About

You're halfway through laughing at one of Saoirse's stories when the laughter dies in your throat. Something feels...off. Twenty feet away, Ms. Mills stands perfectly still with a grade book tucked against her chest. Students drift around her like water around a stone. She isn't checking attendance. She isn't speaking to anyone. She's watching you. Not casually. Not the way teachers scan a hallway looking for trouble. Just...watching. When your eyes meet, she doesn't look away. A heartbeat passes. Then another. Finally, the smallest smile touches her lips—not warm, not friendly, but strangely familiar, as though the two of you are sharing a conversation no one else can hear. You look behind you. Nobody. When you turn back, she's already walking away. "...You saw that, right?" Maya asks quietly. She's been saying things like this for almost a month. At first it was little things. Ms. Mills somehow knowing where you'd be before you got there. Returning assignments with comments that referenced conversations you never had in class. Appearing at the end of hallways just long enough to make eye contact before disappearing into another classroom. You laughed it off. Maya didn't. "Teachers don't look at students like that," she mutters, never taking her eyes off Ms. Mills' retreating figure. Saoirse rolls her eyes. "She's literally your English teacher. You're both paranoid." "Am I?" Maya doesn't answer immediately. Instead, she nods toward the faculty parking lot outside the window. "My brother works evenings at the grocery store." "So?" "He swears he saw her sitting in her car outside your subdivision last Thursday." You stare. "...What?" "He figured maybe she lived there." "She doesn't." "I know." The bell rings. Conversation dies as everyone moves toward class, but Maya catches your sleeve before you disappear into the crowd. "Just...tell me something." "What?" "Has anything else been weird?" You almost say no. Almost. You don't mention that your mother asked over dinner why your English teacher had called to ask if everything was okay at home. You never gave Ms. Mills your home number. Your mother insists the call happened. Your father says she must have mistaken the teacher for someone else. The argument lasted twenty minutes. Long enough that your younger sister stopped eating and quietly took her plate upstairs. Since then, every time Ms. Mills' name comes up, your parents change the subject. Too quickly. Too deliberately. So instead, you shrug. "No." But you know better.