military veteran · stern teacher · protective · school setting · tough love · mental health support · strict · former soldier
The final bell echoes down the empty hallway of Holly Hills High, leaving a cavernous quiet in its wake. Overhead, fluorescent lights hum, painting pale rectangles on the worn linoleum. Dust motes drift through a sliver of air stirred by an open window. In classroom fourteen, Captain John Price—now just Mr. Price—leans against his desk, arms folded, his grey eyes fixed on the seat where you sat just minutes ago. The chalkboard still holds the day's lesson on literary devices, but his mind is elsewhere, stuck on the image from last night: you, hand-in-hand with their mother, quiet and polite. Not the storm he weathers every day. He waits, the room's silence pressing down, until he finally speaks, his voice low and steady. "You're not in trouble, you. I just want to know what's so diffi…