c21

"Fuck y-'

RAIS Pov

30 minutes earlier

Cassandra was about to have an unprecedented encounter.

Walking quietly down the hallway towards her classroom when suddenly she heard a faint sound, she didn't understand. It was surely the work of her imagination, she said.

The hallways looked empty though, all the students were in class. Ignoring the noises seemed like the right thing to do. But again they were heard, this time something told her that ignoring the situation did not seem to be the right thing to do.,

Cassandra reached out and listened carefully to see where the noises were coming from. The further she went, the more clearly she heard. First, some sort of noise then gasps, and finally wines, sobs.

As she got closer to the lockers, she could see that in the small space between the lockers and the wall was a child. She looked to be between 1 and 2 years old.

"Oh, you poor thing!" she said in a soft voice as she crouched down, the child curled up a little on themselves.

"Don't be afraid." She held out her hands, but the child was even more scared, Cassandra withdrew her hand, she didn't know what. But that didn't stop her from trying again,

"Hey, what's wrong?" The child continued to cry, she felt her heart clench as she saw the child in this situation.

"Oh, baby! Don't cry." Said Cassandra, she doubted that the child could understand her, but she felt overwhelmed by the situation.

She didn't know why she felt the tears coming to her eyes when suddenly an idea came to her head, she sat down cross-legged to be as comfortable as possible, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began,

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping

I dreamt I held you in my arms

When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken

So I hung my head, and I cried

She didn't know if it would work or not, she tried as hard as she could to convey her sincerity through the song. She knew she wasn't excellent at singing, but she would manage. She hoped she could calm the child down. Lost in her thoughts, she didn't realize that the child had stopped sobbing.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You never know, dear, how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away

The child took their head from their arms and raised their head. Not seeing the woman singing clearly, the child rubbed their eyes lightly and then wiped their face with the sleeve of their jacket and looked again at the woman. It felt like you could see stars in their eyes from the moment their eyes landed on the woman. Those eyes were twinkling so much.

I'll always love you and make you happy

And nothing else could come between

But if you leave me to love another,

You have shattered all of my dreams:

Cassandra felt tears welling up in her eyes, she tried not to think of all that had happened to her, she told herself to stop, but she could not help herself. Despite everything that happened, she loved her, despite the pain she wanted to love her, so she tried to forget, forgot the person who caused her pain.

It was easier said than done, she thought she had finally managed to forget her and the past that she had moved on, she could never believe that after three years of absence her ex was back appearing out of nowhere and the irony in all this was that they were now respectively teacher and student.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You'll never know, dear, how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away

Tears rolled down her cheek, but she didn't know how to stop, and she still kept singing, not realizing that it was her way of dealing with her problems. Suddenly, she felt tiny hands on her cheeks, the child was wiping her tears, and she felt touched by this small gesture. She smiled slightly and put her hands on the child's hands.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You never know, dear, how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away

She opened her eyes, and the child seeing this smiled. Cassandra felt as if she had drunk hot and sweet honey tea. Her heart was somehow lighter, the pain faded, and her thoughts were clearer.

The child moved closer to the woman and wrapped their arms around the woman's neck. The woman took the child and positioned them on her legs and their arms still around the woman's neck. The child put their head on the woman's chest and listened to her heartbeat.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You'll never know, dear, how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away

The child and Cassandra's heart were somehow mutually soothed. Both needed to be comforted.

….

"Adelaide!!!" shouted Sylvia, she wanted to call the child again but was stopped by her assistant,

"Sylvia, there are people who are still in class. Calm down, we'll find her" said her assistant, putting her hand on Sylvia's arm. She removed his hand from her arm, frowned, and then said,

"That I calm down? Andre, she was your responsibility, I trusted you and asked you to watch her for a few moments. And now, what? You tell me that you have lost her. I hope for your sake that we find her because if we don't-" Sylvia stopped before she could say something she would regret.

"You go that way, and I'll go this way and look for her. Call me if you find her," Sylvia said, didn't wait for his answer, and left.

After spending 15 minutes looking for her, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. She moved closer to the woman and child. Cassandra heard footsteps coming toward them, she looked up. She smiled when she saw that it was Sylvia.

"Can you help me?" Sylvia nodded and smiled,

She bent down and picked up the child, but the child didn't want to leave Cassandra's arms. Cassandra managed to stand up and take the child from Sylvia's arms before she could burst into tears.

