencil. Mr. Busco continued typing away on his laptop, not paying much attention. Theodore internally frowned. Aren’t you going to help, Mr. Busco, or at least ask what they’re doing?

The kid diligently worked. Theodore observed. At some point, they must have gotten stuck because their pencil stopped moving. They took a bite of their cafeteria-grade pizza and scanned the room. Turning about, they made eye contact with Theodore who sat in the corner. Who’s this, the kid probably wondered. The kid kept staring at Theodore but didn’t ask questions. Theodore, not quite sure of himself, went on his phone, breaking eye contact. With his head down, he could hear the kid’s ragged breathing. After what seemed like an eternity, he heard the kid reluctantly ask, “Mr. Busco, is this how you solve the problem?”

The clack of dress shoes loudly smacked against the floor. The room suddenly hushed into a pin-drop silence. A palpable tension, an overfamiliar nervousness alerted Theodore. He looked up in apprehension.

Mr. Busco demanded, “Which problem?”

The kid pointed somewhere on the worksheet.

“Move your finger. Okay, find the derivative of tan(3x). Okay, so you just use the chain rule.”

The kid kept quiet. They dared not to look up at Mr. Busco. Though, Mr. Busco likely wouldn’t have reciprocated anyhow, his eyes focused entirely on the worksheet, waiting for the kid to magically write down the correct answer.

“Okay, what’s the derivative of tan(x)?” Mr. Busco interrogated.

“S-secant squared x.”

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“Okay. What about 3x?”

The kid took longer than two seconds to respond. Mr. Busco repeated, “3x!”

The kid shook. “Zero.”

“Are you sure?”

The kid froze. A whole minute ticked by before they mustered up the courage to whisper, “T-three?”

“What did you say? You got to speak louder.”

The kid forced themselves, their voice quavering, “Three.”

“Okay. So you multiply three with secant squared 3x. Do it.”

The kid obediently did as told.

“What are you doing? Why are you putting the three there?”

The kid frantically erased and rewrote their answer. Without considering if the kid knew what the hell they were doing, Mr. Busco strode back into his comfortable chair, returning onto his laptop.

The kid sat still, pencil in their right grip tightly clenched. After two minutes of silence, they packed away their folder back into their backpack, leaving without a word. Mr. Busco didn’t bother to say bye either. The bell rang.

“Where did the kid go? They didn’t throw away their pizza,” Mr. Busco complained. He tried to humor Theodore. “You can never really tell what’s going on in their head sometimes.”

Theodore nodded. He decided to stay for another hour maximum. Two brave, or likely desperate souls, showed up during that time frame. Mr. Busco delivered the same exact treatment. Why aren’t you writing anything down? Why are you so slow? Why don’t you remember this formula? “I think I’ll be heading out.” Theodore excused himself.

Mr. Busco, engrossed by whatever he was looking at on his laptop screen, briefly took a glimpse of Theodore on the way out. “Yeah, no worries. Take care.”

Theodore tramped into the parking lot. He slammed his car door shut and drove off into traffic enraged. At home, he sat in front of his monitor in silent dissonance. Shouldn’t he be happy? The school had rehired him. The pay is nearly triple to his current job at Joe’s Hot Sandwich Shop. He could use the extra money to buy a new computer. So what was the problem with him? What was he getting so worked up for?

He told himself not to think too hard about it while he booted up an RPG. Yet he knew, as he manipulated his party members in the video game to slay the raid boss, Helvetica Camille Bloch, that the kids had been intimidated and scared by Mr. Busco. He knew Mr. Busco saw the kids who visited his classroom as nothing more than his next paycheck.

Helvetica Camille Bloch obliterated Theodore’s entire team. On autopilot, he restarted the level back from his last checkpoint, reloading the cutscene of Helvetica Camille Bloch, Doombringer of Villars Frey.

Surely, just because Mr. Busco treated the kids like crap did not mean he himself would do the same. He’d probably do much, much better than that. So what was his problem? Theodore replayed the moment the first kid noticed and curiously stared at him, likely seeking a connection, a new friend. A poignancy dyed his heart black. In some dark alleyway of his memories, the same gentle voice that had haunted him for years echoed to him from a mountain of buried prayers, kindly proposing, “Can I call you Teddy?” He asked why. “I have a dog named Teddy.” She giggled. She looked at him with those same inquisitive eyes. To her, Teddy was her friend. Theodore jumped up and threw his mouse across the room after dying to Helvetica Camille Bloch, Doombringer of Villars Frey, Overlord of the Last Kingdom, for the fifth time.

He screamed in agony. He wanted to break everything in sight. He thrashed about, finding more objects to fling, punching his wall, and sobbing. He didn’t know why. He found his knuckles glistening with flecks of blood. Everything started turning red. Tears of frustration singed his eyes. He couldn’t take it anymore as he continued to bellow his lungs out.

What was his problem?

He went to bed that night with a sore throat, his room destroyed, and without answers. Tired of everything, he put himself to sleep.

His room was still cast in a murky darkness when he woke. He felt empty, a hollow husk that had been abandoned. Because for once, in the last ten days, he had a dreamless night. There was no white room to welcome him. There was no individual to play and laugh and have fun with.

Doubts upon taking up the teaching position at his old high school resurfaced. He felt a sharp, constant pain, like there was a raven stuck inside his ribcage, pecking away at his fleshy interior. An utmost misery consumed him. He lay there in bed, underneath the sheets, his body turned, facing the wall as the hours passed.

Did I do something wrong? Perhaps he had scared the individual away. Perhaps he should have said hi yesterday, or even at least smiled, to the kid under Mr. Busco’s “tutelage” instead of letting everything transpire. Perhaps he should have done something more in that year so she would still be here.

A million what-ifs and the truth of the matter is nothing changed. He wanted to stay in bed today until the sunlight crawled over him. He wanted to go on his phone and let his mind endlessly wander in blissful ignorance like none of it ever happened. He wanted to forget once more.

Let go.

Just forget her.

None of it ever happened.

If I had never known you, I wouldn’t have to go through all this.

Tears welled up in his eyes. He opened his mouth yet nothing came out. His vision blurred. In place of the white wall before him, the scene of a lonely great oak standing tall amidst a large lush lawn came into view. Underneath the canopy, a girl in a flowery blouse sat at the base of the trunk. At the outskirts of the shade, a man patrolled, proudly and resolutely, like the great oak that sheltered both him and the girl.

“Guess what?” the girl asked

“What?” the man asked back.

“I wrote another story yesterday.”

“Oh? What’s it about?”

The girl rambled about some mysterious fog and social stigma and isolation and a spirit who owned hot springs. The man laughed, admitting, “I have no idea what you just told me.”

The girl giggled, too.

“Can I read your story?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“What if it’s bad?”

“Then it’s bad. I don’t care.”

“I’ll read the story,” the girl decided.

“Okay.”

The girl opened up her laptop, reading aloud, “Once upon a time, there was a traveler…” By the time the girl finished narrating, the blaring school bell akin to a prison siren brought the two back to reality.

The man complimented, “I liked it. I liked it a lot.”

The girl beamed. “You do?”

The man found boundless joy and meaning from the exceptional individual before him who tried their very best in everything they did. It made him want to try his hardest as well, to be the very best he can be. The man nodded. “It’s class time. Time to go back inside.”