This story is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
--Into the Flames Chapter 3--
7:00am came way too quickly for Hayden. He may have fallen asleep early the night before, but his body still longed for more sleep. He reluctantly threw his comforter back exposing his body to the cool air of his bedroom. He sat up, walked to the bathroom, grabbing a towel out of the hamper on his way, and closed the door behind him. After relieving himself, he turned on the shower and hopped in. Normally Hayden would have showered the night before, but he fell asleep. After he had thoroughly cleansed himself, he toweled himself dry. He walked over to his closet to decide what to wear. He chose a pair of tan cargo shorts, a teal polo and white ankle socks. After slipping on a pair of shoes, he returned to the bathroom to finish getting ready. After brushing his teeth and styling his hair, he finished everything off with a couple sprays of Nautica Voyage Cologne, his favorite. He grabbed his backpack, wallet, and keys then proceeded down stairs. He grabbed an apple out of the fridge for breakfast and ran out the door to his car, backed out of the driveway and off to the first day of his senior year.
By the time 7:00am rolled around, Ryne had already showered and was already downstairs eating a bowl of cereal and skimming the morning paper. Once he finished, he placed the dirty bowl in the dishwasher and returned to his bedroom. While he also had classes today, he had to at least be professional for his first class that he was teaching, so he decided that he would wear a suit. After putting on deodorant and doing his hair, he walked over to his closet and grabbed a grey dress shirt and a maroon tie and his suit. He quickly got dressed put on a splash of his favorite cologne grabbed his backpack and headed to campus.
When he arrived on campus, it was buzzing with activity, mainly students rushing to get to their first hour classes. Ryne didn't have class until second hour. Once he found a parking space, Ryne proceeded to make his way through the hallways. Along the way, Ryne was stopped a few times by friends to just make casual conversation. With all of the stopping, it took Ryne 15 minutes to make his way to his destination... his office. Students don't normally get offices, but since Ryne was teaching a class, the department decided that it would be a good idea for him to have a place to meet with students if they required extra help. Before Ryne open the door he noticed the nameplate on the wall designating the office as his:
C-101
Ryne Calloway
Mechanical Engineering
Instructor--Department of Mathematics
He opened the door and proceeded inside. While it was nothing special, it was HIS. At this point, Ryne felt an overwhelming wave of pride over what he had accomplished to get here. This was going to be a great day.
As he walked over to his desk, Ryne noticed that the papers that he had sent out to the print shop were piled neatly on his desk. He was glad he ordered them last week because he had completely forgotten about them and need to hand them out to his students today. Ryne sat down and checked his email, nothing new just the usual junk mail. He looked at his clock and noticed that he needed to be leaving to head to his first class of the day, Materials Engineering.
When he arrived in the classroom he spotted his buddy Kyle and decided to sit next to him. Kyle was slightly taller than Ryne at 6' even. He had bright blue eyes and slightly shaggy blonde hair.
"Dude, what's with the suit?" Kyle asked, obviously he had forgotten about Ryne having to teach a class this year.
"I figured I'd dress up for you. I know how much you like it." Ryne said, barely getting the words out of his mouth with a straight face. "I wanted to be professional at least for the first day of having students."
"Oh yeah, you've got that group of high school students to teach don't you. I completely forgot." He admitted, "So how have you been doing... I haven't heard from you for a couple days?"
"It's been rough, but I'm doing pretty well considering the situation though." Ryne answered, "By the way, thanks for coming, I really do appreciate it."
"I wouldn't have missed it for anything, what are best friends for." Kyle said patting him on the back.
By the time they had finished their conversation; the professor had arrived and had started taking roll. He began talking about what the class was going to be about and how things were run. The first day of classes was mostly all logistics anyway, but Ryne was taking notes on how these seasoned instructors handled it, hoping he would get some ideas for his own class. Before he knew it, Ryne was on his way to his next class, in which he took excruciatingly detailed notes on just how the instructor handled different things. Ryne did this for every class he had that day. In fact, Ryne was so engulfed in what he was doing,he didn't notice that Kyle was in every one of his classes.
By the time his last class was finished, Ryne was pretty worn out. Normally, he would never schedule to have 4 classes in a row, but this way he had an hour between his last class and the one he was teaching.
