Teachers, what's a crush you completely misread in a student? #storytime #redditstories #emotional — Transcript

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1. 0:00Teachers, what's a crush you completely
2. 0:01misread in a student? 14 years teaching
3. 0:03eighth grade and I can read a crush like
4. 0:04a weather report. The lingering by a
5. 0:06locker, the six drafts of one sentence,
6. 0:07the sudden need to sharpen a pencil
7. 0:09three desks from where the pencils are.
8. 0:10I've seen every version of it, but I
9. 0:12have never in my life been more wrong
10. 0:13than I was about Theo Vance. Theo was
11. 0:15quiet the way still water is quiet. You
12. 0:16forget it's deep. Back row, hood up,
13. 0:18never once raised his hand. The only
14. 0:19time anything flickered in him was when
15. 0:21Ren Delgado walked in. He'd go pink to
16. 0:22the ears, knock his pencil off his desk,
17. 0:24pretend to study a book he was holding
18. 0:26upside down. Textbook. I figured it was
19. 0:27the most obvious crush of the year. So,
20. 0:29I started noticing the little things.
21. 0:30Every single morning Theo asked to come
22. 0:32in at 7:40, 20 minutes before the bell,
23. 0:34said he likes the quiet. Every day he
24. 0:35forgot something in the hall and slipped
25. 0:37out right before Ren got to school. And
26. 0:38he kept a folded index card tucked in
27. 0:40his sleeve that he'd check, read twice,
28. 0:41then hide the second anyone leaned in. I
29. 0:43assumed it was a list of things he was
30. 0:44working up the nerve to say to her. I
31. 0:46thought it was sweet. What I didn't know
32. 0:47was that Dylan Roark was watching Theo,
33. 0:49too. Loud kid, front row, the type who
34. 0:51needs a crowd to feel real. Dylan had
35. 0:53decided Theo was easy sport. "Where's he
36. 0:54sneak off to every morning?" he'd say,
37. 0:56just loud enough for the back rows. "But
38. 0:58that card's a little love poem." It
39. 1:00broke open on a Tuesday. Theo set the
40. 1:01card on his desk for a second and Dylan
41. 1:03swept it to the floor on his way past.
42. 1:04Not an accident. He snatched it up,
43. 1:06climbed onto a chair, and waved it over
44. 1:07his head. "Let's hear Theo's love
45. 1:08letter." The whole room turned. Theo
46. 1:10stood so fast his chair cracked against
47. 1:12the wall. His face wasn't pink anymore.
48. 1:13It was gray. I was already moving toward
49. 1:15Dylan, but he'd unfolded it and started
50. 1:16reading out loud, grinning, waiting for
51. 1:18hearts and poems. He got four words in
52. 1:19and stopped. It wasn't a letter. It was
53. 1:21a log. Dates down the left, tiny check
54. 1:23marks down the right, six weeks of them.
55. 1:24And under a few of the dates in Theo's
56. 1:26careful print were short copied phrases.
57. 1:27The kind of words you don't say out loud
58. 1:29in a classroom. At the top of the card
59. 1:30it read, "Get there first. Wipe it
60. 1:32before she does." The room went the kind
61. 1:33of quiet eighth graders never get. I
62. 1:35read the next line over Dylan's shoulder
63. 1:36and my stomach dropped. Someone had been
64. 1:38writing things on Ren's locker every
65. 1:40morning. The slurs, the go back where
66. 1:42you came from, the worst of it right at
67. 1:43eye level where she'd see it the second
68. 1:45she walked in. Theo had figured it out
69. 1:46weeks ago. So, every morning he came in
70. 1:48early, found the words, and scrubbed
71. 1:49them off with a paper towel and the
72. 1:51whiteboard spray from my cart before Ren
73. 1:52ever reached that hall. The card was him
74. 1:54keeping track so he'd never miss a
75. 1:55single day. Six weeks. He never told a
76. 1:57soul. Not a teacher, not her. But here's
77. 1:58where the floor really gave out. Dylan's
78. 2:00voice had gone thin halfway through, and
79. 2:01I watched his face turn from a grin to
80. 2:03something white and sick because he
81. 2:04recognized the words on that card. He'd
82. 2:05written them. Theo hadn't just been
83. 2:07cleaning up after a bully. He'd been
84. 2:08copying down the exact evidence in the
85. 2:10bully's own phrasing. Never once knowing
86. 2:11whose hand it was. Dylan climbed off
87. 2:13that chair like it had caught fire. He
88. 2:14set the card back on Theo's desk. He
89. 2:16didn't say sorry, couldn't. Just sat
90. 2:18down and stared at his hands. Nobody
91. 2:19laughed. A couple of kids were crying. I
92. 2:21wasn't far off, but the part that
93. 2:22wrecked me came after the bell. Ren
94. 2:24stayed behind and asked, cheeks burning,
95. 2:26if she could leave something in Theo's
96. 2:27locker before he got there tomorrow. She
97. 2:28handed me a folded paper to pass along
98. 2:30and hurried out before I could get a
99. 2:31word out. I shouldn't have looked. I
100. 2:33looked. It was a list. Dates down one
101. 2:34side, the same six weeks, and a note at
102. 2:36the bottom in careful letters. I saw the
103. 2:38first one before you got fast. I've come
104. 2:40early every day since just to watch you
105. 2:42make them disappear. I never let you
106. 2:43catch me so you'd never have to feel
107. 2:45strange about being that kind. Two kids,
108. 2:46each one guarding the other from a
109. 2:48truth. Both of them in an empty hallway
110. 2:49every single morning, 40 feet apart.
111. 2:51Neither one ever said a single word.