For my darling across the waters. Your passions are endlessly inspiring. To my readers, please leave feedback and vote if you fancy this story... Or any others as you see fit. Thanks and enjoy. Kisses, YLA.
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I tried to make the class environment a bit easier for Winter. She was just one of those girls. I gave her more leeway about not answering questions or raising her hand. If she came in looking as if she'd spent the better part of the night before without sleep, I didn't raise too much of a fuss when her eyelids began to flutter. To be honest, Winter never fit in with the popular crowd or, really, any group in school. She wouldn't fit in with the sorority girls in college, or later down the road, the perky mothers' clubs that were all the rage for trendy new housewives these days. To be even more honest, I liked and admired her specifically for that reason.
Spring was in the air. The cherry blossoms were opening to reveal radiant pink splendor. The air was redolent with the sharp green fragrance of newly emerging grass, and my college-prep English class had been stricken with an acute case of senioritis.
While the halls of Mont Blanc High were more tense than usual with all the underclassmen cramming for exams, the senior class moved through the worried younger students like a hot knife through butter. Self-assured that their freedom was at hand, there seemed to be a collective gaiety about most of them. All but quiet Winter T. Melan.
She had made her way through her senior year alone. Just as she had done every day for the last three years.
She'd never seemed to be truly happy from what I'd observed during my fledgling career at Mont Blanc as the "sexy young English teacher." The first two years had been spent getting to know my own teaching style, the other faculty, and just trying to keep organized and cool even when presented with the most difficult students.
This year, I tried to be friendlier in class and got out into the community more in an effort to meet some of the families behind the great—and not so great—kids I taught.
With just days remaining until graduation, I sat at my desk grading junior book reports. I thought about Winter's journey through her senior year of school. In October, when the east coast was draped with heavy skies, Winter seemed to enjoy the gray and drizzle the way a beach bunny enjoys the endless heat and blue of a perfect summer day. For reasons I couldn't fathom, I'd taken more of an interest in the quiet, bookish girl and longed to know more about her life and interests. She piqued my curiosity in much the same way a mystery novel would.
Winter lived on a farm and helped her mother bring in the various harvests from late spring to autumn. I'd try to make idle chatter with her when I stopped by the farmers market to pick up produce, maybe buy some squash and herbs and comment on the delicious produce they'd had grown this year. She'd merely offer me a solemn smile before returning her pretty nose to yet another book. Ms. Melan would give me cooking tips (I suppose being a young, single male allowed people to assume I was lacking in the kitchen, though my family was Portuguese and I'd been helping my mother cook since I could reach the stovetop). Winter would roll her pale blue eyes behind the pages of the latest horror or fantasy book she held.
She showed up for school after Halloween wearing a lovely opal pendant. I commented on it, and she turned bright red beneath the unruly mop of her ash blonde hair.
"Mom gave it to me for my birthday," she mumbled, slinking past my desk to her customary seat in the back of the room. She risked a few more glances my way than usual that day. I imagined her dancing among the falling leaves, her lustrous hair glowing in fading autumn afternoon light, maples and oaks showering her with gold, amber, russet, and mahogany leaves as if sending their own greeting card to assure the waif she wasn't alone on her special day.
There was gossip among the students that Winter's mother had given her an unconventional upbringing, and that she was allowed to roam the acreage behind their old farmhouse and even camp out there for as long as she wanted. The more salacious bent to that rumor was that Winter did a lot of nude swimming and sunbathing in her solitary summer months, and though it was horribly unprofessional, I'd catch myself admiring her narrow bottom or small, perky breasts beneath her shirts. I wondered what she'd look like in various stages of undress. I'd even caught myself fantasizing about how sexy she'd look in nothing but a T-shirt.
During December and January's firm frosty hold, the jocks and cheerleaders planned snowmobile trips, skiing trips, and many other merriments to enjoy the season. Winter lost her slight tan and seemed to withdraw more into herself, almost never offering comment or opinion on the latest work of Dickens or Shakespeare we were analyzing.
The first time I really saw a hint of the woman she'd quietly become happened on Valentine's Day. She arrived in class without her usual well-worn jacket and even more worn boots, tight jeans, and tighter T-shirt, opting instead for a red poet style blouse, flowing black skirt, red heels, and a pair of nude stockings. Her hair was pulled back into a tail and held in place with a black velvet bow. She had put on a hint of tinted lip gloss and a heady floral perfume.
It was amazing to see her entire face, for once not obscured by a hanging fringe of bangs. She was truly beautiful in a dainty way with her fine nose, small mouth, and positively hypnotic eyes. Even the delicate nose stud and silver eyebrow ring she wore seemed to suit her. She carried herself with more confidence, which the boys surreptitiously noticed when they thought no one was watching.
"Did you see Winter Melan's transformation?" Kelly Vance, the art teacher gaped, as we happened to bump into each other in the lounge. "It's like High Class for the Emo Lass got a hold of her. All that effort over some guy she met through an online friend of a friend. It's so sad."
I paused in the process of warming up some leftovers from the night before. "Why? I think she looks nice."
"Oh, she does," Kelly hastily agreed. "But the guy's a sophomore at MIT. I talked to Jenna Melan at the grocery store a couple days ago. He's supposed to pick up Winter and take her out on a date tonight. But you know these guys. He won't show, or worse, he's just out for a..." She trailed off with a meaningful lift of her eyebrows.
I bit my tongue. Winter's mother probably gave the information to Kelly because the art teacher wouldn't stop prying, which Kelly did with abandon.
Kelly sipped her flavored water and offered a sympathetic smile. "I feel so sorry for her not having enough friends that she feels she has to accept the first offer for a date she gets. At least my little Hannah has a lot of friends, and she's only eight."
Something in Kelly's words rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, I felt bad for the girl. Not exactly sympathy, but rather I wondered how Winter maintained the strength she must possess to continue on every day dealing with all she did from the rest of the kids. She was very intelligent, attractive, and would make the right guy extremely lucky someday. To damn a girl who's barely eighteen and do it with a smile was just more than I could take. I decided to pass on lunch and just walk around the halls. The usual chatter of the cafeteria echoed off the walls and seemed to fill the entire building. I had just passed the bathrooms and an exit hall when I saw a hint of red out of the corner of my eye.
Winter stood in the empty hall, back to the wall, nibbling a burrito she held in one hand and gazing starry-eyed at a picture on the cell she clutched in the other. The double indulgence of eating junk food (her mother was an out and proud health nut) and fantasizing over the presumed image of her date was an arresting sight. Here in this empty space, she must have felt comfortable enough to let down her guard. To dream like girls her age dreamed. To eat the same foods as her peers, bask in the same vitality of youth, and finally know the addictive pull of desire she'd apparently missed thus far.
The still of that moment lingered in my mind the next morning when I came to work and began sorting lesson plans and preparing transparencies. Madison and Kaylee, a couple of popular airheads, arrived in class first, all a-giggle about Winter's apparently devastating evening.
