Forbidden Love

Chapter 1 - Classroom

Red or black…Red or black.

I stared at the two different colored shoes while “SuperBass” by Nicki Minaj played in the background. I

sighed; getting up in the morning is one thing, but choosing your outfit is another.

Being the only black person in an all-white environment is difficult for me. I always have to wear stupid

classy clothes to be able to fit in with the other white teachers. It’s not helpful knowing that the school

only hired me because they needed diversity points.

I love my job, and I love the kids, but sometimes, I wish there were some black brothers and sisters in

this mess.

Finally deciding on the black shoes, I put them on before I turned off the music and closed the lights in

my fairly small bedroom. I grabbed my two class binders and briefcase then rushed out the door.

I stuffed everything into the backseats of my car, making sure they were secure before I hopped into

the driver's seat.

Miraculously, I was able to get to my classroom early and set everything up. I made sure to keep the

doors to the classroom open, so the children could come streaming in with their nannies—yeah,

nannies.

None of the white rich parents had time to bring their children to school. They were too busy making big

cash.

Slowly but surely, my first grade students started making their way into the classroom. As they came in,

I gave them highfives and told them to pick a colored stick from a jar.

Once everyone finished walking in and unpacking their things, I began to speak.

“Good morning, kids! I hope you all had a good night’s sleep!” I told them, smiling as I looked at every

single student one by one.

“Good morning, Miss Aisha!” the kids shouted back enthusiastically.

“Today, we are going to be doing station groups. When you came in, I told you all to pick a colored

popsicle stick. I want everyone who has green to come up to the front,” I ordered.

The kids with the green popsicle sticks slowly started shuffling towards my desk. After making sure

they all had the right colors, I sent them to the building blocks section.

Next was the coloring section, then the reading sections, and finally the numbers corner. Once

everyone was in their correct groups, I went to my desk and began replying to some emails I got this

morning.

Not long after I began going through my email, I heard wailing coming from the building block section. I

got up from my seat and looked to see that Jenna was the one wailing.

“Jenna, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Didi took my block!” she cried.

I looked over at Didi who had a cheeky little grin on his face. “What did I say about taking people’s

things without asking?” I asked, placing a hand on my hip.

His smile disappeared from his face and was instead replaced by a soft frown.

“W-we not allowed to and—and we suppos…be kind,” he struggled to say.

“Good. Now what should you say to Jenna?”

He looked up at her bashfully. “S-sowwy…Here’s your block.”

Jenna smiled as she took the block, then began building a tower with him.

I couldn’t help but coo, they were adorable.

Five minutes later, I had the kids all rotate and go to a different station. Once the kids got settled down

in their new stations, I saw my boss—the principal—poke her brunette head around the door, asking if

it was alright to come in.

I nodded my head, smiling brightly at her.

“Hey, Aisha! I see you’re still doing wonders with this class. Out of all the classrooms, you’ve managed

to have the kids under complete control,” the principal smiled sweetly.

My smile faltered for a moment. I knew exactly what she was doing. She would always come into my

classroom, compliment me and my work, then ask for a stupid favor. Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Thank you so much, Miranda. The kids are absolutely wonderful,” I replied with a soft smile.

Miranda—my boss—laughed a bit for no particular reason. “I have a little favor to ask…Do you mind

watching a little girl from Amy’s classroom, please? She’s been a bit of a handful lately and I figured

you’d be able to keep her under control since you’re able to keep your class under control! I hope you

don’t mind taking in just one more child.”

“Of course, I don’t mind taking her in!”—Even though I don’t want to.—“What’s her name?”

“Oh, you are such a dear! Her name is Jasmine Brown, I’ll send her over right now!” Miranda said as

she left the classroom to get Jasmine.

As I waited for Jasmine to come, I took a moment to consider how my life is at the moment. I looked at

the kids in my classroom. They’re everything to me. They might not have the best parents in the world,

but at least their parents care enough to pay for them to go to an expensive private school.

Scared Academy is one of the best private schools in California. Their education system is amazing,

but their prices are pretty high and they lack diversity among their students and staff. Unfortunately, the

staff also don’t know how to communicate to their students, and therefore end up treating them like

they’re a pair of beat up shoes they own. But, the education makes up for that, right?

Another thing I’ve noticed from working at the school is that the teachers don’t even care about their

students. They only care about the money, which is shameful and a tad bit disgusting.

I never understood them.

They think coming to school wearing expensive clothes and accessories is more important than sitting

down and learning about their students. Simply put, I did not like it at all.