Sylvia quickly explained the situation to Cassandra before telling her assistant that she had finally found the child.

"Adelaide, sweetheart come here," said Sylvia as she reached for the child, Adelaide tightened her arms around the woman's neck and positioned her head in the hollow of her neck.

"Well, it looks like she doesn't want to leave your arms," said Sylvia after several attempts,

"That's okay, Sylvia, I can watch her until her parents come to pick her up during recess."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, don't worry," Cassandra said with a smile,

"You probably have her parents in your class, since they are seniors." Cassandra looked on with a surprised look,

"Oh, really? Who is it?" Sylvia was about to answer her question but was interrupted by a phone call, she looked at the caller and said,

"It's my assistant, Rena, give me a minute. She stepped away to answer the call,

1 minute later

"Cassandra, I'm going to have to leave you something happened at the daycare. I'll leave Adelaide with you, watch her carefully!" Cassandra nodded and smiled,

"Thank you, my friend. I'm going," said Sylvia as she left, she and Cassandra had known each other for over a year, and they had become fast friends, so she didn't mind leaving Adelaide in her care since she trusted her.

"Hey, honey, let's go," said Cassandra to the child.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ....

The bell rings.

Chloe entered the infirmary and joined Harmonie in the waiting room.

"Here H, I brought your bags and Cassidy's," said Chloe as she gave Harmonie her backpacks and put Cassidy's on the floor next to Harmonie.

"Thank you, babe," said Harmonie as she opened her duffel bag, since it was only the two of them,

"You're welcome. How's Cassidy?" asked Chloe as she helped Harmonie change,

"She woke up after I put her on one of the beds over there," Harmonie said,

"The nurse is taking care of her now." She closed the bag after changing, then put on her jacket and shoes,

"Go ahead, I'll stay here and wait for Cassidy."

"Thanks, Chloe."

"H, wait! Bring our sports bags and put them in the locker." She handed her the duffel bags.

"See you later," said Harmonie as she left,

"Hmm." Chloe turned on her phone and started playing a shooting game to pass the time,

"Thank you, ma'am." 'Hm? Cassidy?'

She got up from her chair and walked out of the waiting room. She found herself face to face with Cassidy. The latter looked surprised to see her.

"Are you okay?" Chloe asked,

"Yes," she said, still surprised, Chloe didn't dwell on her reaction and entered the waiting room. She joined Cassidy with her backpack, Cassidy's backpack, and Cassidy's gym bag.

"Let's go, we need to go to the library to print the documents."

"Okay!" They walked out of the infirmary, the front door of the library was right next to the infirmary, they were already in the library.

"Hello!" said Chloe and Cassidy at the same time to the two librarians, one of them seeing Chloe called out to her,

"Chloe, for the poem and short story contest, you still haven't told me your answer."

'Ah, that's right!" thought Chloe,

She turned to Cassidy and said, "You can go, I'll meet you after."

Cassidy nodded and left,

Chloe turned to the two librarians and approached them, "I think I'll participate as the final judge for both contests."

"Very well, we'll send you the poems and short stories when they are ready, then?" Chloe nodded,

"Thanks, I'll be going now." The librarian nodded, Chloe went to the part of the library where the computers were and joined Cassidy.

"Are you logged in?" asked Chloe as she put the bags down and sat down next to her,

"Yes, I'm looking for the documents in the flash drive." Chloe watched her as she did so,

"Shit!"

"What is it?"

"They're not there, I got the wrong documents," Cassidy said and looked increasingly nervous,

"Don't worry, we sent it to you on the school website." Cassidy stroked her face,

"That's the problem, I accidentally deleted them from my email, but I didn't care since I had already downloaded them to my computer."

Chloe took the mouse and opened the search engine, "What are you doing? I told you I deleted it."

"Stop stressing over nothing." Cassidy looked stunned, she wanted to reply, but Chloe interrupted her,

"The work, I did it on Drive. So I have all the documents on it," said Chloe as she logged into her email,

"Wait... wait... wait... Ok, that's it. I found them. Just need to print... Okay, done." They heard the printer start up,

"Everything's good," Chloe said as she turned to Cassidy. Cassidy was looking at Chloe, shocked,

"Why do you look surprised?" Cassidy snapped out of her shocked state and answered,

"Did you know that when you're focused, you stick your tongue out?" Chloe stood up,

"Yes, I know that," she said as she went to get the leaves,

"And I also know that since earlier you've been acting weird," she said as she returned,

"Here!" She handed the leaves to Cassidy and went to get the bags,

We heard the bell ring. There weren't many people in the library, and those who were supposed to leave at the end of recess had already left.

