Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 169(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 169(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
The feeling persists through the class, where I can barely pay attention to what we’re discussing. But it’s when I head into my next class that the quick pulse and the flighty, sexy daydreams of Christian are interrupted by horrible, horrible reality.
Because it's the next class where I have to face Professor Hershman. As in, the Professor Hershman whose car I smashed up last semester.
No one wanted to hear the whole story. No one believed me anyways, and this fucking town saw me as the troublemaker anyways. But again, no matter what image I might portray of myself, I’m not some psycho little bitch who’d just go out and smash a windshield for no fucking reason.
Oh, I had a reason.
You see, Professor Hershman likes to get hands on with teaching his students. Very, very hands on. As in, grabbing my ass after class, repeatedly.
I’d told him to stop. I’d threatened to tell Paul and Carrie, or Doctor Lindon. But he’d just laughed and asked who I really thought people would actually believe: the tenured professor, or the troublemaking outsider with the bad reputation.
I’d been furious, and stewed in my hatred for the man, and his disgusting way of getting away with being a total creep. But if it’d just stopped there, that’s all it’d be. I would have finished the year pissed and disgusted, and probably told him to go fuck himself a few times, but that’s where I’d have left it.
But then there was Amy.
Amy and I weren’t friends per se, but we were close to being that I guess. She wasn’t at Thornbull very long, but she was another outsider like me, and another “not from here” new resident of West Haven. We hung out a few times, and ate lunch together, and sort of bonded over both being looked down on by most of the other students. And like me, Professor Hershman was after her too — another outsider to prey on, since she had no connections in this town.
But there was one way Amy and I were different. See, I told Hershman to get lost, enough so that he backed off, a little.
Amy wasn’t so strong.
Touching turned to more, and more. It turned to him telling her she had to “stay after” class for “extra tutoring. And I tried so hard to get her to tell me what was going on, but she’d slowly just shut down more and more, until one day, she wasn’t at school.
Or the next.
I’d finally gone to her house — a tiny little place her parents could probably barely afford in West Haven so they could get in-town resident tuition at Thornbull for Amy. I’d found her mother beside herself and Amy locked in her room. That’s the day I found out what Professor Hershman did to her, after school in a locked classroom.
Amy and her family moved after that. The police didn’t believe her, and when this town saw her parents’ income level, they turned a blind eye. Better they move anyways, for property values, right?
The day I found out, I went directly back to school and took revenge. I didn’t think, I’d just acted — grabbing the big cinderblock by the edge of the faculty parking lot, marching right up to his BMW, and bringing it down on his windshield as hard as I could, over and over, until it shattered.
And peeing on his car after — okay, that was gross maybe, but I’m not ashamed of it, and I’ve got zero apologies about it. Fuck him and his untouchable privilege.
He gave up trying anything with me after that, but I also don’t think it was a coincidence that he’s the teacher of one of the two classes I have this summer, just like it’s no surprise at all he failed me before graduation, despite my great grades in his class.
Sitting in his classroom again like this, the heat and the tingling feeling from earlier goes away. Instead, it’s replaced by anger, and fury, and maybe a little fear too. When he walks in, his eyes narrow at me, but his lips pull back in a horrible little weasel smile, like he’s glad I’m back under his thumb again.
“If you need to use the bathroom during class, Ms. Kensington, be sure to use the ladies room instead of the parking lot, okay?”
The class titters in laughter as Professor Hershman smiles wickedly at me. I feel my face burn, but I push it away.
“Try and keep up, Ms. Kensington,” Hershman sneers. “I’d hate to have you fail this class a second time.”
There’s more laughter around the room, but I force myself to take deep breaths and not bite the bait he’s hanging in front of my face.
“And if you need help, well...” He smiles, his eyes clearly undressing me in a way that makes my skin crawl.