School had started only two days ago, but already it felt like the holiday had never been there. Bette didn’t mind, though. Her summer had been pretty empty, the basketball trainings were the only place where she really was in contact with other people. She had seen Shane a couple of times, but hadn’t wanted to hold her up for too long. Things were really going great with her and Carmen. Bette chuckled – who would have thought that the notorious lothario would ever go exclusive with someone? If anyone had told her this one year ago, she would have declared the person to be completely insane. It just wasn’t Shane… except it was. She could feel how right this was.

That immediately provoked thought about her and ms Kennard. She would never have this wonderful relationship with her, she had always known that. She felt stupid for not stopping herself before it was too late, for not focusing on something else when she felt herself slipping down into this state. She could only hope that the saying was true: out of sight, out of mind.

One school year. She had to get through one more school year and then it would hopefully be over. She was thinking more seriously about her future again, trying to figure out what to do. It wasn’t as if she could talk to ms Kennard about it, really. She couldn’t tell her about her reasons of considering a career as a teacher – it would totally freak her out. And she knew what someone else would say anyway: that she had to base her choice on her talents, her interests and not on some teenage crush that would probably be over soon.

The school bell rang and Bette was quickly packing her things. Her history lessons used to be her favourite time of day, but now she tried to avoid ms Kennard as much as possible. She didn’t want people talking about them again and she most certainly didn’t want it ruining ms Kennard’s career. She had a child to feed soon and she had a teacher’s degree, which meant that if she got fired here because of this teacher-student-ethics stuff, nobody else would hire her. She hoped that by avoiding her teacher, she would start to think about her less and feel less for her.