Page 31 of Slipping Away

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Coach Benton looked right through me today. I thought we were real.

I walked into his office to surprise him and found him with a student on his desk.

He laughed. Like I was the one interrupting.

Mar 2

Everyone knows. I can’t even walk across campus without whispers.

I’m the fool who thought a man like that could love me.

Sara’s fingers tightened around her pen.

Humiliation. Public.

Then the entries shifted.

Not desperate.

Hopeful.

Mar 5

I’m done being the punchline.

Professor Keller stopped by my desk. Said I deserved better.

Said he and his wife were “taking a break.”

He looked at me like I wasn’t ruined.

I wanted to believe someone still saw me as worth something.

Mar 10

He told me he loved the way I listened. That I made him feel understood.

It felt real.

Maybe I needed it to be.

Sara stared at the page for a long moment.

That wasn’t a victim’s voice.

That was a woman trying to climb out of a hole with her bare hands.

She turned the page.

The handwriting tightened.

Mar 12

His wife showed up today. Pregnant.

She hugged him in the hall, called him Daddy.

I waited until they walked away and threw up in the staff bathroom.