Am I in Trouble?
Natalie's POV
Noah's teacher stopped me at pickup, tablet still tucked under one arm, kind eyes soft with the particular caution of someone about to say something delicate. Mrs. Alvarez always smelled faintly of chalk and burnt coffee, a smell I'd come to associate with reassurance over the years, though today it did little to settle the unease already gathering in my chest.
"He seemed a little far away today," she said. "Not quite himself. Everything all right at home?"
"We're figuring some things out," I said, which was the only true thing I could offer her without offering far more than either of us had time for.
She nodded in a way that told me she understood more than she was letting on, the way good teachers so often did, reading the quiet static between a paren
