Page 29 of The Write Place

“Miss Mac hitting us with the depressing stuff again,” Warren murmurs. Aimee lightly smacks his arm. I chuckle. The poem can be seen as depressing, but it anchored me after Ellie died. I love sharing it with my students every year.

“The loss is ambiguous.” A few students look at me, their brows pinched. “That means how the love is lost is up for interpretation, so think about it as you read.” I glance at Daniel’s desk in the back of the room. His head is buried in his notebook, as usual. I hope he has actually been writing all day, but it’s hard to tell. “Okay,” I continue. “I’m going to give you a few quiet minutes here to annotate the poem. As I’ve written on the board, you should choose one color for any vocabulary you don’t know, one color for any questions that arise while you are reading, and your last color for connections you can make, either within the text or between the text and some background knowledge. Any notes you have should go in the margins. This poem is short, so let’s take about fifteen minutes to do this, and then I’ll explain the next step.” I make my way back to my desk to start taking attendance.

A few minutes in, I hear sniffles from the back of the room. The group of students nearest Daniel’s desk shifts uncomfortably as the sniffles intensify. I know where the sound is coming from, but drawing attention to it can make the student more uncomfortable, so I wait. Daniel raises his eyes to the group without moving his head. He catches my glance and tilts his head ever so slightly toward them, indicating there’s something going on over there. I see Haze wipe their nose with a back of a sleeve, and I give Daniel a small nod and slowly stand to make my way back there without drawing too much attention.

But that strategy backfires. After another minute, Haze stands suddenly. I can see that their eyes are red-rimmed, and their hands are shaky. A few heads turn toward them as they walk straight out of the room, letting the door close loudly behind them.

Daniel raises his eyebrows at me as I walk quickly toward the door and pull it open. “You good for a second?” I ask him.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” He doesn’t sound convinced, but I don’t stop as I make my way out of the classroom, grabbing the box of tissue I keep next to the door on the way.

Haze is sitting across the hall, hugging their knees with their face buried in them. I cross the hallway and sit next to them.

“Hey,” I say gently. “The passage wasn’t that bad, was it?” I joke. They cough out a muffled laugh, but then the crying starts to intensify. “Okay, bad joke. What’s going on, Haze?” I set the tissue down and they look up long enough to take one, then blow their nose from behind their knees. Somehow, this action sets off even more intense crying—definitely sobbing at this point. It seems pretty clear I’m not going to get any information right now, and I want to give them some privacy. “Why don’t you take a walk with me?” I suggest. They nod and we make our way to our feet. I take the box of tissues with me as we walk slowly down the hallway. I intentionally steer us toward the counselor’s office, but I don’t rush them. Haze seems to be crying less, but it’s obvious they’re holding on by a thread. I wordlessly offer another tissue and they take it.

When we come to the counselor’s office, Haze’s counselor is with another student, so we take a seat. “Do you want me to wait with you?” I ask. They dip their chin slightly without looking at me. I sit next to them, holding the box of tissues angled so they can take one if they need.

“It should be just a few minutes,” the guidance secretary says over her desk. “Do you need me to send a sub to your room, Miss Mac?”

“Mr. Evans is in there with the students, but you might want to let someone know to do a loop past the room to make sure no one has burned the place down.” I wink at Haze who smiles sadly. The secretary gives me a knowing look, and Haze laughs through their nose, which inadvertently blows some snot out and over their lips. This sets off another wave of crying. “Hey, it’s okay! What’s a little snot rocket when you’re crying, right? Here, take another tissue, Haze. It’s going to be okay,” I say again. They do, and then they take a deep, shaky breath.

“My girlfriend and I just broke up,” they admit, still staring at a spot on the floor in front of them. “She wasn’t happy when I started transitioning and we tried to make it work but…” They trail off, picking at a loose thread on their jeans.

“Oh, Haze. I’m sorry that’s happening to you. That has to be so hurtful,” I say. They wipe at their eyes again.

