“Yeah?” Carter laughed as I pulled open the doors. “Not where I live. Where I live, all that matters is street smarts.”
I stared at him as he walked past me, and frowned. I hated the fact that not everyone got the same opportunities. We lived in the same world, and yet, we were all separated by circumstances. I could have just as easily lived in the rough area Jenifer and Carter lived in, but I was lucky. I was lucky because the mother I had came from money, which meant I had never wanted for anything.
Well...anything but attention from her.
I’d always wondered if I would have preferred to have no money but a loving mother like Jenifer had. I guess I’d never know.
* * *
“So what did you get up to this weekend, Skylar?” Guy asked as he sat beside me. He undid the lid on his packed lunch and started to pull things out: a sandwich, a salad, an apple, and some rice cakes.
“Nothing much.” I shrugged and looked down at my own lunch of a yogurt and some chopped-up fruit. Because of everything that had happened this morning, I’d forgotten to pack my own lunch so had to grab something from the cafeteria. “My nephew has come to stay with me for a while.”
“Yeah?” Guy asked, glancing at me and pushing the glasses up on his nose. His high cheekbones and sharp jaw were covered in what I thought people liked to call fashionable stubble, and his hair was slicked back off his face. He was the perfect mixture of nerd and hotness. “Is the little guy keeping you busy?”
My mind flashed back to walking in his room this morning and seeing his not so little guy. Dammit. “Erm...well…he’s eighteen so—”
“You have an eighteen-year-old nephew?” Guy’s brows rose and he bit into his sandwich. Guy may have looked the part, but I was hyperaware of his lack of manners and the way he ate. Was it really so hard to chew with your mouth closed?
“I do.” I put the lid back on my empty yogurt container. “He’s visiting from Michigan.”
“Wow.” Guy blinked several times, and then his eyes widened. “Wait, is that the new kid who started today?”
“I...yes.” I paused, watching his face carefully. “Have you met him?”
“Yeah. He turned up late to my class so I told him to go to the office. He’s got an attitude on him for sure.”
I didn’t know why what he said raised my hackles, but it was the way he was dismissing Carter that had my temper rising. “What do you mean he had an attitude? What did he do?”
“Did you not just hear me?” Guy shook his head and tutted. “I told you, he turned up late.”
“That was all?” I asked, pushing my shoulders back. I wasn’t usually so vocal, and in the grand scheme of things, I hadn’t really said anything to him, but he was pushing my buttons.
“Yes.” Guy stared at me, his eyes narrowing. “That’s enough to send him to the office.”
“But…” I flicked my gaze around the room and to the other teachers. They were all known in the community we lived in. They knew most of the kids’ parents. Everyone knew everyone. So it made me wonder if they all saw a new face in Carter and his relaxed attitude, and instantly wrote him off. “It’s his first day. Maybe he got lost and couldn’t find the classroom.”
“Not my problem.” Guy shrugged and took another huge bite of his sandwich. “Looks rough if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I shot back and stood. I didn’t wait around to see what else he had to say. He’d pissed me the hell off with his judgements, and I didn’t want to be sitting in the same room as him. There wasn’t long left of my lunch anyway, so I went back to my classroom to prepare for the last two lessons of the day.
The first one was a group of freshmen who were eager to learn, but my last class on a Monday were seniors. It was the worst class of the week to try and get them to listen. They were hyped up from it being only an hour until the end of the day, and drained because it was Monday and they probably wanted to sleep their hangovers off.
Yep. That was right. I knew exactly what these eighteen-year-olds got up to. I may not have liked cursing, but it didn’t mean I was an old fart. I was still under thirty, and I could post an Instagram story if it took my fancy.
I waited near my desk as all the seniors filed into the room and toward their usual desks, but it was when I saw Carter trailing after them all that my brows rose. I hadn’t expected to be teaching him AP English, but he would have been put in this class based on his grades from his old school which meant he could do the work. Had he been skipping school because he didn’t want to go, or was he bored and already knew everything?
My spidey senses were on high alert, and I made a mental note to ask Jenifer about it later. It was then I realized I really didn’t know much about their lives. I’d kept myself apart from them, not wanting to think about the way they lived and the things they had to deal with, and all the while, I was sitting pretty in my nice house with a freezer full of ice-cream.
Carter halted in the doorway, his gaze meeting mine, but then he looked away. He didn’t acknowledge me at all, but I was more than okay with that. I understood how the school system worked and not wanting people to know you knew a teacher.
I cleared my throat and stepped forward, then started to tell them about the assigned reading I was setting. They all groaned, but I knew if I didn’t put it in the syllabus, they wouldn’t pick up a book. I was also aware of not using a book that had turned into a movie, because all they woul
d do was trade the reading for a screen, and I’d lose everything I was trying to set out to achieve.
The hour flew by faster than any other that day, but I hadn’t missed the fact Carter hadn’t paid much attention. He was sitting in one of the back seats, and I could hear his cell vibrating from the front of the classroom and noticed his downcast eyes, but I hadn’t called him out on it. I’d let him be, not wanting to single him out in a room full of his new peers. But that didn’t mean I’d let it go. All the teachers would soon know who he was and where he had come from, and if he acted like that in their classes, they’d judge him in the same way Guy had.
“Carter, please stay behind,” I shouted over the school bell.