"Its like rain on your wedding day, Its a free ride when you've already paid, Its the good advice that you just didn't take, Who would've thought... That figures
Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you, Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out, Helping you out..." -- Alanis Morissette 'Ironic'
5
The school wasn't exactly like she had imagined it. Sure, she had imagined it would be slightly old, but it was actually quite big as well. And it had all the modern technology that a brand new school would have - which she thought was important, but odd for such an older school.
"There she is," she heard a female voice say, and she turned around to see a short blonde speed walking in her direction, followed by a tall guy with dark hair that reminded her of Milo Ventimiglia. "Hi, I'm Blake Roman, and this is Nate Carter. We're your welcome wagon."
Tessa chuckled.
"I know, I know. But we wanted to get to you before the others do, because they'll put all these lies in your head about how they run the school and how your clothes are inappropriate or how its not proper for a woman to change her hair color every month. Oh, and my personal favorite - " She smiled mischeivously at Nate. "A teacher should never come to teach with stubble on his face."
Nate rolled his eyes and smirked as he stuck his hands in his pockets. Blake led them down a hallway to room 214. "This is your room," she unlocked the heavy door and pushed it open then turned on the lights. "I'm next door in 212 and Nate's in 216."
"So you're basically stuck with us whether you like it or not," Nate smirked then took a seat on top of one of the desks.
"Are we not going to the meeting?" Tessa asked as she eyed the other two teachers, who had made themselves very comfortable in her classroom.
"Oh, I always say its good to be fashionably late," Blake smiled as she eyed the pink nail polish on her nails.
Tessa looked from Blake to Nate, who held his hands up in defeat. "She's always like this. She's got a rebellious streak, so its best to just let her go when she gets like this."
"Hey, I don't see you leaving to be on time either," Blake said quickly.
"Ok, how about after the school year actually starts I let you pick any meeting for us all to arrive late to?" Tessa tried to negotiate.
"But I really wanted to see the look on Principal Jones' face when her newest teacher arrives five minutes late," Blake begged, but Tess stood strong. "Ok. But any meeting. No more negotiating."
Tessa nodded and smiled. "Deal."
Blake giggled as she linked arms with Tessa on one side, and Nate on the other. "This is going to be excellent."
- - - -
"Jason, you're not going to believe these teachers at this school. They're crazy, I swear. Jason?" She called as she entered her too quiet apartment. Not a single appliance was running, giving the place the feel of a silent horror movie.
She searched the basement - silent. The bathroom - nothing. The spare bedroom - empty. When she had finally given up and made her way to the kitchen, she found a note written on a paper towel lying on the counter next to the stove.
Tessa - I flew home.Flew home? To Georgia? Or Oklahoma? Why? For how long? Why? Everything question swirled around her head like a tornado, and she kept trying to reassure herself that it was just some sort of family emergency and he would be back in a week. But she knew... She knew he wasn't coming back through those doors again.
- - - -
Teddy had finally managed to forgive his friends. He needed them. They were the most important people in his lives, and if it wasn't for them, he probably would have never stayed in Georgia so long in the first place. He pushed the button to lock his SUV as he walked across the yard to Marshall's front door.
"Hey Ted, come on in. I'm the only one home," Marshall called from the open window on the top floor. Teddy waved then let himself in and took the stairs two at a time to Marshall's bedroom.
Marshall sat at his laptop, putting together the band's MySpace page. "Where'd you get the name?" Teddy asked as he hovered over Marshall's shoulder.
"Nowhere Road? Tess." He said it like it was nothing, but he had just seen her. He had just spent the weekend in whatever corner of the United States she had chosen to inhabit. "There used to be this dirt road behind our houses before they built that subdivision back there, and we'd play back there all the time. We called it the road to nowhere. Thats basically what it was and at the time it sounded a lot more ominous and enchanting than it really was. But those were good times. We had fun, ya know?"
Teddy nodded as he took a seat on a faded red bean bag across the room. He still held out hope that one of the guys would slip up and mention where they had been, but he knew them better than that. They were like the CIA sometimes.
He ran his fingers over the strings of Marshall's guiter absentmindedly as his dark hair fell in front of his eyes. It was getting long. "She likes your hair that way." Marshall told him. He chuckled when Teddy gave him a weird look. "We were looking at your profile for ideas and we noticed there were some new pictures from the tour."
"Oh yeah. I forgot about those," Teddy laughed as he smiled to himself. He knew she was looking for more than just ideas for a MySpace page. She was looking because she wanted to see him. "So do you think she'll ever come back?"
Marshall sat silent for a minute, pondering the question. "Someday. But not soon."
They let his words settle in the room for a while before either of them said anything. "So when do I get to hear this top secret song of yours?" Marshall looked over his shoulder and smiled mischeivously as Teddy drug the squishy chair over for a listen.
"Just don't tell the guys I did this, otherwise I'll never hear the end of it."
