Every time I look at Georgia, she’s looking back at me with bare curiosity, as if I’ve done something so outrageous, so entertaining that it warrants all her attention in case I do it again. I try to hold her gaze but she keeps averting her eyes. Maybe I’m reading her wrong and she just needs help with the assignment, but I don’t think so. I’m not sure what she wants and it’s driving me crazy.
The entire period is a struggle to keep my focus. When the class is finally over, I sit at my desk and take papers from my students as they leave the room. When the last student is gone and the door shuts, I get up to lock it. When I turn around, I realize Georgia is still at her desk and she has yet to clean out her flasks and beakers.
I stand up, not sure what to do with my hands, so I shove them in my pockets. She’s looking down at the paper in front of her as if she’s really struggling. She’s my best student. She should’ve breezed through this assignment. It’s stuff we’ve already covered throughout the school year. I’ve never known her to struggle with anything since starting this class, especially things this easy.
Making my way across the room, I see last night’s assignment on her desk. Though I’m looking at it upside down, from this angle it looks complete. In fact, it looks more than complete. It looks as though she wrote out each of her answers and explained why in the margins for good measure. She’s always doing things like that, going above and beyond what I ask her to do when most students struggle to write two words. I even had a student once answer a question with “just because.” Not to name names, but his name sounds like Brad and he sits next to Serena . . .
“Georgia? Do you need help with something?” I ask her.
She startles at the sound of my voice, knocking over a flask full of blue liquid that splashes onto my pants and shirt.
I back away instantly, sucking in a worried breath. Working with chemicals, I know just how dangerous they can be. I once had a professor in college blow up a classroom. Luckily no one was seriously injured in the accident. But that’s one cautionary tale you don’t forget in this business.
Though we’re not working with anything explosive or particularly dangerous at the moment, there are chemicals in this room that could cause nasty rashes and first-degree burns. I don’t want to take any chances. As I strip off my clothes, down to nothing but my boxer-briefs and socks, the area around me fills with the scent of peppermint.
Georgia jumps out of her seat with a towel in hand, wiping off my bare chest, and spending an exorbitant amount of time on the front of my boxers. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was trying to open the flap and see inside. I stop her by grabbing onto her wrist before the effect she’s having on me becomes impossible to hide. After she calms down, I let go of her. She apologizes for being so clumsy. She is not a clumsy girl. Not in the slightest. And she’s not one to startle easily, either. There have been plenty of times when I’ve stood over her while she was deep in thought, and not once when I said her name did she flail her arms and dump chemicals on me.
“God, I am so sorry, Mr. Johnson, it’s not a chemical, it’s just mouthwash.”
I pause with my thumbs in the waistband of my boxers. I was starting to think I was better safe than sorry and should strip down to nothing at all and wash off.
I let out a sigh of relief.
“Mouthwash?” I say, confused.
Her beautiful porcelain skin floods with color. “The bottle broke in my backpack so I dumped it in the flask so it wouldn’t get all over my homework.
I glance over at the sink attached to table right beside her, and the trashcan just below it. She had two options of easy disposal, but decided to dump it in a flask instead—for which she would have had to use a funnel in order to sift it through the small opening. This is a smart girl with excellent problem-solving skills, not whatever this character is she’s playing—who reminds me more of the ditzy Serena she’s been sitting behind who barely squeezes through life on a C average.
I start to wonder if this has anything to do with the reason those two have been talking in class the last couple of days.
“Can I see your paper, please?” I ask. I want to see if she really did need help with her assignment or if this is some game she’s playing that I have yet to figure out the objective of.
Her jaw clinches, and she takes the paper in her hand, hesitating as though she might not give it to me.
“Georgia? If you don’t turn it in today, you don’t get credit.”
“Can’t I turn it in late?” she asks, looking up at me with those big innocent eyes. The way she bites her bottom lip has me itching to grab her by the sides of her face and bring those lips to mine. If she were anyone else but my favorite student, I would have.