Safety At His Command

Home Economics Class

He could care less what Brian thought, or that they were still in some building in school. All of it melted away while he pretended to pick tiny shards out of her hand and blow at her skin to be sure he got them all. He watched as she shivered at the prospect of his care, and something hopefully deeper resonated there behind her silver eyes. 

“Thank you,” she mouthed to him, and it felt like more…

He shuddered slightly and nodded as his response to her, but wanted to brush his lips against them and it clearly showed. 

A clearing of a throat behind them and a particularly unamused teacher had called his attention back to class, specifically for William to stop and listen to her. 

“What did you say your name was?” she asked. 

“I didn’t say,” he snorted. 

He could hear her swear behind him as she rounded the classroom, leaving her place at the stovetop and back to the front where her desk happened to be. Why a home economics teacher needed a computer was beyond him, but the way the school was run was in favor of overspending on items no one really used, so why not? 

The woman sat down quickly to pull up something meaningless to him. 

Malorie kept her eyes on him and that was enough to linger. 

He shouldn’t have but he couldn’t leave her. Not now. Not after…

“Ah, yes,” Mrs. Stevens sighed in content making him frown and mimic her while he faced his girl. “Mr. Saunders, is it?” 

William reluctantly dropped Malorie’s hand from where he held it, lacing them gently with his on the way down before looking back at the woman. 

“Yes?” he answered.

“Your schedule is a little peculiar, don’t you think?” she asked acidly.

“I would,” he answered, giving nothing else away. 

“Oh?” she questioned but at the tilt of his head telling her to get on with it, she did. “Well, it seems you’ve been ditching this class since the beginning of the year,” she said testing the boy.

“I’d say you’re reading that wrong. I never signed up for this class and it isn’t a requirement to be harassed by a teacher pretending to be on some foodie show,” he shot back gaining gasps from other students, and a light tug at his hand from behind him.

Mrs. Stevens had clearly no idea what he was talking about. It had been written all over her face the moment he referred to it. She looked around the room and so did he, lifting his eyebrows at the way some of the kids in the class shot back, “don’t call us out dude,” expressions to him. Their little sheep response had been deafening. Everyone complained about this woman, and still they sucked up to her like there was literally nothing wrong with half of them claiming they needed the guidance counselor to resolve their problems with.

Unless it was an excuse to miss class, the thought registered after the fact.

But William didn’t care. So many of them were awful to him like his father was, so what was the issue?

“I’m never wrong,” came her reply.

“Well you are about this,” he retorted, then felt the way Malorie squeezed his hand. He turned to her and away from the psycho in the front making the woman furious. No one turned their back on her and everyone who was a student of hers knew that.

His eyes locked with hers then fell to her lips as she mouthed the words, “Please stay.”

His body felt as though it had hardened before her. She looked so concerned, so scared, so relieved he was there. He asked him to stay and didn’t have to say she wanted him to stay with her because it was so clearly implied in her tiny, yet loud message. Anyone that had been listening would have known she didn’t like being there. It wasn’t a requirement to graduate, so why didn’t she just get up and leave? She could. There was no one stopping her.

And yet, it felt like there was. There was something keeping her here and at that very moment he wondered if it was Brian. It hit him hard that Brian would keep her somewhere she didn’t want to be and it pissed him right off without even asking the reasoning behind it. Obviously there were issues there, with him… with the way he would touch her and however she felt about this cooking teacher seemed to amplify it.

Or that’s how he read it at least.

He could feel the way she urged him to sit down next to her and so he followed, slightly nodding before he rounded the table she sat at to sit beside her.

William faced the evil in front of the class and how smug she had become while trying to get comfortable on the miserable stools they used as seats beside Malorie. He felt emboldened by the way she kept her hand in his as if they were the only two in the room. And when he finally bowed his legs out to the side to find the comfort on those terrible seats, his leg brushed the outside of her own and she didn’t move away.

He couldn’t help the smirk that took over his face, just nearly grinning as it registered to him that she picked him. The kiss was real. Their moments were real… and these changes were going to take place, even if he had to deal with the devil.

“That took nothing but a clear love interest,” she snarked, making others laugh uncomfortably and William shrugged at.

He had nothing to hide.

“I’m glad you’ll be joining us, but your seat is over there, by Joanna,” she said pointing at a scantily dressed sophomore that grinned teasingly at Malorie.

“Nah,” he replied. “This is my seat. If you want me in this class, I chose my place. If you try to move me, I’ll make that the theme of your class. No one will learn anything but how stubborn I can be.”

The woman growled, or at least that's what he thought he heard, making Malorie look down at the ground, her long brown hair tumbling down around her face hiding her grin. The one he found when he moved the veil slightly off of her shoulder.

Where once he felt timid around her, he felt emboldened, that he was reaching her and by doing it, by playing her game, she was reaching him in return.

She was his one in seven thousand in change students and faculty within the building that actually saw him… and quite honestly, the only one that mattered.