Before you Go 2

Parking in the front of the school was something new as she arrived at the building that was about a ten-minute drive from her house now. Her parent's house wasn’t too far away, but she had no desire to put herself through that amount of pain. She laughed to herself as she walked into the office and looked and saw everyone was the same, even ten plus years later. She waited at the desk as the woman looked her over, “And how can I help you, young lady?” the woman asked in the smartest tone.

“I am here for a meeting with Judy Libby.” Larissa countered.

“Regarding?” The woman asked.

“A helping position for her class,” Larissa said as she looked at the woman who was looking at her again.

“Is this a joke?” The woman asked, “Are you skipping your class right now?”

“No joke, ma’am. I was just called by Mrs. Libby a little while ago. She is expecting me.” Larissa said as she looked over the woman in the same way. “Call her and ask if you have a problem with it. My name is Dr. Larissa Walker.”

“Doctor, sure.” The woman said as she picked up the phone, “You better not be wasting my time.”

“Larissa?” A voice from the back of the office asked. It was deep, and she looked towards it. There she saw her brother, who was standing there before her in a moment. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking to talk with Miss Libby.” She said, not wanting to talk to him or anyone else. “However, there is a problem. This woman doesn’t believe I am here as a person but a student.”

“She isn’t a student.” Drew said to the woman who was on the phone, “She is a doctor and my youngest sister.”

“She is a doctor?” The woman asked.

“Yeah, she is. She got all the brains in the family.” Drew said with a laugh. “The rest of us got everything else.”

“Well, then I will write up your pass.” The woman said, and Larissa looked to her brother.

“What are you doing here?” She asked as she tried to smile.

“My stepdaughter forgot some stuff. But that is the perk of having her stepdad as the coach for the football team.” He said with pride.

“Oh,” Larissa said. “So you work here?”

“After school in the PE department.” He replied, “Why?”

“Just asking,” Larissa said with a smile as the woman handed her the pass. She glanced at her brother, who looked like he was in a good mood though he never really was. He seemed to like being there at the school. Larissa had a good idea of why. Though time had passed and the siblings were never close, he had not changed with the passing years.

“So to get to her classroom….” The woman began, but Larissa cut her off.

“Is it the same as it always was?” Larissa asked, and the woman nodded, “Then I know where it was. Her class was the only good one I can remember from the school. I could find it blindfolded.”

Larissa turned on that and walked out of the office and toward the back of the school. Though she hadn’t spent much time in the building altogether, she did remember the layout of the first floor. Being so small, she would have to fight to get to her next class, and she had mapped out the entire building and made a flow chart to see where everyone would be so she could beat them. It was the only way she could make it to her classes on time.

Larissa got to the back of the foreign language classrooms and then turned to go into the main science wing of the school. She could smell the classrooms and knew what they all were doing. She smiled to herself, and then she got to the room that had changed her life and gave it a much better and deeper meaning. It was the one place she was able to talk about what she wanted out of life and how much it meant to her. She could only smile at all the thoughts and memories that flooded her mind. She knocked and then opened the door, not knowing if the class was in session or not.

There was no one in the seats, so she sighed with relief for a moment. Then she went back to the area she knew the offices for the teachers were. Also, that was another place she had spent some time in that most students had not. She smiled as she almost rounded the corner to the hallway of offices only to almost run into one of those teachers who had helped her along. Though she had known him from her brothers having him not herself.

“Larissa?” he asked, and she smiled and nodded. “You came. Good, now Judy might not be on the warpath with the youngster.”

“That bad?” Larissa asked as she looked at the man in front of her who had always reminded her of Einstein with his hair wild. He was always the vision of a mad professor. Though he was also the one who had taken the time to explain things to her in a way she could understand and also grasp well. He had made things fun to learn about. she had loved going into his classes and just listened when she was younger.

“This one she is going slightly overboard on.” Mr. Vincent said as he smiled and place his hand on her shoulder. “Now that you’re here, she might calm down a bit.”

“I doubt that,” Larissa said as she smiled a bit and then continued down the hallway and then stopped outside the one that was open. She looked into the room and saw the small older woman and a man sitting in front of her desk as she paced back and forth in the back of her desk. Mrs. Libby looked like she was going to bite the man in front of her as she glared as well. Now looked like the time to speak, “Mrs. Libby?”

“What do you.” She started to say and then stopped as she smiled broadly, “Never mind what I was going to say. Come in. come in. This is Mr. Danner.” The older woman forced a smile toward the man and then looked back at her. Her smaller stature was always the thing that seemed off in her office. Her presence was always so big, and so were the ideas she had for the people around her. She looked at him again and then said, “You might want to remember this woman in front of you. She will do great things and make a name for herself.”

“Judy,” Larissa said and smiled. Then the man in front of her turned around and looked at her as well. Larissa couldn’t breathe. The man in front of her was the most perfect man she had ever seen.