Page 129 of Boiling Point
“Now she’s telling everyone to come forward if they’ve got stories about you. Doesn’t matter if they’re true—the more scandalous, the better. It’s her personal mission to take you down. This is going to blow up.”
My skin prickled. I pinched the bridge of my nose, the headache already settling behind my eyes. “I fucking knew she’d be trouble.” The expletive slipped out before I could stop it. “Sorry.”
“No need. I think you’ve earned an arsenal of F-bombs.”
“Are you named?”
“No,” she said. “Which is honestly a perk of not making too many friends this year.”
The line beeped with an incoming call. Dr. Amrita Singh.Shit.
“Darling, my boss is calling. I have to take it. Can you screenshot those posts? Just in case they vanish. I’ve got a feeling I’ll need every scrap of evidence I can get.”
“Yeah, no problem. Good luck. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I clicked over.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Hawthorne, are you on campus?”
Despite our current adversarial situation, I appreciated that Dr. Singh always skipped the small talk. “I am—just packing up my office.”
“Please come see me.”
I switched the phone to my other ear. “May I ask what this is about?” Though, of course, Gabrielle had already given me a good idea.
“I’d prefer to discuss it in person.”
“Right. I’ll walk over.”
“Thank you.” She hung up.
The walk across the quad was a trek through an oven. Late June sun bounced white off the concrete, searing my eyes. I kept my head down, unwilling to risk eye contact with students or colleagues. Campus was mostly empty during the summer, but I preferred to avoid recognition just the same.
Outside Administration Suite 300, the secretary’s desk sat vacant. I tapped lightly on the glass door.
“Come in,” Dr. Singh called from the other side.
I opened the door and stepped into her office. Dr. Lemke sat on the couch, leaning back, one leg crossed in a relaxed figure-four.
No HR rep this time.
“Dr. Hawthorne,” she said, gesturing to the seat across from her. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
I sat, sweat slicking my shirt to my back.
Dr. Singh wasted no time. “We’ve received additional complaints,” she said, hands folded in that careful lattice I’d come to recognize as her prelude to unpleasantness. “Fourteen, to be precise. All in the last twenty-four hours.”
I stared at her, stunned by the number. “That’s—” I caught myself. “What are the allegations?”
She slid a folder across the desk with two fingers. “You’re welcome to review the sanitized reports. The themes are consistent: abuse of authority, inappropriate conduct, sexual harassment, and, in three instances, explicit claims of quid pro quo.” Her voice was perfectly measured—neither accusatory nor sympathetic. “Some are new. Others reference incidents from previous semesters.”
Dr. Lemke chimed in, his tone serious but good-natured. “Cal, I won’t lie—the timing is…suspicious. But the volume—well, you understand how it looks.”
I thumbed open the folder. Page after page of neatly typed accusations—scrubbed of identifiers but detailing, in jaggedterms, an escalating set of improprieties: lewd comments, inappropriate contact, mandatory ‘remediation’ after hours, and—most egregious—demanding sexual favors for passing grades.
