—
“No One Saw It Coming”
Jon Enderson cried.
No one saw it coming—not his boss, not his students, not even Carla, who had been with him for eight years and once told him she could read his soul like a glass book. Jon didn’t even see it coming himself. He had been fine—normal, even—until the tremor in his hand returned.
It was Tuesday morning, overcast but not cold. Jon, a high school history teacher, stood in front of his third-period class with a half-empty coffee cup and a stack of quizzes tucked under his arm. He was lecturing on the Treaty of Versailles, a topic he usually enjoyed. He loved history because it was predictable—people made mistakes, those mistakes were recorded, and eventually, someone made a movie about it.
But that day, his words trailed off.
The names on the treaty blurred. His voice cracked mid-sentence. He paused, blinked twice, and tried to collect himself, but instead, a sharp, breathless sob escaped from his chest like a bird flying into a window.
A few students looked up from their phones. One girl gasped.
“Mr. Enderson?” said Logan from the front row. “Are you okay?”
He was not. Tears were spilling down his face now, warm and surprising. His hands trembled, and he dropped the stack of papers. A few fluttered down like wounded birds. The silence in the classroom stretched until it snapped.
“Class dismissed,” he muttered, barely audible.
No one moved at first. Then, slowly, they filed out, whispering to each other in confusion, in awe, in fear. Teenagers are many things, but subtle isn’t one of them.
He sat in his chair as the room emptied, head in his hands. He stayed that way for fifteen minutes.
When he finally walked out, his eyes were swollen, his steps uncertain. He passed Principal Morales in the hallway, who blinked at him in shock.
“Jon?”
He didn’t stop walking. If he had, he might’ve told Morales everything: that his mother had died two weeks ago. That he hadn’t cried at the funeral. That he hadn’t cried when they sold her house, or when he packed up the little ceramic hummingbird she used to keep by the kitchen window. That he hadn’t cried because he thought he didn’t need to. That he was strong.
That the tremor in his hand was worse. That he’d stopped playing piano because he couldn’t bear to hear the mistakes. That he’d been diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s three months ago and had told no one, not even Carla.
That he was scared.
He would have told him all of that, if Morales had asked a second time. But he didn’t. So Jon kept walking.
That night, Carla found him on the couch, still in his work clothes, still holding the mug he never finished. He was quiet. She sat next to him and took the mug from his hand. She noticed the twitch in his left pinky. She had seen it before but assumed it was nothing.
“It’s not nothing,” he said, reading her eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I have Parkinson’s.”
She didn’t speak at first. Then: “Since when?”
“Three months.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t want to make it real.”
She reached out for his hand and felt the tremor.
“Today, in class,” he said, voice breaking again, “I just started crying. In front of everyone.”
She nodded, not with pity, but with recognition. The way you nod when the truth finally lands.
He cried again then. Real tears. This time not out of fear, but out of release. Out of the sheer exhaustion of holding it all in. Carla pulled him close, and for once, Jon didn’t resist comfort.
—
The school sent a counselor to his class the next day. Rumors flew—everything from a nervous breakdown to a secret divorce to PTSD from a war he’d never been in. Jon didn’t correct any of them. He stayed home, took his medication, watched the clouds change shape over his backyard. When he returned a week later, students stared. Some averted their eyes. Some smiled nervously.
One left a note on his desk:
“You taught us about people breaking under pressure. I guess that’s what makes us human. Take your time. We’ll be here.”
It was unsigned.
He kept the note in his desk drawer.
The tremor didn’t go away. The fear didn’t either. But something inside him had shifted. He no longer needed to pretend. He no longer needed to carry everything in silence.
At the next staff meeting, he stood up and told everyone. The room fell still. But then the chorus began: teachers asking how they could help, offering rides to appointments, sub plans, books, hugs. Carla stood behind him, a quiet pillar of strength.
Afterward, Morales approached him.
“I should’ve asked again,” he said.
Jon smiled. “I should’ve answered the first time.”
And so life went on.
Jon Enderson cried.
No one saw it coming—but afterward, no one judged him for it either.
Some even thanked him.
—
Let me know if you’d like to adapt this into a script, expand it into a longer story, or change the genre (like thriller, sci-fi, or fantasy).
