“What’s up, Miss Nichols?” He slouched against my desk, completely at ease with me.

“I’ll be handing back the first draft of your personal essays tomorrow, but I wanted you to know that you did exceptionally well.” I studied him, knowing there was more to this cocky boy than met the eye. There had to be. I knew that after reading such a wonderful essay about his little brother. “You’re very insightful, Jarrod.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Seriously?”

“I’ve written notes. You can look it over tomorrow. I just wanted you to know that I enjoyed it.” I gave him a knowing look. “If you would work like that in all your classes, you’d do well. You should start thinking about university.”

The spark that had lit in his eyes at my praise died, but he offered me a cheeky smile. “And why would I do that? That’d be no challenge for the teachers.”

I gave him a look of reproach. “Jarrod.”

He shrugged. “They piss me off. Mr. Rutherford does it deliberately. I’m not going to sit there and take it.”

I didn’t know if that was true or not, but since Mr. Rutherford, a maths teacher, rubbed me the wrong way whenever we crossed paths, I couldn’t find the words to disagree with Jarrod.

Instead I went with, “Don’t swear. And don’t let anyone stand in the way of your future. You’re a really smart kid. You should do something with it.”

“If you say so, Miss Nichols.”

“I do say so. Maybe the other teachers would as well if you’d stop smart-arsing them.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Did you just swear?” he teased.

Knowing I’d be in trouble if he decided to report me, I cursed myself inwardly. Sometimes it was hard to separate teaching the kids and volunteering with the adults. When I swore in front of my literacy class it was no big deal. Swearing in front of youngsters? Not so professional. I shook my head in innocence. “I don’t recall doing so, no.”

Jarrod laughed. “Look, the other teachers aren’t like you. They’re immune to my charm. That’s the problem. End of story.”

“Oh, Jarrod.” I gave him a mock-pitying look. “I’m not charmed by you. You aren’t that charming. What I am is pleasantly surprised by your abilities.”

“Whatever you say, Miss.” He winked at me and then swaggered out of the room as if life was one big joke. It was all a pretense. I saw through his crap.

Although I felt we had a rapport, I did worry about whether my advice and encouragement were penetrating the barriers he had built up around himself. I knew all about building walls. Sometimes you needed those walls to keep folks out because letting them in broke down the glue that was holding essential pieces of yourself together… but there were times when you needed to learn when to let those walls down, to let people in because they were the glue that held you together.

Perhaps I’d have a better chance at getting through to Jarrod if I were better at recognizing the difference myself. I’d learned quite young that there was a massive divide between theory and practice.

Sometimes I just couldn’t quite pull myself out of theory.

I had my reasons.

I reached down for my bag, ready to pack up and return home to do my marking there. Shoving a folder into the large handbag, I heard a crinkle and knew exactly what had happened. I’d crumpled the photograph.

Hands shaking, I reached in and tugged at the photo, pulling it out and smoothing it flat with the tips of my fingers. Why had I kept it? Why had I brought it to school?

Staring at the photograph of me – the younger, cockier, romantic sixteen-year-old me – as I smiled into the camera for the selfie I’d taken with my friend Marco, the boy I’d fallen for hard, I wondered not for the first time where that version of me had gone.

It was funny… I sometimes wondered if I lost her because of Marco, and yet I think I hadn’t found her until I met him.

I couldn’t explain how I knew there was something wrong when Marco texted me to meet him. It’s not like he hadn’t done that before. I’d met him several times at a library to help him with his Higher English work – a course he didn’t need to take because he already had an apprenticeship with a joiner in Edinburgh. That didn’t seem to be enough for Marco, though. It was like he was challenging himself, trying to prove to himself he could do what other people told him he couldn’t. He’d surprised me over the last year and a half with his quiet determination.

It wasn’t always about schoolwork. Sometimes he texted me to meet him at a shop or a restaurant only to spend the next few hours wandering the streets of Edinburgh with him, me chattering away while he mostly listened. That kiss, that impulsive kiss, so long ago was never discussed. He’d avoided me for a month after that kiss. But kissing him and being rejected had actually been somewhat liberating. Okay, it hurt like hell and I felt humiliated, but after a while I began to realize that the world hadn’t ended. I’d done something for me, something brave, and I’d made it out okay. It had changed my perspective. I spoke up in class now, and I stood up for myself and for my friends against petty name-calling. I entered my short story in the junior writing competition my English teachers had urged me toward, and I joined the debate team.

That was sort of why Marco started speaking to me again. I, of course, missed the bus after my first meeting with the team, and when I walked outside, there he was. He never said a word to me about the kiss. He just pretended like it had never happened.