A Lesson to be Learned - Chapter 4
“Gerard?” Mikey’s voice arouses me out of my nap that I wasn’t even aware I was taking.
“Mmph?” I grunt, rolling over onto my back to rub the sleep from my eyes, my vision coming into focus on my younger brother standing over at me, a worried expression plastered on his face.
“You feeling okay?” He presses his palm to my forehead and I flinch away. His hands feel like he stuck them in a fucking bucket of ice. I try to squirm away but he keeps his freezing hand against my skin for a moment before frowning.
“What the hell are you doing?” I move to sit up in the bed and realize I’m still in just my boxers and t-shirt and scramble for the blanket, covering myself. Not like Mikey hasn’t seen worse before, but still. Being anything other than fully clothed in front of my brother feels weird as fuck and I don’t like it.
“Trying to figure out if you’re sick, you asshat,” He swats his hand at me like he hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t wearing pants. He straightens up, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Why he never bothered to get contacts was a mystery with me. Maybe he liked the concept of glasses, and by that I mean he thought they made him look more intelligent. “Anyway, I wanted to know why you left school early.”
I freeze. “Wait, how did you know I left school early?”
“Mr. Bryars called me down to give me your Biology homework. He asked if you had gotten sick and went home, but I didn’t know if you had given someone else an excuse so I said I didn’t know.” He’s fidgeting with his hands and I can tell nothing good is coming. Nothing but bad news ever follows when Mikey starts playing with his fucking hands.
“And?” I prompt, waving my hands in a continuing motion.
“And you have detention tomorrow after school,” he rushes out, biting his lip and not looking at me. “I’m sorry, Gee.”
Before I can say anything, he’s rushed up the stairs out of my room and I hear the door at the top click shut behind him.
“Fuck me,” I groan, leaning back onto my pillow with my arms folded over my eyes.
I hear the door upstairs click open and I unfold my arms from over my face. Mikey doesn’t come down but I can hear him hesitating at the top of the stairs.
“Gee?” He calls, fear evident in his voice as if he’s afraid that I’m gonna lurch out of bed and tear up the stairs after him.
“What?” I bark out, glaring at the staircase, knowing that he can’t see me.
“Mom called and said to order a pizza and she’ll pay you back when she gets home later tonight, so I need cash for the pizza guy.” He sounds like a small child if he can have just one more cookie when he’s already had like 5 and I let out an exasperated sigh, staring up at my ceiling. Mikey must think I’m ignoring him because I hear the top step creak as he steps down onto it. “Gee?”
“Alright,” I shout up in his general direction as I drag myself out of my bed and over to the desk in the corner. I shift through the various art supplies and old homework until I finally find my beaten-to-shit leather wallet. I flip it open and dig out a crumpled up $20 bill and turn around and hand it to Mikey who, unsurprisingly, is already standing behind me with his hand stuck out.
“Thanks, Gee,” he gives me a small smile and I reach out and ruffle his hair.
“Yeah, no problem. Just don’t tell Mom about the detention, or I’ll tell her you used the money for cigarettes instead.”
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The next morning I have to literally drag my sorry ass out of bed. I stayed up until 5am this morning reading that book Mr. Iero gave me. He was right, I did like it. A lot actually. I make a mental note to buy a copy the next time I take a trip to Barnes & Noble as I pull on my last clean pair of school pants, tucking my white shirt into them and smoothing down the front.
I loathe wearing this stupid uniform. The school wants to keep us from being distracted by different clothing, or to sort of, stop bullying because of being different. In my opinion, making us all dress the same is just ridiculous. It discourages our individuality. It’s just teaching us to follow the crowd and be the same. I don’t know, maybe it’s the artist in me, but I hate having to conform to what everyone is doing, and wearing this godforsaken uniform falls into that category.
I glance in the cracked mirror that’s leaning up against my wall. My hair is a fucking rat’s nest. I run my hand through it, tousling it a bit before sighing in frustration. I guess I’ll have to get another haircut soon. I take another step closer to the mirror and pick up my eyeliner pencil from the table next to it, quickly applying it and smudging it so it doesn’t look too defined.
“Perfect,” I mutter to myself, stepping back and adjusting my tie before glancing around the disheveled floor for my jacket. I kick stuff around, trying to find it before finally spotting it near my backpack, almost completely shoved under my bed.
I shove my arms through the sleeves, not even bothering to do up the buttons before I’m rushing up the stairs. I’m running late and I still have to walk all the way to the stupid school. I pull open the door at the top of the stairs that leads outside and skip to a stop before I can get out from under the roof’s edge.
It’s raining. Well, actually, raining would be an understatement. It’s fucking pouring. Mikey suddenly appears next to me and pokes my shoulder making me jump out into the rain for a second before I regain enough sense to jump back under the safety of the roof.
“Mom says she’ll drive you, if you want,” he must notice my skeptical look because he sighs and gives me an eye roll. “Come on, Gerard. It’s not a big deal to get a ride. Besides, walking in this you’ll be soaked before you get to the end of the driveway.”
