Teaching rich children is exactly as insufferable as I remember, except now I am being paid twice as much thanks to Heinrich Becker.
I wonder if the man knows what an average teacher's salary is. Not that I complain.
My first day as a tutor unfolds in fragments. I move between sessions with students whose names I am still memorizing and whose attitudes I have already catalogued.
There is the girl who sighs audibly every time I speak, her eye-rolls so dramatic they deserve their own Oscar category.
The boy who checks his phone beneath the desk and does not bother hiding it, his thumbs moving with the confidence of someone whose father is on speed dial.
The pair of twins who finish each other's sentences and seem to find my presence amusing in a way they do not explain.
I am not a real teacher here. I am hired help with a literature degree, tolerated because Heinrich Becker's name opens doors and closes mouths.
The other faculty treat me with polite distance—smiles that do not reach their eyes, nods that acknowledge my existence without welcoming it.
I push through. I have done this before. I can do it again.
But underneath the competence I am performing, my body knows what is coming. The last one-on-one session of the day. The one I have been dreading since this morning.
Kai's file sits on my desk, thin and damning. Literature grades that suggest either profound disinterest or genuine inability—I cannot tell which is worse.
Essays marked with comments like "incomplete" and "did not submit" and, once, simply a question mark with no further explanation. He is failing in a way that requires effort, and I am supposed to fix it.
I wonder how someone can be this bad at literature. It is not mathematics. It is not organic chemistry. It is reading and thinking and forming opinions about what you read. A reasonably intelligent person could pass by showing up and staying awake.
Kai, apparently, cannot manage even that.
He has lacrosse practice after his last class, which means I have an hour to prepare. An hour to sit with his file and my notes and the memory of what he said to me in that classroom.
The moment someone pins you down and tells you what to do, you spread your legs and beg for more.
He is not wrong. My hands are trembling. I notice this with detachment first, then with irritation.
I am not a woman who trembles. I survived Dylan Cooley. I survived Travis Walker. I will survive a twenty-three-year-old with a smirk and an overinflated sense of his own appeal.
I need to calm down. I need to collect myself before he walks in and sees me like this. I leave my materials on the desk and head to the bathroom.
The faculty restroom is mercifully empty. I stand at the sink, splashing water on my wrists, when the door opens and Ms. Dotson walks in.
We both freeze.
The silence is immediate and excruciating. My mind supplies the image unbidden—this woman bent over a desk, skirt around her waist, Kai's hands on her hips, that broken sound she made when he changed his angle.
The memory is vivid in a way I resent.
Ms. Dotson's face cycles through several expressions: shock, recognition, mortification, and finally a brittle composure that does not reach her eyes.
She is older than I initially registered in that classroom—early thirties, maybe thirty-one or thirty-two. Pretty in a polished, professional way, the kind of woman who probably keeps her personal life meticulously private.
The kind of woman who should know better.
I turn back to the sink. The silence stretches. I have no idea what to say. Hello, nice to formally meet you, I saw your student's dick inside you this morning does not seem appropriate. Neither does pretending we are strangers.
Ms. Dotson moves to the mirror beside me, fussing with her hair in a way that is clearly performative. Her hands are shaking slightly. She is waiting for me to say something—to accuse, to judge, to do whatever it is I am going to do.
I decide on the direct approach.
"I won't tell anyone," I say.
Her hands still. She meets my eyes in the mirror, searching for the trap. I keep my expression neutral because I mean it.
I have no interest in destroying this woman's career, no appetite for the paperwork and scrutiny that a report would bring down on both of us. I just want to do my job and leave at the end of each day with my dignity marginally intact.
"I mean it," I add. "It's not my business."
Ms. Dotson's posture releases. She exhales, turns to face me properly, and offers a tentative smile.
"Thank you," she says. "I—thank you."
"We should probably introduce ourselves properly," I say, turning to face her. "Given the circumstances."
"God, yes. Please." She exhales with visible relief. "I'm Emily. Emily Dotson. History department. Two years at Whitmore and counting down the days until I can leave."
"Skye Fraser. Literature tutor." I dry my hands on a paper towel and extend one toward her. "Started today, actually."
She shakes it, and we stand there like civilized adults who did not meet under the most uncivilized of circumstances.
"God, you poor thing." Emily leans against the sink, arms crossed. "How's it going so far?"
"One of my students spent the entire session sighing like I was personally waterboarding her with Shakespeare."
"Let me guess—blonde, looks like she smells something rotten whenever a teacher speaks?" Emily's nose scrunches in a dead-on impression that makes her look exactly like the girl in question.
"That's the one," I smile.
"Petra Wallace." Emily rolls her eyes. "She's in my third period. Last week she asked me why we had to learn about the French Revolution when she could just watch the Marie Antoinette movie." She pauses. "The Sofia Coppola one. With the macarons."
"What did you say?" I snort, pressing my lips together to keep from laughing.
"I told her that was a fantastic idea and that I expected a five-page comparative analysis on my desk by Friday." Emily grins. "She didn't ask another question."
I laugh—a real laugh, the first one in days. "I'll have to remember that strategy."
"The trick is to stop caring about their opinions before they realize you ever did." She checks her reflection, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "These kids can smell fear. And desperation. And any hint that you need this job more than they need to pass your class."
I find myself almost liking her. I wonder if this could become an alliance. Two women navigating the same hostile waters.
But my thoughts keep drifting back to that classroom. To what I saw.
Emily seems like a genuinely nice woman—sharp, funny, the kind of person who makes terrible situations bearable with the right joke at the right moment. And she ended up bent over a desk with a student's hands on her.
What if it wasn't her choice? What if he cornered her the way these rich boys corner everyone—with charm first, then pressure, then the unspoken threat of what happens to women who say no to men with money and lawyers and fathers on the board?
I think about Dylan Cooley. About all the boys like him who ruin lives and face no consequences.
"Emily." I watch her reflection in the mirror, keeping my voice careful, measured. "What I saw this morning—if you want to report it, I'll back you up."
Her hands pause mid-motion.
"If he pressured you," I continue, "if you didn't really want it—I saw enough to corroborate. I know how these things work, how administration protects the students with money and sacrifices the teachers without it." I turn to face her directly. "But if you want to fight, I'll stand beside you."
Emily laughs. The sound is sharp and unexpected.
"Pressured me?" Emily's voice is incredulous. "You think he pressured me?"
I blink. Emily shakes her head, amusement and pity crossing her face.
"I wanted him. I've wanted him since the first week of term." She pauses, reads my expression, and laughs again—softer this time, almost kind. "Oh, you really thought—no. God, no. He didn't do anything I didn't ask for. Repeatedly."
My mouth opens. Closes.
"Actually, that wasn't the first time," Emily continues. "And it won't be the last. At least not until I leave." She turns back to the mirror, adjusting her collar. "He's a wonderful lover, actually. Attentive. Patient. Remembers what you like." A small, private smile. "The best I've had, if I'm being honest."
I feel the ground shift beneath my feet. I was operating on an assumption—predator and prey, power and coercion—and the assumption was wrong.
"I'm leaving at the end of the month anyway," Emily says conversationally. "The rich kids here are monsters, and I'm tired of pretending otherwise. Teaching isn't worth this." She glances at me, and there is knowing in her eyes. "You'll figure that out soon enough."
She gathers her things and moves toward the door.
Emily pauses at the threshold, hand on the frame. She looks back at me with an expression that is almost sympathetic.
"Word of advice?" she says. "Don't underestimate him. Everyone does. It's a mistake."
The door swings shut behind her. I stand alone in the bathroom, my reflection staring back at me, and realize I have no idea what I am walking into.
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