At that very moment, Miranda walked into the classroom with an adorable little girl who I assumed to be

Jasmine.

Jasmine had long, very curly hair that looked like it hadn’t been taken care of very well. Her eyes were

neither big nor small, and she was short, which was expected since she was still in 1st grade. She was

wearing a cute little pink dress and had on a pissy look on her face.

I smiled as I walked right up to her. I bent down so we were face to face. “Hi, Jasmine! You can call me

Miss Aisha. I’m going to be taking care of you for the rest of the day, okay?”

She nodded.

“I also like your dress. It looks very pretty on you,” I complimented her.

That made her eyes light up, and she giggled. “Thank you!”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I need to talk to Miranda, so I need you to go to the coloring section of the

classroom. It’s right over there. Can you do that for me?” I asked, pointing at the coloring section.

Jasmine looked to where I was pointing before she nodded her head yes. I watched her as she walked

to the station lazily.

I turned back to face Miranda. “How long is she going to be staying with me?” I asked.

“I think she’ll just stay in your class since you have more experience and patience than most of our

other teachers.”

I proudly smiled, knowing that I was very damn well one of the best teachers at the school.

“That’s perfectly fine. I’m happy as long as I can do my job. Do you know why she has been acting up?”

“She has her days. Her parents split up and they’re co-parenting. She stays with her dad on weekdays,

then goes to see her mom on the weekend. Maybe that’s one of the reasons. Parents can play a huge

role in a child’s life,” Miranda sighed out.

“Yeah, tell me about it. At least it seems like her parents are doing the best they can. Mine didn’t even

want to keep me,” I sadly laughed, knowing that I was oversharing.

Miranda smiled sadly at me. Her smile told me enough. She was just pitying me.

“I’m sorry, Aisha,” she softly said.

I sighed. “It’s not you who should be apologizing. I’m going to get back to my class now, I know you

have more important work to do.”

“Yep, you are correct,” she said, chuckling. “I will check up on you and Jasmine later today. It was nice

talking to you!”

“You too!” I replied back before I made my way to my desk, where I got into my thoughts.

I hate how my biological parents had a big affect on me. I never got the chance to meet them since

they didn’t want me. I was put into the foster care system and ended up jumping around in different

houses, until one day, a beautiful family decided they wanted to keep me.

I have ten siblings. All of them are adopted (including me), except two. Even though I’m not blood

related to them, they treat me like I am. They treat me with so much love and passion. I will forever be

grateful for them.

I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard the bell ring. It was time for lunch.

I always gave my students a choice for whether they wanted to eat in the lunchroom or in the

classroom. In the classroom, we usually put on a movie and watched it as we ate our lunch.

“Class, do you guys want to eat in the classroom and watch a movie or do you want to go to the

lunchroom?” I asked the class.

“Movie!” the students all shouted, making me laugh since they were acting like they won a million

dollars.

“Okay! Calm down, we don’t want the mean boss to come in here,” I said, whispering the last part. It

was a harmless joke that made the kids all giggle.

“Guys, you want to watch a movie and eat your lunch here, you have to clean up the classroom first!” I

announced.

“Okay, Miss Aisha!” they all said in usion.

It took them about 10 minutes to clean up everything. I was happy knowing that they were working

together and not fighting.

While they were taking out their lunch boxes, I was setting up the movie for the kids. I put on The

Smurfs, since it was appropriate for their grade level.

Once all the kids were seated in their assigned seats with their lunchboxes in front of them, I noticed

that Jasmine didn’t have her lunchbox. I was confused since I thought all the kids brought their lunch,

but clearly that wasn’t the case.

I started the movie, then called Jasmine over so I could talk to her quietly.

“Jasmine, where’s your lunchbox, sweetie?” I asked once she came up to my desk.

“Daddy forgot to give it to m-me…he was in a rush,” she said.

“Aw, sweetie. Well, I don’t want you to go hungry for the rest of the day, so I’ll give you some of my

lunch. I hope you like tuna sandwiches, fries,soda, and potato chips. Those are my favorite,” I told her

as I smiled.

She looked slightly happy, but also really sad at the same time.

“Are you okay, sweetie? Are you not hungry?”

“I hungry, b-but mommy told me eating f-food makes me f-fat…” she stuttered out, looking away from

me.

I was stunned. What kind of mother tells their children that? It’s disgusting and unacceptable. It made

me even more suspicious, but I can’t say anything until I know everything.

“Oh,

no, sweetie. It doesn’t make you fat. Food makes you strong. Don’t listen to your mom when she tells

you anything mean, okay? You look beautiful no matter what. Now go eat your food like the strong girl

you are.”

