It was about one in the afternoon and I was sitting in my classroom waiting for my last class of the day to come in for ninth period.  I had my film clips cued up and ready to go, the handouts were by the door so each kid could grab one upon entering the classroom, and I was certain that I could cover visual iconography of Film Noir in thirty-eight minutes but still – it’s a damn good thing that I speak so quickly because there’s a lot to explain about smoke and shadows, especially when half of my students don’t know what a venetian blind even looks like, let alone the way it creates the look of prison bars when you throw a harsh key light behind it.

I had seven minutes until I had to be on and my grading for the day was done so I used my extra minutes to throw on some lip-gloss and then I checked my email and that’s when I saw it in a message sent to me by E!  There’s not a single part of me that remembers signing up to receive breaking news from a celebrity outlet that willingly and continually employs Ryan Seacrest – and then allows him to go ahead and become a producer for goodness sake – but I can’t seem to make myself cancel the updates either because that seems like it would be so much work.  I mean, first you have to click the unsubscribe button and then – well, that’s kind of it, but I usually just delete the email before I even open it to find the unsubscribe button. But this time, seeing the headline, I opened the email and I clutched my hand to my heart.  

The rumors were true:  Zayn had left One Direction.