Page 15 of Dear Mr. Brody

A quiet laugh escaped my chest, and as I turned to face the front of the class, I caught Mr. Brody staring at us. Two or three seconds passed before he lowered his eyes and cleared his throat, shuffling a few papers on his desk. Feeling like a dick for disrupting his class again, I focused on my notes and tried not to engage with Marcos about his ridiculous hot-for-teacher theories, and by the end of the hour, I’d wished I’d never asked him to take the class with me in the first place.

“That’s it for today,” Mr. Brody announced, and laughed when practically everyone jumped up, eager to leave. “Don’t forget,” he said, raising his voice over the rustling of backpacks and whizzing zippers. “You need to choose a book to read before our next class… That’s Monday, guys,” he added when no one seemed to be paying attention.

“Want me to grab some take-out on my way home?” Marcos asked as he slipped the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “I was thinking about that amazing tikka masala we had last week.”

“Sure.” I shoved my notebook into my backpack. “Make sure you order extra bread this time.”

“So needy.” He grinned as he brushed past me. “See you at the apartment.”

I pulled my bag onto my shoulders and was about to follow him out when Mr. Brody approached me. “May I speak to you before you go?”

“Uh... sure, I have a second.” Anxiety kicked off the drum in my chest. “I’ll see you at home, Marcos.”

His brows raised all the way to his hairline, but miraculously, he didn’t say anything stupid. “See you later.”

Mr. Brody nodded and smiled at the rest of the students as they cleared out. Once the room emptied, we both tried to talk at the same time.

“I wanted to—”

“Sorry I was—”

Laughing, I rubbed the top of my head, nervous as hell.

“What were you going to say?” he asked first, his smile less confident than a moment before.

Under the bright light of the classroom, his eyes were less gray and more of a silvery blue. Distracted, it took me a second to remember what I’d wanted to say. “Umm… I’m sorry for being late… and disrupting the class. Marcos struggles with a filter sometimes.”

“Don’t worry about it, I probably shouldn’t have called you out in front of everyone.” He huffed out a laugh. “I never thought I’d be one of those teachers.”

“We were being rude. You were in the right.”

“Water under the bridge,” he said, an anxious edge to his tone. “I actually wanted to discuss your essay.”

“Oh, okay… did I do it wrong?”

“No… not at all, Par…” He caught himself before he said my name, and I smiled when he exhaled a flustered breath. “Mr. Mills, it was excellent.”

“Excellent?” I asked, realizing how much I’d needed his approval.

Not his necessarily. But someone besides Marcos to tell me I could do this. That writing didn’t have to be lies. That my truths mattered.

Real words matter.

“Truly. I know good writing when I read it. It’s kind of my job.”

Maybe I was high on his praise, because even though I shouldn’t have, I loved the easy, almost arrogant smirk on his lips.

“Wow… uh…” I laughed at the irony of my inability, in that moment, to articulate a sentence. I shoved my hands in the back pockets of my jeans and bit the corner of my bottom lip trying to collect my thoughts. “I wanted to say something more eloquent than a simple thanks, but I think I’m in shock.”

“Thanks, works just fine,” he said, and the silence stretched between us again. “You’re a communications major?”

“Yeah, for now. It’s kind of what I did for the Air Force. I worked in Public Affairs.”

“Ever thought about majoring in creative writing?”

Every day.

“Not really,” I lied. “Starving artist isn’t really my goal.”

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