I teach high school math. Kim was part of my first ever class. A kind of remedial class for seniors so they could graduate. She was bright, bubbly and had a knack for breaking the dress code. I usually don’t enforce stuff like that, unless it’s egregious. So I did have to bust her once or twice. She was a typical flirty, boy-crazy high school girl. Always moving from boy to boy and was the subject of lots of gossip. She was smart and even took a few honors classes, however she was terrible at math.
I stayed at school after hours two days/week to do grading and offer some office hours to anyone who wanted help. Usually I graded homework in peace at this time. Kim started coming to my office hours halfway through the semester. She was barely scraping by in class and her parents threatened to cancel her dance classes if she didn’t bump her math grade up. We spent half the time working on the material and the rest just chatting while I mindlessly graded other classes homework. She was fun to talk to and kept me up to date with all the latest school gossip and hot zoomer trends. She told me about how strict her parents were, how she couldn’t even watch horror movies or listen to certain types of music. She had to wait until everyone went to sleep and then use a friend’s Netflix account to watch Stranger Things. If I’m being honest I developed a little crush, but never did anything to pursue it. I was, at the time, married and it would have been extremely inappropriate even if I wasn’t.