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“Anway, unfortunately, I can’t hang out and let you roast my cooking skills any longer. I have to go talk to coach. Good times, good times. He’ll most likely hell at me. I should invite Dick Oliver to the team meeting to give him a few pointers.”
I kiss her forehead. “I’ll see you soon. Look at those papers right away, okay? It’s some good reading.”
31
RUBY
The scent of burnt cake drifts through the air as I sit on Mason’s black leather sectional couch and stare at the envelope. What could it be? A declaration of love? Hand-drawn pictures? A picture of a hand—flipping me off?
A strange nervous energy crackles through me. I have the feeling that whatever is in that envelope is very, very important. It’s going to change things somehow. Change scares me.
But Paxton wanted me to open this package, and I know that Paxton wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.
Slowly, I open it and slide out a stack of papers.
The first page takes my breath away.
It’s a copy of my poem—my earliest version, and it’s printed out from Poetry Tree. I’d completely forgotten that I posted it there, it was so long ago. It was published on a website, with the date on it, and it’s available to anyone who creates a Poetry Tree account.
Holy frijoles. There is no way the professor can argue this away. I read through the poem, every word, blinking away hot tears.
My words are mine again. Paxton gave them back to me.
I check the next page. It’s an article about something called “forensic linguistics.” I read the article carefully. According to this article, it’s possible to identify a writer by their writing style, using advanced software.
I flip to the page after that. Mason has printed out a book review that says that the poems in Professor Nass’s book are excellent, but the styles of the poems are so different it gave the reviewer whiplash, and the book reads as if it was written by five different poets.
Maybe it was. I wonder who else he might have stolen from. He stole five poems from me. There are thirty poems in the book.
All of this together is going to be enough to prove that Professor Nass plagiarized my poems. Plagiarism is the cardinal sin at colleges.
I also think that if both Marie and I file complaints about him, it’s going to be harder for him to deny. She and I exchanged phone numbers after that night at the slam poetry event, and we’ve been texting each other.
The university might believe that one woman filing a complaint is just a crazy stalker, but two women coming forward with the same story—that’s starting to show a trend. And I suspect that if the two of us came forward, so would other women. In the #metoo era, it’s harder for abusers to sweep things under the rug.
I can also show them my planner pages with his garage code, if I need to. How’s he going to explain that away? How else could I have gotten the code without him giving it to me, and what legitimate reason would a professor have for giving the code to his house to a student?
And I kept track of every date that I had with him, in my planner... I bet I could track down some security camera footage showing us together. Also, I know about the mole on his penis. It’s shaped like a little heart, which I used to somehow think was adorable. Now it makes me want to gag.
Honestly, a lot of this is stuff that I should have thought of when he first dumped me and threatened me, but at the time, I was so emotionally crushed that I just wanted to pretend it never happened.
Now, however, I’m finding that I have enough strength to stand up to my abuser.
“What’s up, buttercup?” Rowan walks over to the couch and sits down next to me. “Are you all right?” she adds, as I wipe tears away from my face.
“I will be now, thanks to Paxton. Check this out.” I hand her the stack of papers. “He found all this stuff online. He’s given me proof of the professor ripping off my poetry.”
She looks at the first page, then looks up at me again. “You already published this poem, publicly?”
I nod. “I’d forgotten that I did it. And this website is pretty obscure. But it exists, and he can’t deny it now.”
“No, he motherforking can’t!” Rowan breaks out in a triumphant grin. “That needle-dick predator piece of shit is going down!”
“Needle-dick,” I nod to myself. “I like that. I was getting tired of calling him Nass-hole and Nass-face.”
“Well, this is going to be a real kick in the Nass for him,” Rowan says. “He’s not going to be able to teach anywhere in the country, and he shouldn’t. He can’t be in a position of power, around impressionable young women. He’s a predator.”
I shudder. “He’s a freaking sociopath. I can’t believe I didn’t see through him immediately.”
