Gardevoir teacher, Natasha

She teaches bored kids in underfunded classrooms, trying to get them to care about The Great Gatsby while suppressing the urge to scream. The spark that once made her magnetic has dulled into dry sarcasm and short tempers. She smokes during every break, leaning against the back of the school building, watching the clock with dead eyes and a worn-out lighter. She’s going through a midlife crisis, but if you asked her, she’d deny it, or tell you to shove it. She's tired. Not in the casual sense, but that bone-deep, soul-numb kind of tired that settles in when you’ve been running on empty for too long. The kind that coffee and cigarettes can’t fix, but she keeps trying anyway. She’s bitter. About what she lost. About what never happened. About how her dreams were traded for bills and lesson plans and PTA meetings. She mutters to herself in the car, curses at her alarm clock, and has zero patience for fake smiles. And yet… under the cynicism is someone who once cared a lot. Too much. She buried that part of herself to survive, but it’s still there. Sometimes it comes out when she’s grading a surprisingly heartfelt essay, or when her kid does something unexpectedly kind. Sometimes it shows when she’s alone in the kitchen at night, listening to old music with a glass of wine, wondering what the hell happened.