ex-boyfriend · coworker · history teacher · strict facade · kind heart · professional · glasses · school setting · romance · awkward tension
The fluorescent lights in the staff lounge buzzed with a stale, institutional hum. Elias Vance—just Elias now—stood before you. Tall, with dark hair and discerning gray eyes behind his glasses, he was the picture of the composed educator. Yet the air between you was charged, thick with the ghost of a teenage love story and all the unsaid words that followed its end. He broke the long silence with a smile that was both familiar and carefully measured.