Kyle must have had his computer out as soon as possible because by the time Ryne returned to his office, he had received an email:
Good luck today, I know you'll do fine. Let me know how everything goes. Call me later, maybe we can get together. If you need anything you know where to find me.
Kyle
Instead of replying, Ryne decided that he would just call him later. And he began to look over the notes that he had taken that morning. He also took the time to refresh himself on what he needed to do today. Before he knew it, it was time for him to head to his classroom.
Hayden always hated the first day of school. It was always just a lot of listening to the teacher drone on and on about their life story and Hayden really didn't care. By one o'clock, He was so happy to be leaving his school to go to the college campus. He was slightly nervous because he didn't know anyone that was going to be in the class and he wasn't that familiar with the campus, despite this, he somehow managed to find his way to the classroom.
The room was small. It held about 30 people. Every chair was facing a single wall that appeared to be a giant whiteboard. There were quite a few people there already, about 20 chairs were filled. Hayden chose a seat in the middle of the room. Looking around Hayden confirmed that he knew absolutely no one. This was going to be interesting.
Ryne approached the door to the classroom. Peeking round the corner, it appeared that most of his students were already there. Ryne took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. He walked up the aisle, set his backpack on the table closest to the white board and began to write his name and office number on the board. Once the bell had rung, he turned to face the class.
"Good afternoon. My name is Ryne Calloway, you can call me Ryne, Mr. Calloway, or whatever makes you comfortable. For the next semester, we will be exploring the wonder that is Calculus together."
Ryne stared out onto the sea that was his classroom. Quite a few of the student just gave a blank stare back. One was playing on his laptop and a couple others were obviously texting.
"I'd like to get to know you a little bit before we begin, so I am going to pass around this questionnaire. I'd like you to fill it out while I'm taking roll." Ryne said.
While the papers were being passed around the room, Ryne heard the familiar sound of backpacks being unzipped, binders being set on the desks, and the ever familiar clicking of mechanical pencils.
Ryne began taking roll. "Kelly Anderson"
"Here." She replied.
"Kyle Broughton"
"Here." He replied.
Ryne looked at the next name on the list... Hayden Clarkson. The one face that Ryne couldn't get out of his head was in this room with him now. Ryne searched the room for the face and spotted it right in the middle.
"Hayden Clarkson" Ryne said looking right at him.
Hayden looked up and made eye contact with Ryne.
"Here." He replied and went back to filling out his questionnaire.
Just like he'd been doing it forever, Ryne went right back to calling roll.
"Ok, finish up your last thought and pass them forward and to the middle." Ryne said once he finished roll. "So, lets talk a little bit about how class is to be run. Homework will be assigned once a day. It is due by 5pm the next day we have class. You will just turn it into my office which is room C-101. The sheet that I am passing around is the syllabus and course contract. All of my information is on this sheet. I have included my cell phone number. I do request that you don't call me after 10pm though. If I am not in class, I will usually be in my office until shortly after 5pm. If you have any questions about this material or just want to hang out and talk, please come by, I can usually find something to blabber on about. " Ryne stopped. He'd realized that he'd already lost about half to class to their cell phones. "I also request that all cell phones remain in your pocket. If I see them out, I will take them and you can get them at my office at 5pm."
As soon as he said this, every cellphone that he saw out went directly into their respective pockets.
"The paper that I am now passing out is your first assignment. It should be review for most of you, but if you have any questions let me know."
A low groan was heard coming from the students. Ryne knew that he would have to work for their respect now, but he didn't care.
"That's really all I have for today. If you have any questions I can answer them now or in my office. Otherwise, have a great afternoon; I'll see you on Monday."
With that the room cleared out and Ryne returned to his office.
"Holy crap," Hayden thought as he walked out of the room. "I had heard that name before."
Hayden had just realized that his Calculus teacher lived across the street from him. In fact, Hayden had caught himself staring at Ryne while he was out washing his car.
"I have a crush on my teacher." Hayden thought, "This can't be happening.
-- Alright y'all, this is where you tell me whether you like to story so far or not. I would like to express my gratitude to my editor Hermes, without you, I may go insane about overlooked grammatical errors. I am open of any sort of criticism whatsoever, so please contact me. Email me at elmquja@gmail.com, thanks!--