Mikey genuinely hadn't been staring at Gina on the day that he'd gotten in trouble for it, but today? Well, who could blame him? Literally overnight, she had transformed from a pudgy little 11 year-old right up into a curvy teenage dream. And Mikey seemed to be the only person who noticed anything different.
At first he was just staring because, why was a highschooler in his class? But when she sat down in Gina's seat, the lightbulb of familiarity went off in Mikey's head and he connected the dots. He didn't understand the dots, but he connected them. Despite his position in the front row, he spent basically the entirety of first period trying to twist and turn to sneak looks at her. Initially it was just to figure out what had happened, to piece together this adult-sized anomaly sitting among a classroom of sixth graders. But despite himself, and in a bit of irony, the more he he looked, the more his budding little libido took over.
Gina, a small voice he didn't want to acknowledge spoke within his mind, was pretty.
For her part, Gina obviously noticed that Mikey was staring at her. And at first it inspired a flare of annoyance, but the more times it happened, the more first period went on, the more empathy she started to feel for the boy. He was just growing up, and he was just being curious. She'd have to talk to him about boundaries and being aware of other people's comfort zones, but it was part of her responsibility to have those kinds of conversations with him, wasn't it?
Was it? A whisper of doubt told Gina that she wasn't responsible for Mikey at all, but she dismissed that voice. Of course she had a relationship with Mikey that was different from all of her other classmates.
For second period, both Gina and Mikey had free study in the library, and Gina approached him the moment she saw him. "Hey, Mikey." She spoke the words with Jon's casual manner. "Why don't the two of us sit down and take a look at your history project?"
Mikey had been working on a report about the rich culture and history of Toledo, Ohio, but he hadn't gotten very far. He wasn't sure how Gina knew about the report, she wasn't in that class with him. But Jon knew about the project, and so Gina unwittingly gained that knowledge.
The two sat down at a table together, and Mikey quickly found his eyes at boob-level with Gina, who sighed and put a hand on his shoulder with an unearned level of familiarity. "Eyes up here, kiddo," she pointed to her own face, then gave him an earnest smile. "Listen, girls don't like it when you stare at them like that. You're lucky it's just me, and I know where you're coming from, but you need to be more aware of other people's feelings. How would you feel if there was a girl who kept staring at you, even though you don't like her?"
There was something unsettling and familiar about the way Gina was speaking. This was definitely not the same tattletale Gina that Mikey had been suffering through all year. She was friendly, she was giving him attention, she was smart, and kind, and... and even as Mikey found himself listening and understanding the lesson she was trying to teach him, he found that his downstairs brain kept on giving him other ideas. Bit he tried to ignore them. He found that he really wanted to make Gina proud, and show her that he could do what she asked.
After a few more minutes of gentle lecture, Gina turned back to face the table and said that they should really start work on Mikey's project. Then she produced a book that she'd picked up before Mikey had arrived in the library: "The Best Things About Toledo, Ohio."
But when she opened it up, there was only one page, and only one word on that page: "Leaving."
The two students gave synchronized exasperated grunts, and then turned back to the shelves to find another book.
