“You…need to see this,” she said as she pulled out her phone. She opened the Facebook app and pointed to a post shared by one of her friends, the original posted by Mrs. Arrington, a teacher at our school. Something sank inside me and a surge of adrenaline ran through me. I started to sweat as I read the post.
Normally, I let things like this go, but I can’t keep silent any longer. Mr. Dylan Cox, math teacher at Greenville High, has made sexually inappropriate advances on me several times while at school. Not only would he make crude jokes to me and look at me in ways that made me uncomfortable, but would also go out of his way to cause “accidental” contact between us, whether that meant brushing into me in the hall or “bumping into me.” This all culminated in him sexually assaulting me in the teachers’ lounge. I have kept silent, I guess to maintain the status quo, but I can no longer allow this to continue, especially considering the fact that I have heard multiple reports of him being inappropriate with his female students. I am considering taking legal action.
It felt like my heart was about to break. I realized I wasn’t breathing and gasped and clutched my chest. I could feel Margie’s eyes on me as I started to panic.
“I—I need to be alone,” I said.
“Are you sure—?”
“Yes, Margie!” I shouted. “Get out of here!”
Margie got up and opened the door. She turned back to me and gave me a sad look.
“I’m sorry, I just thought you should know.”
She closed the door behind her, just as the tears began to pour from my eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Emily
How could I have been so stupid!? I thought as I curled up on my bed, my breath catching in my chest and sobs choking their way out of my mouth. My heart hurt, like it had been frozen and was about to shatter into a thousand pieces.
Multiple reports of him being inappropriate with his female students…
I’d been so terrified of that having happened. The idea of me being just another starry-eyed high school girl who had the hots for her teacher was a reality that was too much to bear. Instantly images of other girls being washed and shaved by Mr. Cox flashed through my mind.
I curled up helplessly on the bed as I thought back to every interaction I’d ever had with Mr. Cox since I started in his class. Had he ever given me any inappropriate looks? Had I ever seen him giving the eye to any of the other girls?
Not that I could remember.
Had he ever accidentally touched me or brushed by me or anything like that?
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No.
It just didn’t make any sense. How could someone who seemed so sweet and so genuine be a horrible monster like what Mrs. Arrington was describing? And to be honest, Mrs. Arrington was a pretty terrible teacher who had never liked me. When I was in her class, it always felt like she was behaving like my older sister that thought she was better than me.
In fact, she acted like that around most of the girls. She was like Regina George from Mean Girls—always saying nice things but giving off that vibe that she didn’t really mean it.
Was it…was it possible she was lying?
Part of me felt really bad about questioning an allegation of sexual assault from another woman, but another, bigger part of me believed that Dylan wasn’t a monster and that I knew who he was. This just couldn’t be true and I wasn’t about to throw away everything that had happened between us because of one Facebook post.
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I leapt off my bed and stormed down the hall and burst into Margie’s room.
“Have any other girls replied to that post!?” I asked her.
“Uh, yeah—”
“Any of them saying the same things as Mrs. A.?” I snapped. Margie was clearly following the post and began scrolling through.
“Umm...not that I see,” she said slowly. “A few girls are saying how nice he is—Jenny Rintel said that he gave her an angry look and sent her to the principal’s office when she wore a sports bra to class, but I mean—come on…”
“So no one is supporting her allegations?” I asked. “Saying that he harassed them or whatever?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Margie replied. “But the post is blowing up. Everyone in town must have seen it by now.”