I bite my lip and look back out at the rain. He’s right. If I walk, I’ll end up looking like I drowned by the time I get to the school. As much as I hate bumming a ride from my mom, I have no choice. I sigh and nod, turning my attention back to Mikey.
“Fine,” I huff out as he smiles a little and turns to walk back into the house. Fuck my life.
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I run into first period English with barely 30 seconds to spare before the bell sounds. My mom had insisted on leaving the house at the last possible minute and I had to sprint into the school and to my locker just to make sure I wasn’t going to be late. I hated being late, even before Mr. Iero had come here, but now especially.
I glance at my normal seat in the center of the room but, of course, some douche bag jock (I think his name is Dan) is sitting there. I huff out a sigh and send a dark glare I his general direction before sliding into the last remaining seat, which of course, just so happens to be directly in front of Mr. Iero’s desk. Perfect.
Mr. Iero rushes through the door about a minute after the bell rings and gives the entire class a bright smile.
“Morning, guys!” He pipes up, his cheerful voice resounding off the walls. “I decided we’re gonna move on from Catcher in the Rye, because I want to focus on a new objective from the syllabus for right now.” He moves over to his desk and I can’t help but let my eyes wander over his small, but sturdy looking frame.
Today he’s wearing a black knit sweater with a dark blue shirt underneath and a tie, along with his faded black jeans again. He has got to be the most casually dressed teacher in this entire school, if not the entire district.
I watch as he picks up a cardboard box from the floor and drops it heavily onto his desk where it makes a dull thud against the metal. He flips the box open and pulls out several copies of books that are identical to the one he gave me yesterday after class to read. I can see the gold embossed title written across the front cover.
“We’re going to be reading The Handmaid’s Tale,” Mr. Iero says, as he picks up a stack and starts walking down the aisles, distributing a red book to each student. “It’s a dystopian centered novel, and they just so happen to be playing the movie at the theater down the road next Wednesday. So it’d be much appreciated and to your own benefit to complete the novel before that time.”
“So does this mean we don’t have to do the paper about Caulfield now?” Lisa, the girl from yesterday pipes up, twisting her blonde hair around her fingers like they’re fucking curling irons.
“Ah, right,” Mr. Iero nods, seeming to have forgotten the whole assignment. “I suppose you don’t have to do it. But if you choose to do so, I’ll give you extra credit.” He flashes a smile at Lisa as he hands her a copy of the book. She lets out a cripplingly embarrassing giggle and I repress the urge to punch both her and myself in the face.
Mr. Iero skips over my desk as he continues to pass out the novels, which unfortunately, does not go unnoticed by Lisa.
“Mr. Iero, you forgot Gerard!” She’s pointing at my desk and I turn my head to glance at her and cock my eyebrow. Seriously?
Mr. Iero however just smiles and shakes his head a little. “Gerard’s already read it, actually. He’s the reason I decided to skip to this part of the syllabus so quickly and he’s part of the reason I figured out about them playing the screen adaptation.”
Lisa turns her head towards me and, I swear if looks could kill, I’d have died approximately 8 times from that look alone. I resist the urge to smirk and instead turn my attention back to Mr. Iero who is now standing at the front of the room, his hands clasped in front of him.
“Alright, everyone, for the rest of the period I just want you to read. Be sure to pay attention to detail, and it wouldn’t hurt to take notes or even highlight key points in the book if you want. These copies are yours to keep. I got them for a great bargain so don’t worry about damaging them too much.” He smiles and I watch as he walks back to his desk and sits down, letting my tongue run over my lips.
I shake my head and try to push away any thoughts about him out of my mind. Nope, this needs to stop. He’s a teacher. You can’t like him. Nothing can ever happen. Plus, he’s probably not even gay. Nope, he’s probably married with like 4 kids or something.
I let my eyes flicker to his hand and notice that, while there’s no wedding ring, there are quite a few tattoos that I hadn’t noticed before. Huh.
There’s letters on his fingers, but I can’t see anything from how his left hand is angled from me so all I can read is “hallo.” What the hell does “hallo” even mean? Isn’t that German for hello?
My eyes slide back up his body to his neck and I notice a scorpion tattoo on the side of his neck near his jawline. Well that’s kind of hot. I let my eyes run back up to his face and I notice he’s staring at me, a small trace of a smirk on his lips. Shit. I tear my eyes away and pretend to be focused intently on the motivational poster of a cat on top of the blackboard in front of me.
As I’m feigning interest at the poster, it flits back into my mind that I have detention after school. I suppress a groan and wonder who is going to be the administrator for it. It used to be Mr. Weekes, but since he got fired, I’m kind of wondering who is going to be his replacement for that. My mind flips through all the possible faculty members when I suddenly feel like a brick just fell into the bottom of my stomach.
Wait.
If Mr. Iero is Mr. Weekes’ replacement for English Literature, would that make him the replacement for detention too?
Chapter 5