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The professor looks like he’s about to explode. He stalks over to the MC and grabs the microphone.
“Hey, everyone, I think I know a lot of you. I’ve been here quite a bit! I’m Professor Alex Nass. I’m a poet celebrating the release of my latest book. Don’t forget to look for it at your nearest bookstore and online. Also, I just wanted to point out that one of my students is here!”
He dramatically points across the room at me.
“Motherfucker,” Paxton glowers.
“Two of his students,” I call back. “Female students! He knows us really well.”
The crowd murmurs and looks at the professor, and then at me. Marie holds up her hand and waves at them.
The professor has a manic smile on his face, and if Paxton weren’t here with me, I’d be kind of scared. “Anyway, this student fancies herself a poet, and although she’s got a long way to go before she comes up with anything truly original, I think we should give her a try!” he calls out. “Who wants to see her up here on stage?”
The crowd shouts in approval, although some of them are giving him suspicious looks too.
Holy hell.
I’ve told the professor that I have a fear of public speaking.
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. How do I keep letting him do this to me? And what the actual hell is wrong with him? This is a man who really, really hates women.
“I will tenderize him. I will mop up the fucking floor with him,” Paxton snarls. I grab his arm.
“No! I do not want you to get arrested or risk your career for this douchetard. He’s not worth it. I’m... I’m going to go up on the stage and I’m going to kick some ass. Do not touch him, Paxton. Promise me.”
“Fine.” He looks like he just swallowed poison.
“You got this,” Marie assures me. “Also, when you were having sex with him, did you find yourself faking it a lot?”
That gives me the laugh I need, although I’m blinking back tears too.
“Now that I look back on it, yes.”
I stalk across the room. Something is swelling up inside me. Something angry and rebellious.
I grab the microphone. I have no stage fright at all.
Everyone stares at me, rapt. The professor looks a little nervous. I think he’s realizing that getting me up on stage may not have been the smartest idea after all.
I start speaking, and the words pour out like poison pouring from a wound.
I chant about trust, about opening up your raw, tender heart, about a dark lord who devours the hearts of maidens but is still left pale, starving, and weak.
The professor glares at me. Marie, standing next to Paxton, has a huge smile on her face.
“The taste of your kisses turned sour,
A venomous potion, an ill-fated flower.
In the debris of love, where dreams once stood,
Disgust and disappointment, a haunted wood.”
The professor turns and storms out of the club.
He is flat-out a sociopath who gets off on tormenting women he perceives as weaker than him. I know this isn’t over yet.
But at least I finally did something. I called him out, I reclaimed my voice, and he’ll never be able to take that away from me.
