18 December 2012
We sat under the big tree in the middle of the racecourse, both drunk and eagerly sucking on the cigarettes I had just purchased from a rather disapproving garage attendant. The grass was damp and sharp underneath me and the breeze was cutting callously through my thin cardigan. I was dressed for a night out on the lash, not for sitting in a field at midnight. But the band had finished, the bar had closed and neither one of us was ready to go home.
"It's freezing," I muttered, shivering.
Johnny shuffled closer and threw his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a friendly hug.
"Better?" He said, a cloud of cig smoke escaping his lips and drifting into the night.
I nodded, my body trembling at being so close to him. He gave me a sideways look, the stars reflecting in his ever-thoughtful green eyes.
"Are you alright?" He frowned, his words a drunken drawl.
"Yeah," I smiled, "I am now school placement is over." I sighed; I'd had a truly dismal time at my second school placement. It seems not all teachers are glad to have trainees in their classrooms, nor do they remember the difficultly and stress of the training program. My supposed mentor had been particularly thoughtless and cruel, and had crushed my self-esteem with her constant criticism. Nothing I did was good enough for this woman. And it wasn't just me; she was constantly making cutting comments about the other students too.
I think that is how I made an enemy of her in the first place; I overheard her making a cruel joke about another student's clothes and I stood up for him. It was Johnny. No one talks about him like that, no one. She just looked at me, open-mouthed, when I announced he was my best friend and a great teacher, and that maybe if she had any thoughts on his attire she should offer them to him directly, rather than expounding them to the whole year one team. I should have reported her for her unprofessional conduct to be honest, she was a phase leader and a senior teacher, and thus should have known better.
"You had a terrible time, didn't you?" Johnny hugged me harder, his fingers stroking my arm. "Me too. It was just...horrible."
"I don't know what I would have done without you there," I said, leaning my head against his, "It was a disaster. I'm obviously just crap at this."
"No, no," he shook his head, "you're good and you know it. Don't let that old bitch get to you. You're great."
"Really?" I stared into Johnny's eyes, my face only inches from his.
"Yeah..." he said breathlessly, "you're...awesome." He leant forward and kissed my forehead tenderly, before lighting another cig to break the tension. "Did I tell you what my teacher wrote on my final report?"
"No," I shook my head, "what?"
"Well she was really nice to me the whole time," he said, shrugging, "and I kept asking her for points to improve on, but she just said what I was doing was fine. Until my final report," he sighed, taking a drag on his smoke, "then she started listing all the things I'd done wrong. And she said I wasn't dressed smartly enough. But I'd asked her, several times, if what I was wearing was ok!" He shook his head, clearly down-heartened.
I felt a sudden and surprisingly sharp stab of anger towards this woman who had treated him unfairly. I wrapped my arms around Johnny and gave him a reassuring hug. It was unusual to see him looking so vulnerable.
"It wasn't your fault," I said, "the whole school was like it. There were five PGCE students there and as far as I can tell only one of them had a good experience. You know you're amazing at what you do."
He grinned and lay back in the grass, his arms behind his head.
"It was so crap," he chuckled, "but we made it."
"Good job we had each other," I smiled, lying down beside him.
Lying under that big tree, looking at the stars, talking until we were so cold we couldn't bear it anymore, I found myself falling further in love with him. My best friend. My sometimes lover.
My world.
My Best Friend, My Sometimes Lover, My World • Opuss № I