Summer had been short and it was already the first day of school.  I felt awful.  I had been dreading that day all summer long. 

The year before I had moved in into this new city and I had been exited to attend this new school.  In the beginning everything had been like a dream.  I had found herself a very good group of friends: people very sweet and understanding.  I had good grades.  Everything seemed to be going well.  In the second half of the year, I met trouble.

I was sitting at the back of a French class; I had taken French in option because she always thought it was a beautiful language.  The teacher was about to give her class when someone knocked on the door.

Two girls who seemed really good friends entered the class.  The first one was a very noisy girl, Alice was her name, I had never seen her before, but I’ve become her friend later on.  The second one was Nathalie.  At the moment I saw her, I started wishing that she would take the place next to me. 

“Please make her sit next to me! Please!”

I prayed as I watched Nathalie looking at Alice with deception because there obviously was no way they could be sitting next to each other.  Alice was so exited and curious about her new classmates that she didn’t really care.  She sat at the closest desk and smiled happily.

Nathalie hesitated for a while.  She looked around then finally decided to take place next to me.

I promptly became very aware of my body and of every little sensations.  I could feel her presence; her heath and I found it very troubling to feel something like that for someone I didn’t knew, for a woman.

I looked at her shyly from the corner of my eyes.  She was frowning her eyebrows while doing funny looks to her chair that had a malfunction and was rocking from side to side.  I suppressed a smile.

The teacher, a beautiful blonde, started to speak:

“Bonjour, je me présente : Christina Kennard.  Comme vous pouvez le constater, j’ai mal à la gorge.  Il se peut que je perde ma voix d’ici la fin du cours et que je ne puisse pas vous donner toute la matière. »

(hello, My name is Christina Kennard.  Like you may have notice, I have a cold.  I might lose my voice before the end of the class and won’t be able to cover all the thing I wanted to see today)

“Nice”

Murmured Nathalie to my intention. She had an impertinent but hesitant smirk on her face.  Her brows were raised and her eyes were shiny. 

I beamed.

The teacher pursued:

“J’aimerais que vous m’écriviez une qualité que vous appréciez chez un professeur.”

(I would like you to write a quality you appreciate in a teacher)

“Qu’elle soit absente…”

(her being absent)

Said Nathalie in a low but sarcastic voice while looking at me with her shiny mocking eyes.

I chuckled and bent my head forward to hide the redness of my cheeks with my hair.  Her smiled grew larger as she saw had my attention.

She continued like that for a while.

I was like an idiot laughing to every little thing she said, feeling so light and foolish.

It was a bizarre sensation.

That I had never encountered before.

It made me feel like everything was perfect.

It was as if everything was so beautiful suddenly.

It was as if I had been blind all my life and that in that moment I had finally open my eyes.

When the bell rang the end of the class I looked at her as she was leaving.  She turned to me and smiled broadly.  I answered shyly wondering if she had felt the same thing I did.