12| Teachers

Chapter Twelve

Alessio

Aria takes a bite out of her small bowl of cereal. "So, how's Alice? When is she coming back?" Aria asks

I grit my teeth as I take my own bite of cereal. "I don't know," I admit. Alice has denied me from visiting her. And I can't even say anything due to me not being her husband. I haven't heard a peep from Alice since they carted her off and out the house. And how can I blame her? She said she didn't want to go, and I helped Dr.Avery take her anyways.

"Oh," she takes another bite of her cereal, and I do the same. This is Aria and my new normal for the last week since Alice has been gone. Every morning, I wake her up at seven, and we have breakfast together before she comes to work with me. I don't think it's a good idea to leave Ari by herself-especially since she's a child of abandonment and many other things.

The last thing an abandoned child needs is to be left alone. There's no one home with the absence of Alice, and Meredith is on vacation. So, for a child-like Aria, it would be best she stayed with me.

"When are you going to bring Charlie back to the house? He misses you," she says.

I know Charlie misses me. But he misses Alice more, and she's not here. At it would hurt for him to come home and for her not to be here. I rather he stays with Odette for now, and he loves Odette. Probably more than me as of late. "Soon."

"For lunch today, can we go to that place again?" Aria asks as she takes another scoop of her cereal.

"You know there are plenty of other places we can go to."

"Yeah, but they have the best steaks there."

"You do know most kids your age prefers cheeseburgers and fries, but you want steak."

She shrugs her shoulders. "I thought it was already obvious enough that I was not like most kids, Alessio."

Well, she isn't wrong.

I grab my bowl of empty cereal and toss it in the sink. Aria scoops the last few bites and tosses her own bowl in too. She grabs her phone and her bag that's probably filled with her sketchbook she made me buy her and pencils. "Aria, for warning, you have your teacher video call to start your lessons." I walk to the garage full of cars with Aria behind me.

Aria grumbles under her breath. Alice, before she left, wanted this for Aria. She wanted her to catch up with her education so she can go to school and attempt to live normally. But, she has a goal to be some assassin. "Why do I have to go to school. I'm just gonna be an assassin."

"Alice, an assassin is not a viable living."

"Tell that to your big house and cars."

I click my tongue. It's not helpful to discourage things, especially when it's so damn profitable. "Well, how about this. You won't be much of an assassin if you can't read or even count the number of people in the vicinity. And besides, we had a deal."

A deal that if she plans on staying with Alice and me, then she had to go to school. And even if she doesn't go to school, I won't kick her out. But she needs an education. I know better than anyone how difficult it is to live through life without the basics.

I still struggle with certain things due to my lack of foundation in life.

We get into the car and drive to the office. I walk next to Aria, and after one week of this, she still looks out of place. A kid in an assassin's office. The look Damien gave me was even more annoying when I told everyone her killer background and how it's somewhat business as usual around her.

They think she's some black widow in training. Or some kid intern that will one day be hired.

"Aria!' Tara says, rushing to her with Odette, Charlie, and Damien in tow.

Aria immediately smiles when she sees the four. She's tackled by Charlie first, whom she gives a few scratches behind the ear. This is gonna be a while. "Aria, just come into my office when you're done. Okay? Your teacher will be on the video call in ten minutes."

"Okay," she grumbles, turning her attention to the others as if I said nothing. I walk into my office and eye the small desk I had put together. Aria is gonna sit there and work. I know if I don't watch her, she's gonna slack off, or worse, not even listen. And there's gonna be questions...lots of questions I need to answer.

I set up her computer, and already there is her teacher. "Hello!" The young teacher gleams over the laptop.

"Hello," I say. I take a seat in front of the camera, and I adjust my jacket. "I'll get Aria."

"Wait!" She says before I can get up.

"Yes?"

"I wanted to talk to you and introduce myself before I start the journey with your daughter."

"She's not my daughter," I tell her.

"Yes...um, well, you are her caretaker, and I-I just wanna know a bit about Aria."

"Um...Miss," I trail on.

"Dickenson," she adds.

What can I say about Aria?

There's so much about Aria that I've learned in the last week. She likes to sleep in complete darkness, and it takes a lot to wake her up because no alarm is loud enough. Which, of course scares the shit out of me just thinking about her life. She is strangely creeped out by horror movies, so much that I slept on the chair in her room after one.

She enjoys way too much sugar, and maybe Alice is right about taking her to the dentist because she forgets to brush her teeth at night. And she's curious-a very curious girl who is always looking around trying to learn new things about the business.

And when she doesn't know something, she acts as if she does. And when no one is looking or when she thinks no one is. She grabs her phone and asks Siri out loud because she has no idea how to spell the words she doesn't know.

There is so much about Aria that I cannot simply explain. And there's so much more to her as well.

"Ms.Dickenson, to start, Aria is a bit more mature than people her age. And she has been through so much. She might not ask you for help so if you see her struggling-which you know she is if you look at her eyebrows and they furrow. Just show her again and not make a big deal of it. Aria tends to think she knows everything too, so you'll have to deal with that. And also-"

Ms.Dickenson laughs, "okay. But, I was wondering what her favorite food was or something she would like. I give all my students an incentive to do better, and in my practice, with children like her, they do a lot better."

