Bria twisted a lock of her blonde hair around her finger and fluffed it up with her hands. She had been staring at herself in the mirror for the past hour or so, not in admiration but in pure anxiety. She had an outfit picked out and everything, a short blue polka dot dress, not too short so it’s inappropriate, but just enough to make her look both professional and cute. She contemplated putting makeup on, but then decided against it, because what preschool teacher put makeup on, right? Maybe just a little bit of lipstick, and a little bit of blush, she thought to herself, shuffling through her makeup bag and emptying its contents onto the vanity.

New student day was always exciting, especially that all of Bria’s students loved her so much, but today was different. The other night she was going through her email, playing a game of do-you-seem-like-a-bright-student-just-from-your-name, when she landed on something so familiar that it made her insides move. Ava Carlson. Carlson. She knew that name all too well, almost like it was carved into her mind. Her heart dropped suddenly and the first thing she did was go onto Kade’s Facebook profile to check if he had, by any peculiar chance, moved back to Livingston.

It was true. Kade Carlson, her high school sweetheart, had moved back to the little old town and he had brought his three-year-old daughter with him. Bria was petrified. The last time she saw Kade they were parked in front of her house up on Groove’s Street, exchanging their last kiss before he finally dumped her, two weeks before prom.

“Why are you doing this?” she remembered asking him. She also remembered looking at herself in the rear-view mirror, and observing her Avril Lavigne inspired makeup look melting like wax off her face. “Is there someone else?” she asked him, streaks of black eyeliner running down her cheeks.

“Well, yeah,” he nodded, much to her surprise.

“Who is it?” she asked him, her nostrils flared. At that moment it started raining and that was when Kade excused himself.

“I have to go.”

“No, not before you tell me who it is.”

He froze for a moment, his eyes fixated on the AC of his car. “Scarlett, Scarlett Callahan.”

Bria felt her stomach churn. She didn’t say anything after that; she just nodded and slipped out of his car, never to see him again. Then somewhere between that day and this night Bria found out she was going to be teaching Kade’s daughter. The years dragged on and they went their separate ways. They dated other people and fell in love with other people and lost people and, apparently, had kids. Well, she didn’t. Bria had always loved children but she wasn’t ready to have one herself. She was even more surprised to find out that Kade had a child. For the past ten years, his presence in her life was a mere thumbnail on her newsfeed, hovering around idly, just a face on a screen. She had mistakenly liked one of his posts, but she was quick to unlike and pretend that nothing ever happened.

Bria sighed and collapsed on the bed. For a while she just stared up at the fan’s moving propellers but then she decided she was going to make herself some breakfast. She had time to spare anyway, given the fact that she had gotten up at four AM for no reason at all. No reason at all, she thought to herself. She snuck into the kitchen as quietly as she could so she didn’t wake up the cat. A mighty furry beast, she was asleep right in the middle of the kitchen floor. Bria loved Snickers more than anything. She had been with her for the past seven or so years, but on her darkest days, she needed someone to talk to, and have them talk back.

“It’s not that you’re not enough for me,” she mumbled to herself. She cracked an egg into her favorite red bowl and stirred it aggressively. For some reason she couldn’t stop thinking about today. Last semester new student day was a success; she got to know the kids in no time, in fact one of them came up to her at the end of class smiling because, in a matter of hours, she had taught him to love his ginger hair.

“Hey, you!” she had said to him at the time. “You look like a big boy, how old are you?”

“I’m five,” he whispered under his breath.

“Oh, you’re a big boy! What’s your name?”

“Aiden.”

“Aiden! What a lovely name. Alright, Aiden, do you wanna tell the rest of the class a little bit about yourself?”

He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest and that was when she realized she needed to talk to him. So during their break, she sat down on the grass next to him. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” He turned his face the other way. Bria thought that dealing with kids was her favorite challenge.

“Yo, where are you going?” she asked him.

“Back inside,” he said.

“Don’t you want to play with the other kids?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’ll make fun of my hair.”

“Oh, has anyone made fun of your hair today?”

“No, but they did at my other school,” he said.

“And how did you deal with that?”

There was silence. Aiden averted his gaze elsewhere, and for a while he was just staring into space.

“Hey, come here. What are those?” Bria pointed to his face.

“Ugly dots, they’re ugly dots.”

“You mean freckles?”

“Ugly freckles.”

She giggled. “Your freckles aren’t ugly. You know what they look like?”

“What?”

“They look like stars.”

His chin tilted a little and his eyes snapped sideways. “Really?”

“Yes, really! You know that not everyone has freckles, right? And the ones that do also happen to have red hair, like you!”

