The moment the words were out his mouth, it was as though someone had rung the bell at a heavy weight fight. Everyone tensed, sitting on the edge of their seats. But for some reason, seeing my mother’s name on the board gave me a sense of security.
“What do you know about Margaret Cunning?” he asked.
This? Her? She was the topic of today’s class?
“She was a total bad ass!” someone yelled, and Levi shot him a look that cut him down a few inches and reduced him to something bite size.
“That she was, but can anyone use big boy words, and explain why?” Levi asked as he looked around the class.
“While at the DA’s office, her first major case was Ayala Petroleum vs. the citizens of Blake. She was able to criminally charge Ayala Petroleum with over a dozen counts of manslaughter charges, resulting from their dumping of toxic waste into the Blake local river, and she won a class action suit, rendering the company bankrupt. She’s my hero.” Ms. Vega, the girl that Professor Black had called in regards to the Archibald case, said.
“After leaving the DA’s office, she started her own firm, where she successfully defended the likes of Nol van der Stoep, the Danish Ambassador, and the novelist Zinachidi Okoli,” Atticus added.
I had been jumping through hoops and bending myself over backwards for him, and all I asked him to do was to never bring up my mother again… And he couldn’t even respect me enough to do that. He couldn’t just let it go. According to our syllabus, we shouldn’t have covered any material that pertained to her until the end of the term. So he was doing this just to get under my fucking skin… and it was working.
Watching him talk, I wanted to storm to the front of the class, and scream all manners of obscenities into his face. Didn’t he get it? There were some lines you just didn’t cross.
“Anything to add, Ms. Cunning?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I’m biased beyond measure.”
“You cannot be biased with facts,” he stated.
He was deliberately pushing me, and I was about to snap.
“When she was—” I paused, taking a deep breath I continued. I wouldn’t let him win. “She was offered the position of a Supreme Court Justice, but due to her deteriorating health, she was forced to decline.”
I sat up on the edge of my chair, waiting, praying that class would end. My leg bounced with anxiety, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of having you heart crawl up your throat. I could feel my eyes burning, but I refused to cry here. Finally he looked up at the time.
“Alright for next class—”
I was gone before he finished. I ran out of there as fast as I could, trying my best to breathe, but everything hurt.
Breathe, Thea. Breathe.
I leaned against the bathroom wall with my hands on my knees.
“Thea?”
No, please, no.
“This is the girls’ bathroom, get out,” I yelled at him.
“This is the guys’ bathroom,” he replied, and I looked around to find myself standing between two urinals…
“Of course it is,” I remarked bitterly.
“Thea.”
“Stop saying my name!”
His green eyes widened as he took a step back.
“Stop saying my name like you know me. You don’t, Levi. It was over a month ago, and that girl is not me. So stop saying my name.”
“I don’t believe that.” he said, as he leaned against the door.
“I don’t care what you believe!” I shouted at him.