Page 10 of Another Life

It was a last-minute decision, adding this elective to my course load. But I needed to get my classes done in order to graduate early and not have to return in the fall. And classic movies are kind of my thing.

Apparently, they’re Professor Pain in the Ass’s thing too.

“My name is Abraham Pugliesi. You may call me Professor. Most of you will butcher my beautiful surname, so don’t bother using it.” He straightens from his position on the desk. “If you’re here to learn about anything post-1959, you’re going to be thoroughly disappointed.”

I try not to react to his accent, to the baritone thrum of his voice as it echoes through the room, to the way his charcoal vest hugs his chest, and the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt gives an air of casualness that stops the moment I look at his face.

He’d warned me that he was an asshole and now I’m going to find out for myself.

“Due to an alarming amount of participation, in the coming weeks, I will be dropping most of you from my course.” He turns his back to the room as he reaches for chalk.Who the fuck uses chalk anymore?“I do not like my time wasted. So, if you’re here to mention a manuscript you wrote or an idea you have for a movie, you may leave.”

He starts writing and I cringe at the sound of the chalk as it scratches at the board.

I’m trying to connect the man I met last night with the one standing at the front of the room, but with one look at what he wrote as he steps back, I realize we aren’t in fucking Kansas anymore.

He reads it out as he points.

“I. Don’t. Care.” The chalk is cast from his hold at the last word, and I start to connect the dots as I watch it scatter into pieces on the floor.This guy is the famous director?

What the fuck?!

“If you’re late…” He pauses to glare at me. “I don’t care. If you miss class, I don’t care. If your dog died…” He gestures out toward the class and some of them mumble the rest of the sentence for him.

I lean against the wall just as someone stands, grabbing his things and storming out of the room. I’m sitting in his vacated seat when Professor Pugliesi speaks again.

“Damn it. I think we lost the next Spielberg.”

Some students laugh and I look around, baffled.

We’re all on the fucking chopping block. By the end of the semester, he’ll be teaching an empty classroom.

And this man keeps looking at me like he wishes I would disappear.

Is he going to pretend not to know me for the entirety of this semester?

Or at least stop acting like I fucked up his day, walking through the door?

I’d asked him what his name was last night. And now it was going to haunt me for the rest of my last college semester.

CHAPTER FIVE

HE TOOK HIS MASKS WITH HIM

PRESENT

Does a panic attack feel like a heart attack?

My Google search doesn’t comfort me the way I’d hoped it would as I hold my phone in my shaking hands. The same hands that’d been gripping the steering wheel in a frenzied moment where the edges of my vision faded to black, and my ribs felt like they were crushing my heart.

I don’t doubt that it was a panic attack, even if it felt like I wasn’t breathing and I was going to die at any second.

Years of pretending to be a rock for everyone else is shattering any strength I have to get through each day.

This morning had been a tough one, Penny opting for her dad to help get her ready instead of me. Which meant he now couldn’t pick them up from school because he didn’t like to go into work late and then leave early.

But it wasn’t too much to ask that of me for years. Of course not.

So now, I’m sitting in my car before my lunch with my business partner, and I’m dreading having to face my five-year-old in a few hours.

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