“I don’t like my red hair.”

“Well, you ought to. Think of it this way, it’s like you have a flame on the top of your head, and that makes you cool, like a superhero!”

Aiden’s lips curved to a smile. He reached out and touched his hair, then he moved his fingers away almost immediately. “Ow, it hurts!” he jumped, then his lips curved to a wry grin.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Bria said. “Can I touch it, too?”

“Careful, it’s pretty hot,” he said. She reached out and touched his hair with the tips of her fingers. “Oh my God!” she snatched her hand away. “You’re like Hephaestus!”

“Who?”

“Hephaestus, the god of fire!”

“Woah!” Aiden’s pearly teeth were flashing through his smile, and then, without uttering another word, he took off. Bria watched him infiltrate a group of kids, approaching them with a newfound confidence, and letting them touch his hair. A little while later they were all playing with him, chasing him around the playground and calling him ‘Heliopolis’.

Bria smiled at the egg batter. She found solace in helping little kids find themselves and the longer she worked as a preschool teacher, the more she loved her job and the more she wanted to have kids of her own one day.

She must’ve spent the coming hour making french toast but her mind was somewhere else. Finally, at around six AM, she left the house because she needed to get there early to decorate the classrooms. That was one more thing that she liked -- arts and crafts. And she was really good at it, too. It was like Bria was the archetype of the perfect preschool teacher, arriving every morning with her big hiking bag and sketch books and packs of crayons. Everyone thought it was cute.

She balanced herself on her bike and took off in the early morning, feeling the warm sunlight fall on her skin. On that day the lake was flat as any mirror, laying without a ripple in the silver-blue water as if time itself had been frozen. From the tall pines around the edge came not a sound, no movement of branches, no birds calling. The air was calm and dead, but in a good way. At times Bria would get off her bike and walk to the lakeshore, and that was what she did. Looking through the waters of the lake was like peering through perfect glass, unsmudged by the sticky prints of small children. The stones at the bottom had many hues of brown and grey. After a few minutes of looking Bria could notice some that there were some that were more reddish or closer to white. The water at the point she stood had a current. The earthen path stretched wide to her left and right making a complete loop around the edge just behind the trees that grew directly on the bank.

Finally she hopped onto her bike again and rode off. The school was in a quiet neighborhood, even quieter than her own, and even though she had to bike thirty minutes to get there, she wouldn’t have traded the view for anything.

“Morning, Mrs. Batcher,” she smiled in greeting. Her mind was buzzing with thoughts about today, but first thing’s first: decorations. She must’ve spent the next hour hopping on and off chairs, hanging up posters and paper flyers and cutouts and balloons.

“I still don’t know where you get all that energy from,” the robust woman said, shaking her head from side to side. Bria wasn’t sure if she was impressed or disapproving.

“Thanks, I guess?” she said, jumping off the chair and grabbing another flyer.

“Well, don’t forget to greet the parents at the door,” she added, stepping outside. Bria sprinkled a little confetti on the tables before heading out herself. She waited for a little bit until the parents all started arriving with their children. Suddenly her heart dropped. A man appeared in the hallway and for a moment she thought it was Kade. Without even thinking she stepped back into the classroom and busied herself with something else.

“Good morning,” she heard a voice say. She turned around, only to find that it wasn’t Kade, but a stubby man and his son.

What the hell is wrong with me? she thought to herself. “Morning!”

Then one by one, they started showing up. Bria found herself socializing more with the teachers steering clear from the doorway, avoiding it at all costs so she didn’t bump into Kade. Just the thought of him walking in there made her stomach churn, and then she started to feel stupid.

“Bria,” Mrs. Batcher said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Why aren’t you greeting the parents at the door? And where did all the cookies go?”

“The kids ate them,” she said, pursing her lips. She nodded at the woman and walked back to the door, where she hung out until the next parent-child duo showed up. Every time she saw someone come up the stairs her heart skipped a beat, not in anticipation but in pure apprehension -- or perhaps both. She wasn’t particularly excited to see Kade, but she was, if anything, a bit curious to see how his life turned out.

Mrs. Batcher was still eyeing her from across the room. Alright, Ari, time to get your shit together, she thought to herself before flashing the woman a smile and shaking hands with one of the parents.

“This is Sally,” the skinny-legged woman said.

“Hi, Sally!” Bria waved, but she couldn’t help but stare at the door the entire time. The classroom was swarming with people, all talking to each other over cookies and paper plates. As much as she loved that her cookies were a success, she was getting overwhelmed. She looked up at the clock and it was already nine; maybe Kade and his daughter weren’t showing up, after all.