Hard(37)

So much for being responsible.

So much for ending whatever it was we had.

So much for me ignoring what happened in the pool.

I poked the carpet with my toe. At least it was plush and cushy because when I fell for him, I would fall hard.

And I think I already struck the ground.





The only time I was ever called to the principal’s office, I was thirteen, Dad had just left us, and I thought I was edgy because I cut class.

Momma came down to the school equipped. She beat me with a wooden spoon before we even left the principal’s office. It cracked in half by the time we got to the parking lot, and then she drove my ass to the store and made me buy her a plastic one. It didn’t have the same whack, but I never got in trouble again.

Except now, apparently. And getting summoned to the principal’s office when you work at the school is an entirely different kind of humiliation. I wished for the spoon. Hell, I’d have asked for the whisk.

I wasn’t in trouble for cutting class. This time, I was getting completely, royally, and utterly screwed.

I waited for their judgements.

The principal was an old Harvard elite who got lost on his way back to Connecticut and settled in Georgia instead. He mumbled over his papers.

The teacher I shadowed, Mrs. Bradley, was a proper southern lady who had the first dollar her family ever earned framed on her wall—if only to show how old her money was. She hardly spoke to me during my brief stay in her classroom.

And, of course, Professor Sweeten was called from the college to attend. She arrived with her usual sparkling personality, though she finally cracked a smile through her stone-faced scowl.

She knew what was going to happen.

So did I.

And that made it so damn hard not to cry.

“Shay,” Principal Reid said. “It’s been a trying two weeks, hasn’t it?”

No. Not in the least. The kids were great, I handed my lesson plans in on time, and I arrived early and stayed late every day to assist Mrs. Bradley with her decorations. I even volunteered to help direct the first grade play—The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I did my work, and I did it well.

But Mrs. Bradley was good friends with Professor Sweeten. I realized it all too late.

“Unfortunately, Shay…” he said. “After speaking with Mrs. Bradley, it appears we might have a few...issues with your continued study here. This academy was designed to offer the very best educational experience for our students—experiences many children are not privileged to receive.”

I swallowed. “I understand the community’s expectations.”

“Then you understand. In order to facilitate our unique and elite environment, we can only recruit the very best and brightest to guide these children into their specific world. We have to be prepared to assist them with the challenges they will face within their status. It benefits the children to have a teacher who…encompasses their family’s social class.”

I was used to people judging me by the color of my skin, not the color of my blood. My father left me a billion dollars, and I wasn’t blue-blooded enough for these people?

It didn’t make sense, and Principal Reid knew it.

Professor Sweeten arched an eyebrow. “Shay, I’m sorry to say that your student teaching experience is counted as a pass or fail grade. I’m afraid we’ll have some very important matters to discuss at campus.”

“Wait.” Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. “I…can’t transfer to another classroom?”

Professor Sweeten and Principal Reid both shared the same nauseating glance, the kind mentally delivered with a slap to the face and swift kick to the behind.

“Shay, I’m sorry,” he said. “Your services are no longer required at our academy.”

Don’t cry.

I told myself to shake his hand.

I ordered my feet to march me out of the office with my chin high until I hid in my car.

And I stopped at the first gas station I passed and bought ten candy bars—one for every day I worked at the school before Professor Sweeten destroyed my teaching career.

I managed one bite before the sugar coated my tongue in sticky, nougaty regret. I could buy all the chocolate in the world—or at least a large stake in the biggest company—but it wouldn’t make me feel better. It wouldn’t secure me a job.

It wouldn’t repair a dream shattered into so many fragments I nicked myself trying to glue it back together.

Professor Sweeten wanted to meet me at the campus. Well, she could take her syllabus and shove it in places not recommended in the student handbook. She humiliated me enough. I wasn’t letting her get in another strike while I still had chalk dust under my nails.