She smiled and gave me a tight hug before she walked away with the food I gave her. I looked over at

the clock and saw that it was already 1 o’clock. I might as well let them watch as much as they can

before school ends since it ends at 1:30 PM.

I remembered that I also had an important meeting today where we were gonna discuss how to make

the kids' education better and whatnot.

How fun, I thought as I mentally rolled my eyes.

“Guys! The school day is almost over. Please finish eating then throw the garbage away. When you’re

done, please go get your backpacks and jackets and place them by your chairs. You can keep

watching the movie until the bell rings,” I announced to the class.

The students immediately began doing what I asked them to do, talking to their friends as they did it.

They continued to eat their food while I finished answering the last of my emails.

I hated how many emails I had to answer everyday. From parents asking me about their kids, to

teachers and other staff asking for feedback and whatnot.

I always told the parents that they could ask me as many questions as they wanted when we had a

parent teacher conference but they kept sending emails regardless.

After replying to the last email I had, I heard the bell ring. I paused the movie and looked up to see that

my students were already ready to go, which made me smile proudly.

I led them out of class and outside to the front of the school so they could get picked up by their

nannies. Spoiled kids these days, huh?

“Miss Aisha, that’s my nanny!” Jenna announced excitedly. She hugged me goodbye then went to her

nanny.

Soon, every single one of my students were gone except for Jasmine who was staring down at the

cement. She looked sad, so I decided to check up on her.

I grabbed her hand and led her to a bench, which we both sat down on.

“You okay, Jasmine?” I asked.

“I think daddy forgot me…” her voice trailed off. She sounded disappointed.

“I don’t think he forgot, sweetie. I think he’s running late, don’t worry,” I replied, trying to raise her hopes

up a bit.

“Really?”

“Yes.” I smiled. After a few silent seconds passed, I remembered I had candy. “Oh! I have candy, do

you want some?” I asked.

Jasmine’s eyes lit up. “Candy? Really?”

I nodded my head. “Here you go,” I said, handing her a pink lollipop.

She began giggling, although I didn’t know why. I ended up laughing too, despite not knowing why we

were laughing.

Out of nowhere, she hugged me tightly.

“Y-you’re a nice t-teacher,” she told me.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just hugged her tighter. I don’t know how long we hugged, but neither of

us let go until we heard someone clear their throat.

Jasmine pulled away and turned around to see the person who was clearing their throat. She launched

herself at him.

“Daddy!” she squealed happily.

The man picked her up and spun her around in the air, which made me chuckle at how cute the two

were.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, turning to me. I couldn’t help but blush a bit since he was very handsome.

He looked to be in his twenties and he was well-built. Thankfully, he was also black which made me

glad. I half expected Jasmine’s father to be white, despite her dark skin tone that matched my own.

“I understand. But please, don’t forget to bring Jasmine her lunch next time. She was hungry, Mister

—?”

“Please, call me Elijah. And I know. We were both in a rush and I completely forgot to hand her her

lunchbox. I apologize, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Are you the new teacher?” he—Elijah

—asked. His deep voice was surprisingly smooth, and his name really suited him.

Gosh, I needed to stay professional.

“Alright, no worries. I gave her some of my food—a tuna sandwich, soda, and some potato chips. I

hope you don’t mind. And, yes, I’m her teacher as of now.”

Elijah grinned. “That’s great. I can tell she already likes you. It was nice talking to you, Miss?”

“Aisha.”

“It was nice meeting you, Aisha. We’ll be seeing each other more often, I presume,” he said.

I nodded my head. “It was nice meeting you, too. See you guys later. Bye, Jasmine!”

The two walked away together, but not after Jasmine shyly waved bye to me. As they walked away

from me, I got a message from Miranda saying that the meeting was canceled and I could go home

early, thankfully. I couldn’t wait to go home and catch up on some sleep.

I made my way to my car and drove home. The whole drive, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jasmine and

Elijah. Both of them seemed like sweet souls and I felt like maybe I would be seeing them more often.

When I made it home, I put my things away and got ready for bed. I wore my pajamas then hopped into

my bed.

I wanted to call my friends and tell them about what happened at work today, but I would do that

tomorrow since tomorrow would be Saturday and I didn’t work on Saturdays.

I laid on my bed, feeling relaxed and a bit happy which is unusual.

Maybe life will finally give me a break and a chance to breathe. Maybe things will get simpler and

easier. Maybe I’ll finally be happy…

Maybe it’s time for some good to happen.

Before I knew it, I drifted off to sleep.