“Any chance you filled up an extra thermos with coffee before you left the house?” I ask, hopeful.
“I’ll leave it on your desk.”
My heart flutters with appreciation.
“You know what, I was wrong,” I tease, affecting a swoony lovesick tone. “There is a man who titillates me more than Hawkeye, and his name is Ian Flet—”
He groans and hangs up.
* * *
Oak Hill High School is a five-minute bike ride from my apartment. It’s also a five-minute bike ride from Ian’s house. We could make the morning commute together, but we have drastically different morning rituals. I like to roll the dice and push the limits on my alarm clock. It thrills me to sleep until the very last second. Ian likes to wake up with the milkman. He belongs to a gym and he uses that membership every morning. His body fat percentage hovers in the low teens. I belong to the same gym and my membership card is tucked behind a beloved Dunkin’ Donuts rewards card. It leers out at me each time I make a midday strawberry frosted run.
Those barbaric contraptions at the gym intimidate me. I once sprained my wrist trying to change the amount of weight resistance on a rowing machine, and have you seen all the different strap, rope, and handle attachments for the cable machine? Half of them look like sex toys for horses.
Instead of subjecting myself to the gym, I prefer my daily bike rides. Besides, there’s really no fighting my physiology at this point. I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman still riding the wave of pretend fitness that comes naturally with youth and the food budget of a teacher. The only #gains in my life come from binge-watching Chip and Joanna Gaines on Fixer Upper.
Ian says I’m too hard on myself, but in the mirror I see knobby knees and barely-filled B cups. On good days, I’m 5’3’’。 I think I can shop at Baby Gap.
When I make it to school （ten minutes before the first bell）， I find a granola bar next to the thermos of coffee on my desk. In my haste to make it to school on time, I forgot to grab something for breakfast. I’ve become predictable enough that Ian has stowed snacks in and around my desk. I can pull open any drawer and find something—nuts, seeds, peanut butter crackers. There’s even a Clif Bar duct-taped under my chair. My arsenal is more for his own good than mine. I’m the hangriest person you’ve ever met. When my blood sugar drops, I turn into the destructive Jean Grey.
I scarf down the granola bar and sip my coffee, firing off a quick text to thank him before students start filing into my classroom for first period.
SAM: TY for breakfast. Coffee is LIT.
IAN: It’s the new blend you bought last week. Are your students teaching you new words again?
SAM: I heard it during carpool duty yesterday. I’m not sure when to use it yet. Will report back.
“Good morning, Missus Abrams!” my first student sing-songs.
It’s Nicholas, the editor-in-chief for the Oak Hill Gazette. He’s the kind of kid who wears sweater vests to school. He takes my journalism class very seriously—even more seriously than he takes his crush on me, which is saying something.
I level him with a reproving look. “Nicholas, for the last time, it’s Miss Abrams. You know I’m not married.”
He grins extra wide and his braces twinkle in the light. He’s had them do the rubber band colors in alternating blue and black for school pride. “I know. I just like hearing you say it.” The kid is relentless. “And may I just say, the shade of your dress is very becoming. The red nearly matches your hair. With style like that, you’ll be a missus in no time.”
“No, you may not say that. Just sit down.”
Other students are starting to file into my class now. Nicholas takes his seat front and center, and I avoid eye contact with him as much as possible once I begin my lesson.
Ian and I have drastically different jobs at Oak Hill High.
He’s the AP Chem II teacher. He has a master’s degree and worked in industry after college. While in grad school, he helped develop a tongue strip that soothes burns from things like hot coffee and scalding pizza. Seems stupid—SNL even spoofed it—but it got a lot of interest in the science world, and his experience makes the students look up to him. He’s the cool teacher who rolls his shirtsleeves to his elbows and blows shit up in the name of science.
I’m just the journalism teacher and the staff coordinator for the Oak Hill Gazette, a weekly newspaper that is read by exactly five people: me, Ian, Nicholas, Nicholas’ mom, and our principal, Mr. Pruitt. Everyone assumes I fall into the “if you can’t do, teach” category, but I actually like my job. Teaching is fun, and I’m not cut out for the real world. Hard-hitting journalists don’t make very many friends. They jump into the action, push, prod, and expose important stories to the world. In college, my professors chastised me for only churning out “puff pieces”。 I took it as a compliment. Who doesn’t like puffy things?