I heard the scratching of chalk and looked up as he wrote his name on the board. Mark Russo. A regular name for a regular guy, I thought. “Just a regular guy, regular guy, regular guy,” I chanted to myself. If he’s a regular guy, why is my heart racing like I ran a marathon? It was true; my heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. My mom had encouraged me to give others a chance, but this was ridiculous and surely not what she had in mind.
“I’m going to write a few things about myself on the board and while I do that, I want you to answer the questions I’ve written down on the worksheet. This will help us get to know each other while I am here,” he told the class.
I was still staring at his name on the board when he turned around. I meant to look down, but it was too late. The moment his eyes met mine, it was worse than the first time. I felt like someone had sucked all of the air out of me, and had to fight to catch my breath. The strange thing was that it seemed to affect him the same way. I could see that his knuckles had turned white where he gripped the desk. Fortunately, no one but Sam seemed to be aware that anything was going on.
He finally broke eye contact with me and began to pass out the papers. He passed them out individually instead of just handing a stack to each row to pass back.
My heart raced faster when I realized that in a moment he would be standing right beside me.
My palms began to sweat as he approached, and my breath came out in shallow gasps. I had no idea what was happening to me. I felt like a star struck celebrity watcher who was drunk off his presence.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he was standing beside me. I willed myself not to look up, but I had no control. It was like some invisible force was governing my every action.
Our hands touched as he handed me the paper, and suddenly I was assaulted by a flood of unexplainable feelings of familiarity, almost as if we had already met before.
I felt myself fading away to where nothing else mattered except holding his hand and never letting go. The draw of his touch was magnetic. I didn’t know who he was, but I no longer cared.
Someone snickered behind me. “Guess she’s not the goody two-shoes she was trying to portray earlier,” said a snide voice that I recognized as one of the trio’s.
He stepped back, breaking our connection. I had to bite back a cry of distress as I felt his hand pull away. My hand suddenly felt incomplete away from his and I could see by the look on his face that he felt it also.
He walked down the rest of the aisles and made quick work of passing out the rest of the papers. I watched his retreating back, wondering what all of this could mean.
He wrote examples on the chalkboard of what kind of information we should include on the sheet that was handed out. He was currently a student at UC of Santa Cruz, and had gotten his masters degree the year before in physics, and was finishing up his PH.D. The next item he added was that he was interning at the school for his thesis, but it was the last bit of information that created a buzz among the students, his date of birth. It didn’t take a math genius to figure out that he was only eighteen.
The rest of the class passed in a blur for me as I tried to come to terms with what it all meant.
I had never even looked at another guy, let alone fantasized like this. He was practically an adult for goodness sake, although he was, only a year older. Still, I wasn’t the type of girl to chase after some guy, especially a teacher. I was ashamed with the way I was acting. There must be a simple explanation for my reaction to him.
The bell rang.
I looked at the empty paper in front of me and crumpled it into a ball.
Sam and I stood up together and filed toward the front of the room. Sam dropped her paper off on his desk while I threw my blank one away. We were the last two in the room, and as we passed him on our way out, I vowed to ignore him and kept my eyes firmly on the ground as I shuffled out of the room.
I felt a slight pressure in my hand as I passed by him. I looked and was surprised to see a folded up paper in the palm of my hand. He had passed me a note taking care to not to touch my skin. I looked at him one last time as I left the room, and was surprised at the expression on his face.
He seemed pleased, like he knew something I didn’t.
Sam looked intrigued as we walked down the hall.
“What was that all about?” She asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied, slightly embarrassed. “I felt a connection like when you and I met, but a hundred times stronger. I was drawn to him like I have never been drawn to anyone else. Strange, isn’t it?” I asked, not sure what Sam would think.
Sam looked thoughtful, like she was trying to figure something out. “Yeah, it is strange,” she said at long last.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. I went through the motions, but my mind was lost, wrapped up in thoughts about him.
I had always thought the idea of love at first sight was silly, but there was definitely something irresistible about him, and not just because of his strikingly good looks. This was something kindred, my hand still tingled from his touch, and I had an odd warm sensation throughout my whole body.
This is crazy, I thought to myself. It would never work. First of all, my mom would freak if I came home and told her I wanted to date an intern teacher from my school, and second, the school would obviously not allow it.
“Krista, are you there? Hello, anyone in there?” Sam asked, snapping her fingers in front of my face.
I shook my head to clear away his image. The last bell for the day must have rung, because only Sam and I remained in the classroom. Even the teacher had left the room.
“What a wasted day of school that was,” I muttered to Sam, as we gathered our books and headed out the door.