Page 7 of When October Starts

I smiled, and before we arrived at the dock where the ferry was already waiting, Ezra put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me from taking another step. “You have to delete those videos of me, Juno,” he told me.

A video of him looking at the old rides of the amusement park was playing on the small screen, and I lifted my gaze to look at him. “I will,” I told him, knowing that if he wasn’t going to force me to delete them right there in front of his eyes, I wouldn’t get rid of them.

“You know I would never show these videos to anyone. I think they’re beautiful. You look good on screen,” I confessed, keeping my voice low.

His eyes stayed on mine once again, making me feel warm and tingly inside. Maybe coming here together wasn’t such a good idea after all. What I was feeling was not okay, not when the guy making me feel that way was my teacher. He couldn’t keep his eyes off me. But that didn’t make this whole situation okay. Right?

“Let’s go,” he whispered, then nodded to the ferry.

If we weren’t student and teacher, it would still be wrong to have certain fantasies about him. He was twice my age, and that was illegal.

I pushed those thoughts aside, kept the videos of him on my camera, and finally followed him along the deck to board the ferry.

We sat in silence and I watched the rain disappear in the lake. It was only a twenty-minute journey back to land, but it felt like ages as we sat there, trying not to make eye-contact with each other. At least, that was what I was trying to avoid.

I could feel his eyes on me again, and naturally, I had to smile, feeling my cheeks turn red again. “Maybe you should take a picture of me so you won’t have to wait until Monday to stare at me again,” I said, lifting my gaze and meeting his. “Unless your girlfriend would have a problem with that.”

His knee touched mine, and only in that moment I noticed how close the rows of seats were. I looked down, not minding his touch. Our legs didn’t move, and I looked back up at him.

“No girlfriend,” he said calmly, lifting the corner of his mouth slightly.

“Last week you said you came here because of your girlfriend,” I pointed out, and he nodded.

“That’s the truth. It’s just that she moved out of town a while ago, and I stayed here,” he explained.

“Why?”

“Because I like the city. I’ve only been here for a few months, but it’s got something about it that feels like home. Besides…I’ve found a nice group of friends who I play music with. Not really regularly, but it’s fun. I play the guitar.”

I studied his face for a while, moving my eyes to his lips, his jaw, and then back to his eyes. “Don’t you miss your family back in Canada?” I asked, our knees still touching.

“I do. But I talk to them regularly. I’m not too far away from home, and I can head over there any time I want. It’s a quick trip.”

“I see,” I said, smiling at him and then looking back at my camera. I brushed my thumb along the screen, and got lost in my thoughts while Ezra kept his eyes on me.

“Promise you won’t show those videos to anyone,” he said quietly. “I don’t mind you looking at me in those videos, but if someone finds them, I don’t think I will be teaching at Memphis much longer.”

He didn’t want me to delete them? I lifted my gaze again, nodding quickly. “I promise,” I said with a smile.

The ferry came to a halt, and we walked onto the mainland while dark clouds moved over us. I pulled my hood over my head, and Ezra opened his umbrella to avoid getting wet. “I’ll see you on Monday. I had a great time with you, Juno,” he told me. I smiled, pulling the straps of my backpack over my shoulders.

“Me too. Thanks for wanting to see what I was up to for school. I think it’s the first time I let a teacher in on my projects.”

“Glad I was your first,” he replied. He was quiet while I unlocked my bike. Then, as I pulled it back to get on it, he spoke again. “Goodnight, Juno.”

There was a certain undertone in his voice, and those simple words made me wish we could go back to the island. Just him and I. No one around us to tell us that we couldn’t hang out because it was wrong.

Chapter Eight

Ezra

None of the students were listening to what I was saying. Math didn’t really appeal to me either, but it was one of five classes I had to teach. They were mandatory, even at a progressive school. But one lesson of math in a week was not so bad. You could tell the students were far more interested in other things.

Gus, for example, was reading about astrology, and Pixie was coloring one of the sketches she was working on. Juno, on the other hand, was spaced out, staring at the blackboard I had written equations on with chalk.

Th second the bell rang, all of them got up, interrupting what I was saying, and leaving the room without saying goodbye. “Thanks for listening,” I muttered, knowing that at a normal school, it would probably be worse than this.

Juno grabbed her backpack off the floor and got up from the couch, then looked at me with a tired look. “You okay?” I asked. “You look like you’ve been up the whole night.”

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