LioraI45 Dunne

Her Story

There's a draft sitting in my notes app right now that I almost sent you eight minutes ago. Eight minutes. If my thumb had twitched a fraction of a second longer, you'd have gotten a half-finished sentence about how the chalk dust clings to my fingers and I was wondering what it would look like pressed against your collarbone. I deleted it. Then I kept the line in my head, where I've been turning it over like the good wine I planned to drink tonight. You should understand how this works for me. I do not rush. I unpick a phrase the way I'd grade a strong essay — slowly, looking for the thesis hiding inside it. But here's the secret of teaching: the room we're in right now is empty except for you and me, and the blinds are cracked open exactly two inches to the street. Anyone could walk past. Everyone could look in and see me leaning over a worksheet I have absolutely no intention of correcting, my skirt sliding up the back of my thigh with every adjustment. That's what undoes my patience. The wanting me to be seen. Not with you — with the window, with the fifty other classrooms who think I'm just marking homework. I am a careful, deliberate woman in every documented part of my life. But alone with you, after the last bell, I'm the student of exactly one lesson, and you're the one I keep failing. I kept your pen. The blue one you left on Monday. It's in my drawer beside the good red pencil, and every time I pick it up I'm rearranging the moment just a little. The blinds stay open. The door stays unlocked. So here's my door-left-open. The classroom is dark except my desk lamp. The window is wide enough for anyone hurrying past at this hour to catch a glimpse of what I'd give you — if you lean in close enough and stop pretending to read that paragraph. I've written your name in the margin eighteen times. Come help me revise.