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“Hey Dr. Jones.”
“Ms. Moore!” Dr. Jones said happily. “Good to see you. I like your Shakespeare dress.”
“Oh, thanks," Violet said. Her dresses were nerdy, and everyone knew it - but they were always cheap on Amazon. And they were funny. “Tomorrow is going to be a book dress.”
“That’s fantastic. If only your students could see your wit.”
“Some of them do," Violet said. “When they’re not mad at me for assigning reading.”
“They all love you," he said. “Your track record speaks for itself.”
Violet couldn’t help but blush at the praise. At the end of the day, she was good at her job. She liked teaching and liked spending extra time helping kids actually learn the material. While she hated standardized tests, her class’s scores were high. But the greatest satisfaction came at the end of the year, when she would look back and see how far they came.
“Speaking of your record, I wanted to ask if you were available to do work on the Winter festival this year.”
Violet nodded, thinking of the back-to-school event that happened every year. It was a time when the school put on a fun learning event for the kids and their parents to attend. There was free food and lots of activities that needed a lot of planning.
Technically, the event wasn’t until after Liv and Lewis’s wedding, and it was a fun event.
“I can help," she said. “Send me an email of what you need me on.”
“Thank you, Ms. Moore. It’s good to know we can always count on you.”
Yes, they could. Maybe then she would get a decent raise or something to account for how much she worked her ass off.
But that wasn’t up to Dr. Jones anyways. He submitted his recommendations, but the school board was the one who offered raises and promotions, not him. So, her anger couldn’t be directed at her good-natured boss.
She walked away from the conversation focusing on how she was going to get everything done. It was going to be tight, but she could still do it.
From there, her day didn’t get any better. Her students were all in a bad mood, and when sixth graders were angry, they were annoying.
After lunch rolled around, Violet had a headache beginning to form behind her eyes. One of the teachers had an emergency, and there were no subs available, so she had double the classes to ensure the kids had a place to study.
Then, one of her students, Jason, decided to act out, and she almost had to send him to Dr. Jones. She hated doing that because it never got anything done. It only made the child leave the classroom.
By the time the day was over, all Violet wanted to do was drink an entire bottle of wine. She couldn’t shake her headache, but she also couldn’t go to sleep because she had papers to grade.
It was such a bad day that she drove home in total silence.
Her apartment complex was old. It hadn’t been maintained in thirty years, and she kept pepper spray on her anytime she was outside.
The lock barely worked, and she had to put her entire weight on the door to get in. But when she finally got in, she was greeted with the familiar smell of old lady and mold. But it was her home, so she couldn’t complain.
Her upstairs neighbors were being loud, and their footsteps were echoing through her pounding head. Violet sighed and tried not to grab the broom to hit against the ceiling. Her day couldn’t have gone worse.
Violet rubbed her temples and headed to her fridge. She got some wine and flopped on the couch, glad she was alone, and the day was over.
That was when the ceiling started creaking.
Violet glanced up, hoping it was all in her imagination, but then she saw a crack form, right in the middle of the ceiling.
For a second, she blinked dumbly. Was that real? Or was she crazy?
Still, her chest tightened. Cracks shouldn’t be forming in ceilings - at least not that fast.
She stood and watched as the crack grew, and her ceiling bowed downward. She walked backwards to her door, as her ceiling got lower and lower. She threw her weight on the door and had just made it out as the building let out a loud groan. Water began spewing out of the crack, and Violet watched as the ceiling fell in.
Violet covered her face and felt water splash her from head to toe. She heard screams that might have been her own, and she helplessly curled in on herself as things crashed around her. She was powerless in the wake of the destruction, and she could only wait for it to be over.