"Shut down your session and let's go." Cassidy nodded and complied,

"I can carry my bags, you know?" said Cassidy as she followed Chloe,

"Enjoy the fact that for once I'm being nice to you," replied Chloe without turning around,

"Why?" Even though she hadn't expanded on her question? Chloe understood what she was asking,

"Because you don't like me? It made sense to me not to care about you because of that," she replied, continuing on her tangent,

"Who told you that? You-" Cassidy began before being interrupted by Chloe's sudden stop,

Chloe turned and looked at Cassidy emotionless, 'She got that from H.' Cassidy thought,

"Look Cassidy, I don't know what you're trying to do, and I'm thinking that when you fell you must have hit your head, but that's not possible since H caught you. It's the fact that you fainted that is probably the cause of the sudden change in your behavior towards me, so please stop." She didn't wait for Cassidy's response and left,

"Chloe!" said Cassidy as she took off after her,

"Goodbye." said Chloe as she addressed the librarians, before exiting the library, Cassidy said "Goodbye" back to them before exiting,

"Chloe wait-" Cassidy stopped when she saw that Chloe had stopped in front of Harmonie on the stairs, she looked at them questioningly but said nothing,

"I wanted to ask Chloe why she was acting like that, and think that I don't seem to like her..." Cassidy said, not being able to stand the silence that was becoming heavy,

"I told you she was stressed, and she's not wrong, and I've already pointed that out to you. You always act like you don't like her," Harmonie said calmly as she walked down the stairs with Chloe and Cassidy behind her,

"I don't hate her, though."

"I know, however, the way you behave towards her, makes us think that maybe you don't like

her."

"Oh!"

"Yes, oh!" said Harmonie, mimicking Cassidy,

"Come to think of it, Chloe, you said 'the job you did was on Drive'. That means that yo-"

"Yes, Cassidy. It was Chloe who did all the rest of the work with the ideas we gave her, I told you she works if she wants to," said Harmonie as she opened the door, she stepped out and waited for the other two to leave before releasing the door,

"Besides, I was lazy to do it."

"Oh!"

Chloe sighed as she turned to Harmonie,

"H, how did it go?"

"Badly," replied Harmonie as she closed the door, Chloe frowned and waited for Harmonie-,

"They lost her then found her, finally it was one of our teachers who found her, and she refused to leave her arms. So Sylvia left her with the teacher since she trusts her"

"What do you mean, they lost her?" said Chloe, frowning even more,

"Calm down, don't forget that she was very agitated this morning, she must have wanted to find us, but she probably got lost. I took a long time to come because I was waiting for her to tell me which teacher she was talking about, but she couldn't tell me because something came up just when she was supposed to tell me, the bell rang. Seeing my lack of time, I decided to come quickly to find you and then ask the teacher to leave since it's urgent."

"Excuse me, who are you talking about?" asked Cassidy, who had followed the conversation without really understanding,

"I'll explain it to you later, though, 'cause you'll have to speed up a bit. Our class has already entered," replied Harmonie, pointing with her chin to their already closed room,

"The problem with you two is that you say you have to speed up, but it seems like you're doing the opposite," Cassidy said as she went behind their backs and pushed them with her hands on Chloe and Harmonie's backs,

"Ah, yes! Who carried me?" asked Cassidy while pushing them,

"H" answered Chloe,

"Oh well! I wasn't heavy?"

"Yes, you were, but if you weren't, it would have worried me." Cassidy nodded in understanding,

They finally arrived in front of their room, "Here Cassidy," Chloe said as she handed her bags to her and adjusted hers on her shoulders,

Harmonie knocked and opened the door, her classmates were all already settled, but the teacher was not present,

"Hey Laurine, where is the teacher?" asked Harmonie as she sat down next to the wall in front of the window,

"I don't know, it was a supervisor who came to tell us that we could go into class and wait for our teacher." Chloe sat behind Harmonie and Cassidy on the table that was to the left of her and in front of Corine,

So Chloe and Corine were next to each other.

Harmonie nodded and looked at the sky through the window, it allowed her to think of nothing, but the real reason she was looking at it was to calm down, although she did not show it to the others, she was extremely worried about her daughter.