"Oh, promise her ice cream. I've cut her off on ice cream. She eats it by the ton, it seems, and she doesn't think I know this, but she's trying to get her to fix from the people around the office. So promise her ice cream."

She nods her head. "Okay, I got it. Ice cream outing every Friday."

Aria opens the door, with Charlie in tow. "Alessio, you won't ever let me have any fun," she announces.

"Sure, I do. You stay up late, and I buy you steaks almost every day. I just don't want you to rot your teeth and be malnourished with all that ice cream you've been consuming more than water." She sucks in her teeth. "Now, sit down. Ms.Dickenson," she lets out a low laugh. Of course, she's laughing. I explicitly state she is mature for her age, and she laughs at her teacher's name because it has dick in it. "Aria," I warn. "Sit down. Your teacher wants to meet you."

Aria rolls her eyes and takes a seat in front of her small desk inside of my office. I take my own seat and try to eye the papers in front of me, but I can't help but listen to Aria and Ms.Dickenson.

"So, it's very nice to meet you, Aria. Mr.Russo has said a lot about you, and I think we're gonna have a great time together. Um, today I think we should take an aptitude test so I can really gauge where we are and what we can work on so next year you can go to the eighth grade with no problems at all."

"Great," she murmurs. "And if I pass this with flying colors, do I have to go?"

"Aria!"

Ms.Dickenson laughs, "sure. If you can pass with flying colors, then you won't have to take these classes. But in the off-chance, you do not. I would love to teach you, Aria. As you can see, I sent you the test. It's about one hundred questions. Twenty math, twenty English, twenty science, twenty health questions, and twenty Spanish ones as well."

Sounds simple enough-it will be her main subjects when she goes to school.

"Why do I need to do this test again?" Aria blunders.

"Because these are the cores, Aria. Now, are you ready?"

"I guess."

Aria's eyes widen at what is most likely her test being put in front of her. "Okay," she grumbles. "Question one, what is negative five plus two."

Negative three

"That's easy. Seven." Wrong. "This test is child's play. Okay...next question. One half over two equals X over four. What is X," she says, a tad slower than normal. "Huh?"

The answer is two-a simple equation you learn in elementary school.

"This must be a trick. X is obviously X," she says. "If not...what else could it be."

She has a long way to go.

I listen to Aria as she goes to each question. She has no concept of math that goes beyond addition and subtraction with little to no knowledge of multiplication and division. She reads at the level of a seven-year-old, and she does not know proper English terms. And for the other subjects that include: science, health, and Spanish. It would seem those subjects do not exist in her mind.

Dr.Dickenson has a lot of work to do.

"Okay," she smiles. "I'm finally done. Now tell me I got a perfect score," she says, a bit too smug.

"Um..." Ms. Dickenson starts. "Aria, how can I say this?" Aria, you failed miserably and may need to have these courses through the summer as well. And you will need a slew of tutors after.

"With ice cream? And an I underestimated you behind it."

"Um...Aria, you go every single one wrong."

"What?" I hold in my laugh and cover my face with the same paper I've been holding for the last hour. "This has to be a mistake." There is no mistake.

"Well, how about we go over the test, and I can show you."

"Please," Aria readjusts her seat and leans into the computer. I grab a nearby piece of paper and pencil and put it on her desk.

"Take notes, Aria. It'll help if you do it on paper too."

"Thank you," she says, turning her attention to her teacher.

It seems like I forgot to mention how determined she is.

~

"So, Alessio, did you know there are eight planets," she gawks as she cuts into her steak.

"Yes, I did. There used to be nine about ten years ago."

"Really?" She says a bit too loudly. "What happened?"

"Something along the lines that it didn't meet the criteria." I take a bite of my sandwich and watch as Aria pushes her broccoli around. "Hey, vegetables Aria," Aria grumbles under her breath and forces herself to eat the broccoli.

"You're no fun."

"I am fun. So fun that I'm letting Damien, Odette, and Tara take you to the amusement park."

"Really?" I only nod my head. She needs a break, and this is what Alice wanted for her. To live a somewhat normal child life, and if letting the trio take her to an amusement park is it, then so be it. "Wait...you're not going?"

"Huh?"

"You're not going to the amusement park with us?"

"No."

"Why not? I think it'll be fun. And besides, you said you would go when Alice brought it up." She's right. I did. But that was with Alice. She can alleviate the tension, and I can't. She won't have fun if I go.

"You wouldn't want me to go."

"I do!" She pouts her lip and crosses her arms. "Please? I really want you to go."

I stare at her lip and her determined face. Fuck. "Sure thing. But eat your vegetables, or I won't go too."

"Deal," she smiles and begins to eat her vegetables. My phone rings, the number is unknown. Who is this? And how did they get my number?

"Hello?" I say.

"Les," she says over the phone. And I feel like a pile of bricks hit me.

"Alice?" I say a tad too loud that Aria stops eating.

"It's Alice?" Aria says with a full mouth.

I nod my head. "Aria, finish your lunch. I'll be back in a sec."

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.

MWAHAHAHA CLIFFHANGER!!!

But oh man! Aria and Alessio are the best duo ever.

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