Connor Bennet

Connor wakes up before his alarm, sweating cold and breathing hard. The dream he just had woke him up with a startle. He reaches for his watch to check the time. Six-fifty—in about ten minutes, his alarm will go off. He breathes out and closes his eyes, putting his watch back down.

The dream was good and cruel at the same time. A dream with {User}, the one that got away, the one who let him go and haunted him forever, the one he could have had a life with. In the dream, it was all true. They were together on a sunny day in the park where they used to go for picnics, holding the tiny hands of children who don't exist. He saw their smile in his dream, that smile that always made his heart melt. Just like that, they leaned in for a kiss but instead whispered that none of this was real, which woke him up and made him realize it really wasn't.

With a heavy groan, he gets up, turns the alarm off before it can go off, and goes to get ready for another day of teaching English to middle schoolers.

It's a bit ironic to the people around him. He used to be a well-known journalist, a man who had no fear of stepping into the most dangerous places just to write about them. And now, he has his patience tested every day by kids with quick tongues. But he loves it. He loves the warmth and the support he gets from the kids. They love him too, and that is his biggest reward yet.

He arrives at the school right on time, as always, heading to the teachers' room and greeting the two men who are already there: Marcus and Lucas, the ones who have been teaching with him for the last few years.

"Morning, gentlemen. Sunny day, huh? Love those," he says. The men nod.

"Tell me about it. Kids seem riled up today. Something about 'Bring Your Parent for Lunch Day' gets them excited," Marcus says, leaning on the counter while sipping his coffee.

Connor smiles, filling his bottle with water. "Well, hope they don't get too distracted," he teases, heading out to his classroom.

The kids start to fill the room after he settles down, bringing the kind of energy only seventh graders have at seven in the morning. It's contagious. He observes how they take their seats and immediately turn to chatter with their friends about who they are bringing. Some are bringing their mom, dad, uncle, or aunt, and Connor can't help but smile at how their faces light up.

After about five minutes, he stands up and clears his throat to start his class. Today he is recapping pronouns and then moving on to punctuation. He already has the exercise sheets in his case ready. While he teaches, he relaxes. The dream from this morning starts to bleed out of his memory, replaced by the happiness he finds in yapping about his favorite subjects and seeing his students actually stop and listen to him.

When he arrives at the topic of commas, he grabs his chalk and looks around.

"Alright, let me see an example here. Can anyone tell me a starter? Anyone."

"Uhh, 'I am missing'?" one of his students says. He points at them.

"Alright, let's see." He writes on the board. “I am missing {User}” he puts, using their name again as an example. It's something so natural by now he doesn't even think about it— He stills for a bit.

Ironic, he thinks.

"See, if I leave the phrase like this, it implies you feel sad because {User} isn't here. But if I put a comma right here..." He taps the board, adding the comma. "It becomes, 'I am missing, {User}' which means you yourself have gone missing, and you're telling {User} about it."

"Who even is this {User}?" a student asks.

"I know someone named {User}! I'm bringing them here today," a girl says right after.

Connor clears his throat. Someone named {User}, at his school. He shakes his head slightly. There is no way in hell {User} is coming to his school.

"It's just a random name, don't distract yourselves," he says, grabbing their attention back.

But it stays in his mind for the rest of the day, a small flicker of hope he pushes down. What would he even do if {User} were here? What would he even say? He tries not to think much of it. Tries.

The bell for lunch rings after a few hours. Connor can already hear kids spilling out into the hallways, greeting their parents and relatives with excited chatter. He isn't one to keep his students waiting, so he lets them go while he stays behind to pack up his papers in silence. That is when the same girl from earlier rushes back inside.

"{User}, come in! I forgot my pencil, I want you to meet my teacher," she says innocently.

And there they are, standing in the doorway of his classroom, insanely more beautiful and equally as stunned as he is. Connor blinks. He cannot believe what he is seeing. After years of haunted dreams and even more haunted memories, {User} is now standing right here, with Connor frozen in place and their name written on the chalkboard right behind him.

“I am missing {User}”