I hear a knock on my door right after the end of my class and I quickly walk over to the door and open it wide to see Karma grinning back at me with her bag slung over her shoulder. She's wearing her natural hair in a low-bun as per usual, I'm sure this is her chosen style of comfort and I'm glad. It looks amazing on her.

Her face nearly clear of makeup, with a few acne scars and dark spots gracing her forehead but I barely noticed as I took in the shine of her lip gloss and the brightness of her smile.

Not wanting to stare for too long (or longer than I already have), I clear my throat

Smiling back at her, I move over and allow her to step into the room.

When she walks into the room she heads to her usual seat, as she drops her bag on the table next to her seat and then goes to my desk grabbing the sheets of paper that I had planned for her to help me grade.

She looks up at me as she sits at her desk and furrows her eyebrows at me and only then do I notice that since I let her in, I hadn't moved from my set and I was still standing at the door looking at her in admiration.

Shaking my head, I grin nervously at her and run my hands through the front of my hair, twisting the knob of the front door making sure that it's closed.

Moving to walk towards my desk, I sit down on my chair and open a drawer on the right side of my desk to grab a hair tie so I can hold my hair back because I've been pushing it out my face all day.

Once we both get situated the atmosphere around us becomes silent as we both get into grading. That's usually how it is whenever she's here and I hate it. I mean yeah we might have a conversation here and there but for the most part, it's just silence.

The last thing I'd want to do is make her uncomfortable but I enjoy her presence when she's here and when we do talk, she really is a joy to talk to and to be around.

I don't want to let the whole time she's here be awkward so I choose to start a conversation, "So did you have a good day today?"

She looks up at me and the grin she had on her face, "I mean yeah today was okay." she nods as she collects a stack of papers, lightly organizing them by grabbing both sides and gently hitting the bottom against the desk before laying it back down on the desk, grabbing another paper, looking down at the desk again "How was yours?"

Smiling to myself I say quietly, "Better since you walked in." I say but I didn't know she could hear me when I heard her lightly say, "Hmm?"

I look up at her as she raises a furrowed eyebrow and looks at me, waiting for an answer

Coughing lightly and clearing my throat, I say, "Yeah, It was a good day for me today too. Same old, same old. You know?"

"Yeah I get it." she sends me another heartwarming smile as she looks back down at her papers, "I hate the whole school routine thing. If I could take high school classes online. I would." she laughs lightly and I can't help but join her.

"Yeah, I can't help but think of how much easier that would be for all of us." I continue to laugh at her silly idea actually thinking about how weird that would be if that became a reality.

"Yeah. High school teachers don't really teach that often. Most of them just assign work and go about their da--" she cuts herself off looking up at me grinning sheepishly, her face pretty much cringing in embarrassment when she notices that she's talking to an actual high school teacher.

Waving my hand dismissively I say, "Oh no. Please. Don't mind me. Tell me how you really feel." I try not to laugh as she looks up at the ceiling and shutting her eyes. I'm currently enjoying how flustered she's getting over her small comment since she actually thinks it would affect me.

I mean she's not wrong. Most high school teachers really do give out work while doing the bare minimum when it comes to actually teaching. I'm trying to turn that around though.

She clears her throat playing with the small gold cross chain hanging around her neck saying, "Speaking of things that most teacher's do..." she trails off and I raise my eyebrows at her urging her to continue

"When I'm not here... do you... you know." she shakes her head beginning to smile awkwardly but in a rather endearing way when she continues, "Do you have anyone else here to help you grade, or do you just...have me here?"

Tilting my head to the side, I can't help but wonder why she's asking me this now since she's always here and never really asked. Seeing no reason to lie I say, "No. It's just you. Why do you ask?"

She grins at me shyly and nervously when she says, "W-well I don't know." she says, "I was just wondering because you have so many classes and I just wanted to know why you chose me."

Smirking to myself, It's kind of obvious why I chose her but I obviously couldn't tell her that. AT least not yet, "I just knew that I'd trust you to respect the honor code and grade correctly. I knew I wouldn't have to stand over your shoulder and watch you all the time." I half-lie to her. That's not the full reason. But I can't exactly come out and tell my student that I would rather kiss the shit out of her than have her sitting here and put x's on papers.

But again, we don't wanna scare her or anything here.

I notice a grin begin to grow on her face and I can't help but smile slightly at the fact that I caused it.

"So." I start, "How's life going right now? You're halfway through your junior year right?"

She nods her head and leans back in her chair, "Yeah. I can't wait for it to be over." she smiles to herself playing with the cap of the pen in her hand, "Can't wait to turn 18 this month and then become a senior. Just a couple steps closer to college."

My ears perk up at the 18 part...she's having a birthday this month? And she's turning 18?

"This month?" I'm sure to ask watching her nod, "When?"

She rolls her eyes and says, "Halloween." I watch as she sighs, "My friends are on my back about throwing me a party but I'm not sure if I'm down to do that." she shakes her head and groans quietly and I watch in amusement.

"Well did you have plans to do anything else?" I ask and watch when she shakes her head and I can't help but laugh, "Karma!" I drop my pen and place it back on the table and I look at her in disbelief, "You only turn 18 once! I'm not expecting you to go all out but, shit, I don't know. Don't tell me you're gonna lay up doing homework all day." I look at her pointedly jokingly and she giggles shaking her head

"I didn't think about my plans, okay! I just had a lot going on this month."

"Well," I grab my phone out of my pocket to check the date and see that Halloween is three days from now on Saturday." Well, when you come back to school next week I want to hear all about what you did, okay?" I grin, "Don't disappoint me." I throw a wink at her and she laughs loudly, my heart beating faster as a smile graces across her face.

"Well, why don't you give me some ideas, Mr.Maddow?"

Shaking my head I say, "Nope. I thought I told you before that you can just call me Jonah?" and I watch as the realization comes on her face before she says, "I didn't know you were actually serious."

I laugh and say, "Well, I'm not that much older than you guys. I really don't mind if you do. But don't tell anyone else, I only have that reserved for you." I pause, "But if you wanna know what I did. My parents had gone on this cruise thing for their anniversary. Luckily their anniversary fell on my birthday weekend. I had the whole house to myself so I invited my friends and told them to invite some people and those people invited more people." I say and watch as her jaw drops, "I'm sure you know how the rest went." I chuckle

"Had a party so crazy that the neighbors called the cops and when they came they shut down the party when they found out we were underaged and drinking alcohol and smoking we" I cut myself off and try not to continue as she looks at me in interest, "You already know but long story short, the party got moved somewhere else and yeah. That was my 18th." I smile in reminiscence, "I'm not encouraging you to do all that but don't tell me you're staying home and doing nothing."

"Okay! Okay! I see your point. I'll see what I can do but I'm so not promising anything." she laughs and I can't help but join her

"I can't wait to hear about it." I smile longingly at her strangely feeling some sort of weight lifted off of my shoulders after speaking to her but something tells me that her 18th year will be nothing short of eventful.

If I have anything to say about it.

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Lololol all this talk about birthdays has me thinking of mine on the 15th :))))) I love being an Aquarius :))))) sharing a birthday with Meg Thee Stallion is my greatest accomplishment

And I know this chapter is long-awaited, I'm sorry. This is the longest I haven't updated and I've felt so weird all week about it but I was preparing for my bio exam.

On the bright side, I'm pretty sure I passed so weeeeeeee