The Shadow of a Dream by Molly Lavenza

Author:Molly Lavenza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Molly Lavenza
Published: 2019-08-28T16:00:00+00:00

THE REST OF THE SCHOOL day went as expected, with stares and giggles, fingers that pointed at us, and one teacher who attempted to split us up. Declan wasn’t having that, though. Two of the teachers had let us sit side by side without question, both apparently frazzled with first day stress, and by the time we ended up in their rooms they were done with classroom management efforts.

Robbie and Delilah were holding hands across the aisle between their desks with no reprimand from the teacher who told Declan he had to sit two rows away and several seats in front of me.

“Is this seating arrangement per your organizational process?” Declan spoke with his hand outstretched towards the couple, who weren’t just clinging to each other but twisting their fingers together and rubbing their thumbs along each other’s hands.

“What did you just say?”

The teacher was one I hadn’t had before, and while I’m sure he had heard of me and my difficulties, mostly through the warnings of other faculty members, he might have been newer to the school than the teachers we had been dealing with all day. Regardless, he had an air of superiority rather than overwhelm or despair, but Declan didn’t budge.

“I don’t understand why this is allowed, but Hope and I aren’t able to sit beside each other, or in the same row together. There will be no touching between us, which I understand is actually part of school policy.”

With a frown and a look that took Declan in from his fashionably faded shoes up to his very serious and smirk-free expression, the teacher, whose name I still didn’t know, waved us both away with an incoherent word. Or two.

Declan flashed a tiny grin my way and moved behind me to sit down, and I slid between two desks to take the one right in front of his. He still didn’t have paper, pencil, or notebook . . . zero school supplies, and sat straight, his hands folded together neatly on the desk.

I sat sideways in mine so I could talk to him while everyone else settled down around us.

“Have you always been this good at getting your way, or is it something new?”

His smile faded and he looked down at his hands quickly before returning his gaze to mine. I wondered if I had said something wrong, in one of my few attempts at witticism.

“I don’t know,” he whispered loudly, enough for a few girls sitting near us to lean towards him in an effort to find out what we were talking about. If they were waiting to hear something romantic or suggestive, they’d be in for the long haul. We couldn’t touch, and he knew it, as did everyone else, so what would be the point of that sort of talk?

Besides, his answer was as evasive as most of the explanations I had managed to wrestle from him so far that day, and with so little time left before the end of classes, I figured I wouldn’t get more from him than I had so far.

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