Page 1 of Hard Lessons
EVELYN
My eyelids felt heavy as I turned my attention to the nearby window. A slow drizzle of rain had been falling for a solid twenty-four hours, saturating everything in sight. The leaves on the trees and the ornamental grasses that decorated the campus landscape were drooping, heavy from trying to balance too much water.
I was starting to get used to the gray sky and the cooler weather of fall in Chicago. The summer heat was officially gone, and I was more than ready to embrace the change of the season. I’d always found something relaxing about fall in the Midwest. The crisp air, rainy days, and comfy sweaters were perfect for spending a day lounging around, taking naps, and getting lost in a good book. It wasn’t good on a day that I needed to be productive, though.
I was up to my eyeballs in debt and homework that needed to get done. It was always a constant struggle between picking up an extra shift to make a few bucks or knocking an assignment off my to-do list. I was often stuck between a rock and a hard place because if I didn’t work, I couldn’t make rent, but if I didn’t do my homework, I’d fail my classes and lose my academic scholarship. To say that I’d been mainly running on hopes anddreams that were fueled by an obscene amount of caffeine was a drastic understatement.
Honestly, I would’ve been lying if I said that I never considered trying drugs to get in a few more hours of homework. I was willing to bet that I could beat whatever addiction took hold. There wasn’t shit I could do to afford it though, and I sure as shit wasn’t willing to suck dick for drug money. If I had to stoop that low, I’d want a whole lot more than drugs. I’d want my rent paid, groceries in the fridge, or hell, I’d even settle for an A that didn’t decline over the semester. Especially in the class I was trying not to fall asleep in.
Whoever had the idea to mix ethics and literature needed to be stripped naked, tied down, slathered in honey, and then tossed to the bears. Before I could stop myself from thinking about it, the sight of such an event played out in my mind’s eye. I could see some poor guy getting gangbanged by hungry, horny bears. The amusing part was when he started yelling at the bears about how it wasn’t ethical. A chuckle fell from my lips, and the whole class became so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. And that wasn’t figuratively speaking either. It was literal. I let the smallest of chuckles slip, and the professor, taken aback by my audacity to laugh while he was in the middle of a lecture, stopped mid-sentence to glare at me.
My back straightened as I stared right back. The room was so still and quiet that I was sure they could hear me swallowing my nerves and my thundering heartbeat.
No one interrupted Professor West. Ever.
“Care to share with the rest of the class, Ms. Ashford?” Professor West asked with his black brows furrowed together, causing two lines to form between them. His gray eyes were cold and harsh, causing a chill to rush up my spine.
“No, sir,” was my reply, but I figured I should carry on once the silence stretched on too long. “I’m sorry for interruptingclass. I-I just had a silly little thought pop into my head. It won’t happen again.”
“I should hope not.” Professor West removed his black framed glasses before wiping the lenses with the hem of his cream-colored sweater. “Someone who is barely keeping their grade above passing should be paying attention rather than filling their head with silly little musings. Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Ashford?” He put his glasses back in place, but his glaring hadn’t stopped.
I was embarrassed by the fact that he announced to the whole class that I was about to fail. Embarrassment turned to anger, causing the acid in my stomach to boil. I swallowed over the lump forming in my throat. “I would.”
He nodded once before finally returning his attention to the rest of the class. “Now, where were we?” he asked, flipping to the next screen on the lesson that was being projected onto the wall.
The moment he resumed his lesson, I felt my entire body relax. I slid down into my slouched position, and my attention went right back to the window. I bit my lower lip as I tried to cool the fire that was burning me up from the inside out.
