Chapter Four Back to School #2
They split paths. Jude headed for his classroom, mug in hand, pulse in his throat, not thinking about the fact he’d be watching the clock now, wondering when he’d cross paths with Warren Bailey again.
Which was both thrilling and terrifying.
This, whatever it was, wasn’t normal for him.
He didn’t get crushes. Not anymore. He’d spent years behind walls of caution, teaching himself not to look too long, not to feel too much.
It had taken years just to look at men again after…
No. He wouldn’t go there.
Not when this new feeling was the first thing in a long time that didn’t hurt to hold on to.
So he stepped into his classroom with renewed hope.
It smelled of dust, dry-erase markers, and freshly printed timetables.
The windows had been cracked open earlier by the cleaners, letting in the faint tang of sea air and the ghost of last night’s storm.
Someone had already scrawled HELP ME into the condensation on the inside of the glass.
Probably one of last year’s leavers. He didn’t wipe it off.
This year, he had Year Seven form.
Someone in the timetable office clearly thought that was the easy gig.
To be fair, it sort of was. Bright-eyed. Eager. Hanging onto their innocence, these kids still raised their hands before speaking. Apologised when they swore. And believed in the world of house points and stickers.
That’ll wear off by Year Nine.
By then, they moved through the corridors like seasoned inmates in a prison drama. Hardened. Cunning. Fluent in manipulation.
He shuddered.
Why had his mind gone there?
Sliding into his chair behind the desk, he sipped his tea and checked through the fresh register.
New names, new handwriting, new spelling disasters waiting to happen.
The first trickle of Year Sevens arrived, bright-eyed and wide-shouldered in blazers still too big for them.
One was visibly mouthing the building layout to himself, as if preparing for a mission.
Chatter, scraped chairs, the faint buzz of nervous energy that only happened on day one gave Jude another reminder of why he loved this.
Teaching. Getting to know the people of the future.
He did the usual: fire drill reminders, form expectations, a sheet with emojis to mark how they were feeling.
Half picked the smiley face. A few circled the one with sunglasses.
One kid drew devil horns on his and wrote tired af.
Jude gave that one a silent point and a raised brow.
Thing was, he’d learned his name quicker than all the others: Henry.
When the bell rang, he sent them off to their first lessons with a reassuring smile and a mental note to check in with the anxious mouth-mumbler tomorrow.
Then it was Year Ten History.
A sudden shift in energy—older faces, deeper voices, stubble trying to make a point. Nail polish. Too much hair gel. Some returning with boyfriends or girlfriends they hadn’t had last term. Others exactly as they’d always been: quiet, flying under the radar.
Alfie Carter among them.
Jude caught his eye and offered a subtle nod as he ushered them in.
They hadn’t talked much since the fire. The summer had swallowed the weeks.
And Alfie had been recovering from his injuries.
Jude, too. In his own quiet way. But that shared experience still sat quietly between them, unspoken but present.
A thread woven in smoke and survival. He wouldn’t make a point of it here, though.
Wouldn’t embarrass Alfie like the whole teaching staff were hellbent on doing to him.
But he could feel the bond. The connection. It was there. Unshakable.
He guessed that happened when you refused to let someone be lost to their fate.
But to keep things normal, he launched into the standard start-of-term spiel.
What to expect. Which textbooks they’d need.
An overview of the units—The Cold War, Nazi Germany, Crime and Punishment.
A few groaned at the reading list. One asked if they’d be doing real history or boring dates again.
Then he set a short task, something to ease them in gently, letting the room settle.
While pens scratched paper and chairs creaked gently, Jude wandered to the window and stared out across the field.
The dew was still burning off the grass.
A PE lesson had started on the far side, a few boys milling around cones, passing a ball in lazy arcs.
And there was Warren Bailey in the middle of them.
Hands on hips. Laughing at something one of the lads had said.
The sun caught his hair.
Jude took another sip of coffee.
Still warm.
Still a bit too sweet. And strong.
Exactly how he liked it.
Warren crouched beside a football, demonstrating how to shift weight cleanly into a kick. The boy tried, scuffed wide, and Warren only laughed with him, clapping his shoulder before resetting the ball.
Jude lingered his gaze a fraction too long.
There was something about him. More than the easy smile and the looks Jude would’ve had to be six feet under not to register.
It was the steadiness. The way he stood.
His patience in his listening and the calm threaded through every movement.
It was out of place in the usual swagger of a PE teacher.
Jude had lived cautious around men long enough to trust his instincts, and they were humming then.
Because noticing him was one thing. Wanting to notice him?
That was different. Unsettling. Because that man…
he was everything Jude had denied himself to believe was real.
And it was almost as if the world had dropped a man on his doorstep tailor-made to disarm him. To make him believe in safety again.
But Jude knew better than to believe in gifts that easy.
He took another sip of his coffee.
Then a hand shot up near the middle of the room.
“Sir, are we going on a trip this year?” Lily. Blonde, confident, and constantly twirling her hair whenever her new boyfriend Lucas was within six feet, was one of his more able students who needed to focus more on the text rather than the boys.
Like he could talk as he blinked away from the window.
“Um… yes. Hopefully. I still need to get it signed off by Mrs Turner.”
“Will it be overnight?” she pressed, eyes already sparkling.
“Yes. Hopefully.”
Lily squealed and a ripple of excitement spread through the class. Whispers about room sharing, snacks, playlists for the coach ride, who’d be paired with whom, and which poor soul would forget their toothbrush and try to borrow someone else’s.
Jude raised a hand. “Alright, Year Ten! Before we plan your holiday romance soundtrack, you’ll need to complete the worksheet. Quietly.”
The room hushed.
Jude smiled into his coffee.
Then he glanced back out of the window.
And thought that maybe he’d been wrong all along…history might not matter anymore.