Short Stories

Pens, Paranoia, Love

(Edited from the original post)

A Short Story by Maciej Jachtorowicz

Third period was my Teacher's Aide block. I graded papers. I sorted files. I made copies. I was at the beck and call of the Freshman History teacher. I would spend an hour each day of the week at a desk, doing whatever she needed me to do. It wasn't bad, actually. I sort of enjoyed the time. The silence was calming, therapeutic even, and the monotony of grading papers always put me into a contemplative mood. It gave me the sense that I represented something official in the school, and that what I accomplished during that period was important and helpful. The teacher was pleasant to talk to, and we had some interesting conversations on recent events, politics and other similar topics. My TA block was not necessarily always pleasant, but I never particularly dreaded it.

It should have been a meaningless period, and it almost was, if it wasn't for one little detail. One tiny little detail.  I was grading tests. Thumbing through the stack of mildly handled papers that represented these students' futures in history (some promising, some, not so much), I prepared for the task ahead as boredom creeped into my mind. Glancing at the clock, I sighed with resignation and got to work. Pen in hand, I followed little imperfectly, but fully filled bubbles and compared them to the quick coffee-driven scratches of the teacher's answer key. Down each row, and to the next, then down again, and to the next, marking sharp slashes on the wrong answers and leaving the rest unpunished. Five papers in, I began noticing patterns that allowed me to grade a bit faster. Ten papers in, my hand began cramp mildly and my mind wandered, likely giving some hapless student a lower (or perhaps higher) grade than they deserved. Exactly sixteen papers in, a student had drawn a heart.

I paused for a moment, looking at the doodle. The heart lay next to the name of its illustrator. In wide, smooth, curly letters, Jessica Grime's signature adorned the top of the page. For a brief moment, I considered the unfortunate surname in such a prim font. The name seemed familiar, and I remembered the freshman that had added me as one of the thirteen hundred hundred friends she already had on Facebook. I assumed she had simply added me because of the amount of mutual friends we shared, going to the same small-town school, she had definitely seen me in the halls, but perhaps she had actually...

No. Ridiculous. I pushed such adolescent notions out of my head and focused back on the paper, giving it an unceremonious grade at the top and letting the decorated paper drop to the top of the already graded papers on the floor by my feet. I glanced at it once more, with a subtle sense of regret, but returned my focus to the papers ahead.

Several days of copying and sorting passed before I received the opportunity to grade papers again. As I worked my way through the papers, a small sense of apprehension grew, while my logical side reproached me for it. I dutifully continued my task until paper number seven. There she was, with her graceful slim-lined letters tracing her name, Jessica Grime, and her telltale heart next to it. Again, I paused rolling the name in my mind; Jessica Grime. Jessy Grime. Jess Grime. Such an unfitting name, yet, somehow, endearing. The name smiled back at me and the heart winked. Realizing what I was doing, again I reproached myself, and continued grading, but not before carefully inscribing an immaculately kerned grade at the top of the page.

This continued for weeks. Every day of grading, some part of my mind grew ever more desperate. Was she noticing my subtle efforts? What were the chances? Perhaps she compared her paper to a friend's and noticed the difference in care when I penned the grades at the top, perhaps she noticed the careful crosses that marked her careless mistakes. I was on my best behavior grading her tests and her quizzes, but was she perceptive enough to see it? My rational mind stepped in, of course not, it's too subtle of a clue, to quiet of an outcry. Even if she did notice she would have no idea what to make of it, she doesn't even know the teacher has an aide.

By the end of the semester, whenever an opportunity to grade came up, my heart fluttered as my mind rolled its proverbial eyes, and I took it, just to smile at the prim heart, the curvy letters, just to feel the paper she touched. Was this love? Had I fallen for mere text and a heart? Or was I merely infatuated? My line of thought circled in a mess of meta-contemplation as I tried to derive a reason for my irrational obsession. Some part of my mind kept telling me that this has to stop, a nagging doubt which I willfully ignored. I let another paper fall to the finished pile with yet another carefully lined grade adorning the top of the page, right next to the heart.

I eventually decided that I would have to definitively sever my ties, the period had become torture, I was obsessed, and the only way to return to normal was to start somewhere. My plans backfired; it only got worse. I tried to return to the unceremonious, scratchy grading that I used on all the other papers, but my self-awareness progressed too far. I became even more careful to make sure my grades looked sufficiently careless, and began to panic that she would notice this change as well. I could not longer tell if I still loved her or if it was merely the expectation I set for myself to not think about it that caused me to think about it, and consequently fall back into this circular meta-cognitive trap.

I asked myself, how careless is careless enough? Should I skip her paper once or twice? But then I'd have to skip others to avoid rousing suspicion, but would she really be suspicious, of what? Of the teacher's aide the fell in love with her name?

No, I told the papers, this has gone long enough, this has to stop. It's not you, it's me, its over. Done. Finished. No more. I dropped that TA period at the end of the semester and hoped for some peace of mind

That same day, as I walked to my new third period class, Jessica Grimes bumped into me in the hallway and slipped a small paper into my hand. I stopped walking, and looked at it. It had her number, a heart, and a little message in prim, curved handwriting that said "I noticed". I turned around and watched her walk away. Her graceful steps matched her graceful font. She tilted her head back at me and gave me a sly smile and wink.

I threw the paper in the trash.