Professor West was nothing like the man who used to be my brother’s best friend. I didn’t know what had happened between them, but whatever it was, it was severe enough that not even Gabe would talk about it. One day, the two of them were the best of friends, and the next… Gabe was angry, and Elliot, AKA Professor West, was gone, never to be seen around my brother again. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder how so much had changed in such a relatively short amount of time. Elliot wasn’t always the stiff, uppity asshole that was standing at the head of my class. He used to be friendly, nice, and even caring. I had the biggest crush on him for the longest time. I used to fall asleep at night, fantasizing about him sweeping me off my feet. At thirteen, an older guy giving me any attention was all it took, buthavinghimgive me that attention… It’s what wet dreams were made of. Of course, he didn’t. He’d laugh at my jokes and buy me ice cream, but he ignored me past that.
As a twenty-year-old college student, Elliot was as good-looking and as charming as they come. He had that cockyI know I’m hot, but in a nerdy waylook about him. His black hair was longer then, shaggy and messy. His gray eyes reminded me of cold steel: sharp and jagged with the ability to cut through me like a knife. And the way his angular jaw would flex before he wet his plump lips and swallowed, causing his Adam’s apple to bob in his throat, made the butterflies come alive in my stomach every single time. It wasn’t just me either. Every girl my age had a thing for him. Hell, every girl any age had a thing for him. And he knew it too. That’s what made him cocky.
When I received my schedule a few months earlier, I was excited to have him as a professor, but that was before I knew he’d been replaced with the asshole I was now dealing with.
We were only three months into the year, and he had taken every opportunity he had to embarrass, chastise, and degrade me. Whatever my brother had done, I was the one who had to pay for it. Professor West made it clear on the first day of class that I no longer knew him, and he had proven that fact every day since.
My heavy lids fluttered closed as the dreary day outside the classroom window blurred. In my mind, I was taken back to the day I met Professor West.
I was the first to arrive in class that day. I walked in with a smile on my face, feeling happy and excited to begin the next phase of my life finally. He was standing behind his podium, and when I entered the room, he looked up, locking eyes with mine. There’s no other way to describe it other than it felt like I had plunged headfirst into a wall of ice. The smile fell from my lips.
“Sit anywhere,” he muttered, turning his attention to whatever he had on the podium in front of him.
Taking a deep breath, I clutched my books to my chest and pushed myself forward, walking across the room as I wanted to claim a seat next to the window. I knew I didn’t need the distraction, but it was my failsafe, my way of coping with whatever I needed to deal with. Over the years, I’d adapted to being stuck in place. If my body couldn’t escape, my mind could. All I needed was the comfort of being able to stare out the window.
I was passing by him on my way to my seat when his head popped up. The look he gave stopped me dead in my tracks. “I don’t know what you were expecting when you signed up for this class, but you can leave all your misconceptions at the door. You do not know me. I do not owe you a damn thing. You’ll work for your grade in this class. Is that understood?”
My mouth fell open, but no words came out. Did he think that I only took his class because I expected him to give me a better grade than I deserved?
“That’s the only thing I expected,” I said, barely above a whisper as my heart hammered away in my chest.
His angular jaw flexed. “And I expect you to keep the past where it belongs. I don’t need you talking to yourbestieabout how you used to know me. I don’t need any reason for people to think I’m playing favorites. You only know me as Professor West, got it?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Professor West.” I continued, moving to the last row of seats. Holding my books to my chest, I made my way up the stairs in the stadium-style classroom. Picking a spot at random, I turned to slide into the seat. That’s when I saw him tug his eyes away from me, training them on his papers, a deep scowl on his handsome face.
A sigh fell from my lips as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I had no idea how long I’d been out, but it couldn’t have been any longer than a couple of minutes. When I finally forced my eyes to open and I looked around me, I found every single person in class staring at me. My face instantly burned with embarrassment as I pushed myself to sit up straight in my chair. I was afraid to look at Professor West, but I knew I had to.
When my gaze met his, the softness of his eyes alarmed me, but he knew how to conceal his true feelings with the flip of a switch, and within a second, the warmth was gone, replaced by his normal icy exterior.
I watched as he ran his tongue across his lips, the remnants of those long-dead butterflies swirling through the ash in the icy breeze picked up inside of me. A bitter-sounding chuckle left him as he used his right hand to rub his left jaw.
