Page 1 of Ancient History

1

AMOS

Hamlet pondered to be or not to be. Tina Turner asked what’s love got to do with it. And this morning, I got stuck with my own eternal, soul-bursting question.

Is Hutch Hawkins back?

I was gabbing with my fellow teachers in the faculty lounge during my off period, gossiping about some high school drama that we should’ve been too mature to care about, and through the window of the door, the familiar waves of auburn hair and chiseled profile of Hutch Hawkins flashed for a second as someone walked by with Principal Aguilar.

Was that someone Hutch?

Now perhaps I drank my morning coffee too fast or inhaled too much chalk dust. It’d been a long-ass time since I last saw him. A freaking decade. By design. He was the reason Britney Spears invented the word toxic. He was the reason why people willingly cried along to Adele songs.

Not me, of course.

Not for a long time anyway.

But the thing was, a guy like Hutch was impossible to forget. He was etched into my brain and my soul. And there was a Hutch-shaped hole from when I extracted him from my heart a decade ago.

But now he was back?

“Uh, Mr. Bright?” Rosalee, my star student of fourth period, stared at me from the front row of class.

Twenty-four sets of unblinking eyes stared at me. It was like that nightmare that people had about being in front of class naked. Except I wasn’t naked, but it was just as embarrassing.

“Yeah?”

“You were talking about the Middle Ages and then you trailed off.” She grit her teeth as if she were watching a car wreck in slow motion. Being a teacher was like performing a one-man show every day without any intermission.

“I did.” I felt the chalk heavy in my hand.

“Are you having a stroke?” Dale, a should-be-playing-basketball tall student who occasionally reeked of pot, leaned forward in his chair. “Can you feel both sides of your face?”

“I can.”

“Maybe you should put your hands on your face just to be sure.” He massaged his own cheeks to demonstrate.

“I’m not having a stroke, Dale. I just lost my train of thought for a second.”

“I can call an ambulance,” said Reyansh in the front row, destined to be one of those slick corporate raiders who makes his living finding efficiencies and redundancies in companies. He held up his cell, the latest iPhone model.

While it would’ve been nice to have students care this much about their teacher, I recognized this as a ploy to turn the rest of class into free time.

“I’m fine. Thank you for your concern,” I said with a healthy dose of sarcasm. “Why don’t y’all read the rest of the chapter to yourselves for a moment? I’m just going to get a drink of water. And put away your cell, Reyansh. Remember school policy. No cell phones in class.”

I texted the group chat as soon as I left my classroom.

Amos: I think I saw Hutch Hawkins today?

Amos: Or a guy who looks like him.

Amos:Have you heard anything about him being back in town?

Chase: Are you texting during your own class?

Amos: I’m not in class.

Everett: You abandoned your class?

---