It's summertime, so the school is quite silent. Back in my high school from freshman and sophomore year, which I never thought I’d step foot into again, I walked over the decal of a Wolverine mascot on the entryway. The only people in the building are teachers preparing their classroom for the next year of students. 

Coming back from a meeting was my English teacher, Ms. Scianna, just the person I came to see. She says to me, clearly excited “You're here a few months early, what’s going on?” I tell her “I’m not exactly early if I’m not coming to school here anymore”, leaving her in utter confusion. I begin to explain why I changed schools, feeling upset because of her saddened expression.

We walk into her classroom to talk and I notice her room being just slightly less bare than when the last year of school ended. She added lights around the smartboard, a few decorations on side tables like her salt lamp, and a new bulletin board reading “Welcome Back!”. 

The room is one of my few safe spots, where I don’t feel anxious or uneasy about anything. We talk about my new school, sports, students from the class I was in last semester with her, summer plans, careers, and much more. The extensive conversation makes me realize that I won’t be able to be in this classroom during lunch periods anymore. Sometimes during those lunch periods we would watch clips on YouTube or shorts on Netflix, or talk with the special needs kid that was always really happy to be there. 

Ms. Scianna ends the conversation with giving me candy, a tradition of ours after lunch. She makes me promise that I’ll “try and visit sometime over the school year so we can talk again”, showing that she enjoyed my visit. I walk out of the building upset that we won’t see each other for a while. Although, her expression when she first saw me assures that the visit evidently made both of us happy and will have a positive impact on the rest of our day.