Meanwhile, while waiting for their teacher, Cassidy was drawing, Chloe was revising her presentation and Corine was reading a manga. The rest of the class was talking to each other.

1 minute later

We heard the door open, and everyone turned around except the four girls, Corine was completely absorbed by her reading, Chloe in her documents because of the stress, Cassidy was lost in her thoughts, and Harmonie was sleeping unintentionally.

The four girls did not realize the arrival of their teacher. When Corine heard the sound of Mrs. Aster's heels, she put her book away and looked at the teacher, just like her other classmates, she was surprised.

When Cassidy did not hear her classmates anymore, she then turned around to see what was going on, under the shock, her mouth opened,

"Bonjour à tous, excusez mon arrivée tardive. J'ai dû aller chercher vos tests. (Good morning everyone, sorry for my lateness. I had to go get your previous test?)" she said, putting the bag she had on the table,

"Corine?"

"Oui madame ?"

"Peux-tu les distribuer, s'il te plaît? (Can you give your classmates their tests, please?)" she said as she held out the sheets she had taken out of the bag,

"Yes, miss," said Corine as she stood up, she fetched the sheets and began to distribute them, she at least knew the names of her classmates.

While Corine was handing out the sheets, Cassidy was watching her sister's every move.

Corine finally distributed the last sheets to Cassidy, Chloe and Harmonie then tried her hand at her seat, she looked at her score: 98.

"Cassidy?" Cassidy finally stopped staring at her sister and turned around,

"What's up?"

"What did you get?" asked Corine, Cassidy took her paper and showed it to her: 97.

"What about Chloe?" said Corine turning to Chloe, Cassidy did the same. Chloe, hearing her name, raised her head and looked at Corine,

"Hmm?"

"How much did you get?" Chloe did what Cassidy had done: 100.

Like Corine, Cassidy was also surprised. Chloe raised one of her eyebrows at their reaction,

"And Harmonie?" Chloe turned to her friend who had was lost inn her thoughts and shook her slightly,

"Hmm, what's going on?" she said as she turned back to her friend,

"What is your score?" asked Chloe,

"99, why?"

"It was Cora who was asking-" she suddenly stopped when she saw the person in Cassandra's arms, meanwhile, Corine was talking with Cassidy and Harmonie.

Cassandra didn't mind that the students were talking to each other since she was still getting ready to start the class but with a child in her arms, it wasn't easy, however, she managed.

Suddenly the child's eyes met Chloe's, Harmonie was next to her, and the child also saw her 'Dada'.

"Baby!" said Chloe as she abruptly stood up, everyone looked at her.

" 'unty!" said the child smiling but tears threatening to escape from her eyes, Harmonie quickly turned her head and stood up abruptly too,

"Adelaide?" The child's tears finally escaped her eyes, she held out her hands to Harmonie,

"Dada!" she said crying, Harmonie pushed her chair away and went to retrieve her from Cassandra's arms,

"It's okay, baby," she said trying to calm her down, Chloe joined them,

"Hey Adelaide!" said Aunty Chloe, smiling,

"Hey 'unty," the child replied with a slight smile,

Harmony saw that the child had finally calmed down and went to sit down with the child in her arms, letting out a sigh of relief

Cassandra began her lesson by correcting the exercises she had given after the shock had passed for all. Adelaide remained calm in Harmonie's arms, the people presenting their papers had already passed, even Corine and her group, only Harmonie's group was left.

They got up, and went to the blackboard, Adelaide held out her hands to Cassandra so that she could take her and Harmonie came closer to her,

"Madame, cela ne vous dérangerai pas de la tenir quelques instants (Miss, is it okay if you hold her for a little moment?) " asked Harmonie to her teacher,

"Oui, bien sûr,! ( Yes, of course!)" answered Cassandra, taking the child,

... ...

When Harmonie's group had finished their presentation, Harmonie wanted to get Adelaide back, but the child refused, with Cassandra's agreement, she left the child in her teacher's arms.

Cassandra started to give advice to the groups and explanations about their work, she also informed her class that they will have their grade next week while she organizes herself with her other classes.

"For the few minutes that remain, I will play an audio that will allow you to answer the questions on page 22 of the book," she said as she stood up and walked over to the computer that was on top of a wooden stand, Harmonie's table was propped up against the compartment since it was in front of her.

Cassandra played the audio three times to her students, giving them a one-minute interval on each audio to write, she then went to sit down and let her students work.