“May I?” I ground out obligingly. I’d play her way as long as I got that paper back.
“I’m sorry, but no.” Sending me a tight smile, she slapped her briefcase closed, the sound echoing through my chest and tightening my muscles with dread.
No? What did she mean by no?
As she grasped the handle and pulled the case off her desk to leave the room, I dogged her steps. But she didn’t seem to notice, so I dodged around her to block the exit. “But I forgot to proofread it. Give me another few hours, and I’ll have it right back to you. I swear.”
She shook her head. “It’s too late, Mr. Gamble. I already gave you more opportunity to fix your grade than anyone else in the class. This is the last time I’ll accept anything for this assignment.” She began to walk around me.
“Then I’ll take the original D,” I burst out, beyond frantic. Shit, what was I saying? I couldn’t accept the original D. But that had to be better than her reading my paper.
Dr. Kavanagh slowed to a stop. When she lifted her face to arch that damn eyebrow of hers again, I caved, ready to get down on both knees, begging.
“I was angry, okay.” The rasp in my voice revealed my desperation, and I hated that. But I kept pleading, needing her to give up my paper more than I needed my next breath. “You dared me, and I responded out of some kind of knee-jerk reaction. I didn’t mean to write all that shit. So...” I held out my hand cautiously, as if approaching a cornered and wounded, wild animal. “Just let me redo it. One last time. Please.”
She gaped at me, her green eyes wide with shock. Glancing at my seeking palm, she said, “Now I really feel compelled to keep this essay, just to see what you’ve written.”
“Damn it,” I growled. “Give me back the fucking paper. It’s mine!”
Without thinking, I reached for her briefcase. She skipped away, jerking it out of my reach. “Mr. Gamble! What do you think you’re doing?”
Realizing what I’d just done, I pulled back, only to lift my trembling fingers to my mouth and pinch my lips together, keeping in the instinctive urge to apologize.
But, Jesus. What the hell was I thinking? To tackle her just outside a classroom while hundreds of students—witnesses—streamed past?
I shook my head and closed my eyes, pulling my scattered wits back in around me. Get it together, Gamble.
When I opened my lashes, she still stared at me with wide, wary eyes. A hint of fear stirred in those green depths, and I experienced a profound regret I couldn’t even name. I opened my mouth to apologize, but once again, I stopped myself.
“Whatever,” I murmured, sliding a step away.
It was just words. Words were nothing. If she tried to make something of this, I’d just shrug it off and say I’d made it up. Only sticks and stones could break me, right? I’d make her meaningless response to my words slide right off my back.
Except an innate fear had already soaked in. I spun away before I could embarrass myself further.
But holy shit, this was probably going to break me. Not only had I given her the power to crush my spirit on a personal level, but I’d also handed her a very valid reason to get me kicked out of her university permanently.
***
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
***
~ASPEN~
I messed up. I opened Noel Gamble’s essay at work and read it in my office.
I just couldn’t help myself. The way he’d confronted me to get it back, to keep me from seeing what he’d written, had gotten me curious and left me a little too shaken. For the briefest moment, I had thought he was going to wrestle me down in order to retrieve it. He’d looked desperate enough.
Then his face had cleared, and he’d seemed so shocked and appalled by his actions, I’d been worried he was going to burst into tears. What was worse, if he had, I would’ve done something equally horrifying, like hug him. Or give him his paper back.
Thank God I’d done neither.
Because once I started reading his essay, I couldn’t stop. It was like witnessing a fatal car accident, watching his awful life unfold, one tear-jerking sentence at a time.
My chest ached as I finished the last line of the essay. Damn it. Noel Gamble wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to have such a tough childhood, or possess redeemable qualities, or make me feel any kind of compassion for him. He wasn’t supposed to reach into my soul and get a handhold of my heart or squeeze these feelings out of me, exactly as he’d just done. No one should be able to do that in eight double-spaced pages. But he had.
My cheeks were still wet from the tears that had fallen. From reading his stupid, amazing, well-written paper.