Generally when a student runs into one of their former teachers it can be a time to reminisce, laugh, apologize for your bad attitude as a student in their class, and continue on about your day with little awkwardness. There are also times when you simply avoid them and hope they don’t recognize you because you really were the terror of the classroom and you don’t want to have to fess up to being a jerk to them. I would have welcomed either of those kinds of interactions over the one I got though.

I didn’t recognize him until I leaned down and put my forearm on the window of the car. He looked almost exactly the same except for a prominent grey streak at his temple that hadn’t been there only five years ago.

He wasn’t smiling and he barely glanced at me as I stared silently, my normal greeting caught in my throat as I wondered if he recognized me at all. His voice was deep and firm, “Get in.” That was not a demeanor I recognized from him. He used to be soft, gentle as he spoke to us in class, taking the time to break things down and explain the why and not just the what.

I opened the car door and sat down and quietly. I began to twist a strand of my hair around my finger as I bit my lip and shifted nervously on the front seat. He started to pull away but stopped a short ways down the street and leaned over me, I absolutely froze, couldn’t even take a breath as he grabbed the seat belt and pulled it around me and clicked it into place and resumed driving.

For the entire car ride there was an uneasy tension between us and I’m not sure if it was because he knew I was his former student, or because he’d never really picked up a prostitute before. He pulled into the parking lot of a shitbag motel down the street from where I worked and looked me over, “How old are you?” he asked.

“Eighteen,” I barely squeaked out.

“You don’t look eighteen. Do you have an ID?” he asked.

I looked at him, my face skewed slightly in worry as I questioned whether I should show him my ID or not, “I-I can’t show you that. It has my full name and address on it.”

The muscle at the back of his jaw clenched, “Cover your name and address. I just want to see your birth date,” he said.

I rifled through the backpack I had with me, oddly enough it was the same backpack I’d used all through high school and his signature and well wishes for my future was among the many others my teachers had written on it at the end of my freshman year. I pulled out my ID and covered my name and address but left my birth date and photo available to see. He seemed satisfied with it and went into the main office of the motel. I waited quietly in the car.