The students go for the sweater too

Jacqueline checked the clock. A minute left, maybe less. She caught some of the other students’ eyes, and they returned a small knowing nod. The stampede. Jacqueline raised her hand. “Miss Vargas? This footnote, do you still use está if it’s about a house’s location? It’s unlikely to move.” Vargas came down the aisle again, sweater hanging open, no skirt, and leaned in over Jacqueline’s textbook to study the footnote. She was still explaining the difference when the bell cut her off.

The room abruptly emptied. Chairs scraped on the floor. Bags swung. A dozen bodies poured into the same narrow aisle — even if they could’ve easily gone into the one on the opposite hand of their desks — where Professor Vargas was still standing. The first shoulder that pushed past her caught her hard enough she had to take a step back to steady herself to keep her feet. “Excuse me.” Trevor’s backpack behind her shoved her the other way. “Sorry.” She put a hand on someone’s arm without looking and muttered an apology of her own. The contact covered a tug at her open sweater, pushing it past the shoulder. Jacqueline slid the fabric back an inch during the jostle of a student bumping into her hip as she had to catch the next desk. Each shove was little past a gentle brush, but too minor to be rude. Every time she swayed or staggered or had to steady herself somewhere, someone was touching her somewhere else, and the sweater continued to travel — too much and too subtle to register in the few scant seconds it took.

By the time the last of them cleared the desks she had been turned half around, and stripped of the gray wool without ever being given a still second to feel it leave. The sweater went hand to hand down the line, folded once, and landed on the chair behind her own desk as if she had put it there herself. A little chilly in this draft, Maria thought to herself. She resolved to close the windows as the last students left.