She kept her reaction internal and the expression off her face. She was good at being the quiet person in class. It kept attention off her, just the way she liked it.
Leah White Crane had entered and was sitting on a chair in the back observing.
Ellen wondered if having her in the classroom would tone Red down and if Leah would be attending all their classes.
Now he was asking them to line up for a jog to get warmed up.
“I’m already warm,” Judy said in a low voice that Ellen could hear, and then she fanned herself. With her brown hair and freckles, Ellen could imagine what Judy might have looked like as a child. A mischievous one.
Tamara, beside Judy, giggled, and Ellen imagined her too.
Funny how adults in a class show signs of their younger days with their behavior.
Her best friend, Monique, who was also an elementary school teacher, said she could tell these things by watching adults. Now she had Ellen doing it too.
Those two would’ve been the gigglers. Red would be interrupting for attention and getting into trouble. Chyna would be the stary eyed romantic one.
She hadn’t watched the other women to guess how they might have been, yet.
When they moved on to doing planks, even Ellen had to pause and swallow hard at the sight of Barrett showing them the proper form.
Oh, my goodness, that’s hot. Okay, Ellen, focus now and learn how to do them right.
They finished planks, then moved on to push-ups, which she barely got through and finally it was time for water and instruction.
“Situational awareness,” he announced as the topic.
The phrase wasn’t one she was aware of, and it made her want to reach for her phone to look it up. But her cell phone was turned off now that she was at the center. She wouldn’t be using that old number again. She also couldn’t look anything up. She didn’t even have a laptop. The only way to look something up was to go to the computer room, get permission and sign up for her time. The realization made her frown.
As he explained what it meant, she desperately wanted to take notes. That was how she learned best, writing things down. She glanced over to Leah, who looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
Ellen gestured like she was writing with a pen on paper.
Leah shook her head and pointed to Barrett, clearly wanting Ellen to pay attention.
Turning beet red, and feeling chastised, Ellen turned back to face Barrett. She sat listening, as still as a statue and hoped she could remember everything he said.
A rebellious little part of her thought,Why the hell can’t we take notes? It wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone.
She’d never not been allowed to take notes before, and it didn’t feel good to her. For the first time in the class, she felt like she truly didn’t belong there. Her happy bubble now popped and deflated, her new goal was to just make it through this class and any others and then graduate from the program.
If I only had a notebook and pen.
Then she realized she didn’t even have a notebook with her to write in.
Well damn. The minute we get to go buy toiletries that is going to be on my shopping list. Notebook and pen.
The fact that she was swearing, in her head, would have been remarked on by any of her close friends and family. Because Ellen did not swear. Not out loud. Her mother was a preacher’s daughter, and, in the house Ellen was raised in, no one ever swore.
She’d picked up a few words in college, but she wouldn’t say them out loud.
Her world was one spent with little children and swearing did not belong in that arena which had been a safe and sweet one until Rigby Mortimer came along.
She’d never guessed the new assistant janitor at Washington Elementary was a crazy person or that he was obsessed with her. Since meeting him, she swore in her head. It was a way of releasing stress.
He’d made her safe, sweet world one of terror.
And now no one knew where he was.
