Page 12 of Teaching the Kot'oll Coach

“Winnie...”

“Yes?” I open my eyes to look over at Telke. He is standing by my side with a deep frown. Maybe he wants a seat too? I’m on the office chair, but he isn’t. But he is such a big guy that if he wants to, he can take his own chair from the side. There are plenty in the library.

He says, “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.” I didn’t even remember his existence until he talked. It’s not a good thing to keep dwelling in my past, except I can’t stop myself most of the time...

“But you seem to be nervous about something. Look, maybe I’m a few sizes bigger than you, I don’t mean harm or mean to intimidate you.”

I put up a smile. Maybe talking to him is a bit better than swimming in my unhelpful thoughts. “I’m not scared of you. Don’t give yourself too much power. I wasn’t even scared to be talking to everyone in the assembly hall.”

“Okay?” He doesn’t seem convinced at all, but maybe he feels that we aren’t close enough for him to dig deeper into my anxiety, which I’m grateful for. I don’t want to talk about that at all.

I pat his arm. “These arms seem very handy.”

He grins. “They sure are.” He fixes his cap. “If you need help arranging the books after school, just let me know. I don’t have practice with the team today.”

So... Does he think I’d want to be with him for even longer?

It’s not that I don’t want him around, but that’s too much time with someone else around me. I love sorting books and I want to do that on my own.

The awkward silence lingers between us. I should say something to be polite, but at the same time, I don’t know what to say.

He clears his throat. “Or let the students help you, they can learn more about the sorting systems by working with it.”

“Yeah, that.” My cheeks burn when... I suck at talking to other beings... Maybe the students are polite enough to keep listening to me and pretend nothing is weird.

“I’ll meet you later then. If you drop by the staff room again.” He takes his cup. Maybe I’m the one making him feel uncomfortable around me.

I nod. “I’ll see if I have time later.”

“Sure.”

“You know where to find me if you need me.”

He stares at me for a brief moment while I swear under my breath. Why did I even say that? But it is already too late to take my words back.

He says, “Sure.” He winks. “Hopefully, nothing will be emergent.”

I nod and put up a smile despite wanting to hide how dumb I must look.

He finally leaves and I’m in a comfortable silence on my own once again.

I slowly spin around on the chair while rehearsing what I’ll be saying with the next class in my head.

At the same time, maybe I kind of miss Telke. He makes it feel like I’m not that weird at times, even though I don’t understand. What’s so special about him other than...

He did save me from a flying floatball in the morning.

My cheek grows hot once again. Maybe I should have followed the actual road instead of going on the grass, even though there’s no sign saying I can’t do that, and there’s already a path formed on the grass from beings walking on it.

I pick up a storybook that a kid returned earlier in the day. It would be great to be living in a story world where I know there’ll be a happy ending for the main characters.

But there’s no telling whether I’d be the main character. So... Maybe I should be grateful for where I am.

At least I’m safe and I’m free to rebuild my life from the chaos it once was

It was such a bad idea to...

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