“That poem just kind of set me off, I guess. And you did a trigger warning and everything, too, but I thought I could handle it.” They look at me then, eyes still wet with unshed tears, nose red, and clearly wanting acceptance from someone.

“Well, I am deeply sorry you feel this way, especially because of a poem I asked you to study. I’m also sorry you and your girlfriend couldn’t work it out. And, not that you need me to be proud of you Haze, but I am. You’re being true to yourself despite what your girlfriend thinks, and that takes a lot of courage.”

Haze looks grateful. Just then, the counselor’s door opens, and a student exits the office. As the secretary is giving the other student a pass back to class, I stand. “Hi, Mrs. Levy. This is Haze.” I always introduce students to their counselors because, in such a big school, counselor caseloads are huge and it’s not a given that they know every student. I especially make it a point to introduce students who are transitioning in case their dead name is the one in the system. “They’re having a little relationship trouble.”

Mrs. Levy gives Haze a warm smile. “Oh Haze, I’m sorry to hear that. It looks like you need someone to talk to. Come on in.” She opens the door wider and motions for Haze to enter the office. When they do, she addresses me. “Thank you for bringing them down here, Miss Mac. I’ve got it from here.” I thank her and go back to my classroom.

I walk slowly on the way back, taking a few deep breaths and rolling my shoulders. Haze clearly has enough going on without me giving any indication to the students what’s wrong.

As I turn the corner, I see that my door has been propped open, and I hear raucous laughter spilling into the hallway. I quiet my footsteps and stop just outside the door, somehow finding myself eavesdropping on my own classroom for the second time in as many weeks. I can see Daniel’s empty desk, but I can’t see him.

“Okay, but what’s wrong with a happy love poem or two?” I hear Aimee’s chipper voice from the front of the room. I can picture her blonde ponytail bobbing with her words. “Or even better, a love scene.” She makes a little swoony noise and the class laughs. Isabel sees me from where she’s sitting. I wink at her and put my finger to my lips. She gives a little conspiratorial smile and turns her attention back to the front of the room.

“Nothing,” I hear Daniel at the front of the room, “but don’t you think a mushy love poem or scene in a really good book is kind of cheap? I mean, they’re generally poorly written.” I frown slightly, remembering his decidedly not poorly written love scenes in Playing House, and I know he must be intentionally exaggerating to get a rise out of the students, though his love scenes were never what I would call “mushy,” though. They were always tinged with a sort of sadness I couldn’t quite place until now, which made them feel more real. Certainly not rom-com material.

He continues, “And, when you think about it, happy endings don’t actually exist.”

There is uproar at this. I catch Isabel shaking her head slightly.

“What are you talking about?” I hear Warren from the other side of the room. “My parents were high school sweethearts. They’ve been married for twenty-five years, and I bet they’ll die next to each other when the time comes. They are a real-life happy ending if I ever saw one.”

“But that’s just it,” Daniel counters. “Everything ends—a good relationship, a good life. Doesn’t matter how good it is; in the end, it’s all dust.” The class quietly considers this, and I frown slightly. It’s probably time to make my entrance, so I walk through the door.

“Well, that got depressing,” I say as I enter the room. If Daniel is surprised I was listening, he doesn’t let on. When I see him, I gasp in pretend shock. “You let him sit on my stool?” A few students giggle nervously.

“We were asking him about writing,” Aimee offers.

“In my defense,” Daniel says, hands in the air in surrender, “I tried to talk to them about this poem you handed out, but this guy over here,” he indicates Justin, “asked if writers really include all this stuff in their work on purpose or if their English teachers are just trying to torture them by making them find ‘symbols and figurative language and all that crap’ I think were his exact words.”

The class laughs again, and Justin looks smug. I raise an eyebrow as I look around. “Oh really? And what did Mr. Evans tell you, then? Is it intent, or is it torture?”

“Can’t it be both?” Justin asks, and I laugh along with the class.