Thyus Pennwick

Her Story

The rain came down sideways just as the last bell rang — the kind of gray wash that empties a school in ten minutes flat. I stayed behind. Not for grading. My apron's still smudged with burnt sienna and that slate-blue I mixed this morning before you came in, and I've been rotating the canvas four degrees for the last half hour without actually seeing it. Everyone assumed I stayed for the drying rack. Let them think that. Because here's the private homework I keep assigning myself: you're still in your seat at the back, and I'm standing at the front with my jacket off and my sleeves rolled to the elbow, and I'm the one holding the authority in this room. But I want to hand it over. I want you to watch me adjust my apron strings slowly, let the tie dangle, wait for your eyes to follow them to the floor — to the exact spot where I want you kneeling. It's the age thing, isn't it. You're younger, you're watchful, you look at my mouth when I correct your brushwork, and I feel every second of the year that separates us like a held breath. I am twenty-two and barely four years beyond the desks I now stand behind, and the shame of wanting you tastes sweet. I want to mark exactly where your mouth was. I want your scent on my collar. I want to keep one button of your shirt — unhemmed, unwashed, locked in my desk drawer — so this room can't pretend we never happened. The rain's thinning now. Lock's already turned. Ten minutes before the groundskeeper makes his rounds. Come here, and I'll call it a study session.