Teacher's Girl (Aflyingwhale)

EMMA's POV 

"Don't forget to check out Duke, Rice, and Vanderbilt,"

Mom said as we made our way through the booths at the school’s college fair.

"Oh yes, I heard Vanderbilt's got a strong liberal arts program,"

Dad nodded in agreement.

The school’s holding a college fair this Saturday, along with parent teacher conferences.

All the junior students are required, or as they say, encouraged to attend the college fair.

I wasn’t complaining though.

I wanted to spend my precious Saturday looking through colleges all around the country.

The only good thing about it was at least my best friends had to do it too.

I spotted Tiff and Carrie over at the University of Florida’s booth, and I knew what to do next.

"Okay, I got it.You two go meet my teachers and hear about what a great student I am.I’m gonna catch up with Tiff and Carrie,"

I said, waving my parents away.

"I'm really looking forward to meeting your teachers.Especially your AP art teacher, Mr.Hayes,"mom said and I quickly turned back.

"What? Why?"

"You worked so hard on his class.

You spent almost every day after school working on your art portfolio.

He must have nice things to say about you, I wanna hear about it all,"

she said as she turned to her heels towards the art room.

"Oh, you don't have to —"

"The line at Duke is empty.Go, go check out the schools.We'll regroup here in an hour,"

Dad shooed me as he walked off with mom.

My parents are meeting...my boyfriend.

At parent teacher conferences.

Oh crap.

Making my way over to Tiff and Carrie, I sighed dramatically as I pushed past the row of kids.

Tiff and Carrie turned to see me and they immediately knew something was up.

"What's going on?"Carrie asked.

"My parents are meeting Mr.Hayes.I totally forgot about that.I am so screwed,"

"Don't worry about it.I’m sure he can handle your parents just fine,"

Tiff replied.

"Actually, you don’t have to worry at all,"Carrie added, "

My parents went by earlier.

They wanted to see my art teacher too, but he wasn’t there.

Something about a personal emergency.

He’s doing his conferences with parents via email,"

"Oh...that’s very smart of him,"

It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

"See? He’s a smart guy.He’s handling it,"

Tiff said as she grabbed a few brochures from the University of Florida.

"In the meantime, I think you should check this out,"  "The University of Florida’s a total party school,"

Mark chimed in suddenly, appearing out of nowhere.

"Hey, babe.Did you see Rice and Duke already?"

Carrie greeted him.

"Yeah, you guys should see it.

Duke has the best engineering program—"

Mark was about to ramble on this topic for the next ten minutes, I could just tell.

"I have to make a call, I'll be right back,"

I said to Tiff and Carrie before slipping away from the crowd.

I found an empty, cozy spot at the end of the hallway and I dialed Ian's number.

few times before he finally picked

"Hey, you,"

said over

sounded healthy and fine, I was

personal emergency that I heard about?

"Nope,"he said simply.

"Why?"I asked.

an archaic

meet in person when you can basically do

if he was joking, but I

on,"I pressed on.He sighed and paused for a beat before finally saying,

Fine.

don’t know what I'll do if I have to

worried about

this over the phone.Will you come

tell me

"Every little detail,"

see you in

putting my phone away, I made my way back to

going on and on about

had a bored look on her face but Carrie watched him as if he was

The art

of topic

"He is?"

Tiff pretended to gasp.

talking about it.Apparently, he signed a contract for

such a

I asked cautiously.

"For his career? Yeah,"

it was the most obvious thing in the world, "My theory is that it's

"What do you mean?"

asked again, afraid that he might be on to

She probably broke his heart

let out

I wasn't relieved,

on one date!

nudged my elbow to stop me from

and said,

It's NYU! Let’s go

exclaimed a little bit too loud

and led me out of

"Thanks for that,"

I whispered to her.

Is

"I think so,"

did it

"Of us.Yeah,"I sighed.

paused for a moment before saying, "He must really

I really like

much, but hey, at least this way you

said with

and I went around

I should be thinking about colleges, but I couldn't help but be reminded of Tiff's words

so much..."I hated

to sacrifice anything

to have everything he ever

job, his career...all

would that even be

and parent teacher conferences, I told my parents I was hanging out with Tiff

I was making way to

normal sleeping clothes, no

on and it looked like he had been sending

day?"he greeted me with

bunch of schools.How

"It's alright,"he shrugged.

paced

pretended to play

"lan, what's going on?"

ditch parent teacher conferences? And why don’t you wanna meet my

parents.But not

my arms and

mean? "I'm

I’m serious about us.

see my future

for a moment before saying, "But if your parents meet me now as your teacher and

That would be confusing.

a

you did it because you didn’t wanna meet my parents as

I asked cautiously.

whatever you wanna call

chuckled and I couldn't

me

chin up

and he coaxed me into a long,

pulled away, he noticed something was off and

it? What’s with

slightly and bit

been thinking about

About that word ‘sacrifice’.

feel about you quitting your job, throwing away your career