“What do your normal thoughts sound like?” he asks, laughing, and I try to keep my own smile in check while the professor rattles off the eighth piece of required reading we’ll apparently be analyzing.
“I can assure you they are pretty boring.” A lie, but he doesn’t really care. He’s just making small talk, trying to break the barrier.
“Noted,” he says with a quiet laugh, and I turn back to copying the titles off the board.
When class ends, I realize algebra is next, and even though I’d normally be perfectly happy to spend an hour with vectors, I know they come withhimattached.
I don’t know why I’m spiraling. Spilling the coffee was an accident, and during that first lecture he didn’t throw a single suspicious glance my way.
I’m fully convinced he’s already forgotten I exist, and I’m probably just manufacturing drama out of nothing. That’s what Lupe always says, that my brain is my greatest ally and my worst enemy all at once. Because without meaning to, I complicate everything. My mind doesn’t operate in straight lines. Everything branches into more variables, more possibilities, more ways something can go right or wrong.
I’m the first one to arrive at the lecture hall, and when I spot Mr. Vaughn already at the podium, I turn around quietly, hoping to dissolve into the hallway until more students show up.
“I’ve already noted that your sense of direction is concerning, but this time you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be, Miss Sanchez.”
I could swear he didn’t even lift his eyes from his papers, so how on earth did he see me? And how does he know my name? Then I remember he knew the name of the student he kicked out on the first day too. He strikes me as the kind of person who reviewed every student’s file before the first lecture, mapping out exactly how to take each one down based on their individual weak points.
I turn back toward him after swallowing the knot in my throat four times over and scramble for an excuse. I could tell him I need to go to the bathroom, or that I forgot to grab water… But no, my water bottle is sitting right there in plain view, so that would just make me seem unhinged on top of scatterbrained. What if I told him I got an urgent call from home the second I stepped inside? But that would mean leaving the lecture, and I actually want to hear what he has to say about those algorithms today.
“For the love of everything you hold dear, just come in and sit down. You don’t need to justify not wanting to be the first one in the room,” he says, and I can hear the barely-there exasperation in it.
My cheeks go warm. I almost tell him the reason I don’t want to be alone in this room with him is that he radiates Dementor energy and I only have so much soul left to lose, but I manage to keep that one in.
I am civilized. I am pleasant. I am civilized. I am pleasant.I’m also broke and deeply uninterested in getting expelled after paying an obscene amount of money to be here.
It’s sixty minutes, Amalia. You have survived worse. Probably.
The lecture hall fills up fast, but the front row stays empty except for me. Everyone migrates to the back, which would have been the smarter call, except I can’t see the board from there and the background chatter makes my brain short-circuit.
Forty minutes in, Mr. Vaughn turns to face the room and I find myself actually looking at him. Contemplative. A little severe. The kind of man who gives the impression that absolutely nothing can touch him.
Black shirt, chinos, Converse. He looks nothing like authority is supposed to look, which somehow makes him more authoritative. His gaze does most of the work, quiet and assessing, like he’s already made up his mind about everyone in this room and is simply waiting for confirmation. Rectangular glasses. Hair a little disheveled, like he’s dragged his hands through it several times today. On his fingers, a few rings I wasn’t expecting to like as much as I do. Stainless steel, each one etched with a different pattern, simple and deliberate, very much like him.
But it’s the look in his eyes that gets me. He seems like someone who has lived too much for his age — there’s a weightto him, something that looks like guilt. I recognize it because it’s the same guilt I carry every time I think about Julia. The way she must have managed on her own to get two little girls out of that house. The way she ran back inside before the explosion. The way I think she didn’t want to let us down.
Maybe if we hadn’t been a burden, she would have called the police sooner. Maybe if she hadn’t had to get us out first, she could have helped our parents, and they’d all still be alive.
I shake myself free of those thoughts and bring my attention back to the man in front of me.
The real problem is exactly his presence. I can guarantee that if you’ve ended up on his bad side, you’re done for.
Some giggling breaks out in the back rows, and the way this man turns toward the source of the sound —ay Diosito.
“If that buzzing isn’t contributing anything to this lecture, I’d ask you to save the gossip for the break.”
He’s the only professor who reacts to the smallest noise, and you do not want to be the one who set him off. Those eyes could turn you to stone if he put in a little effort.
“Through an external point, how many lines can be drawn parallel to a given line?” he asks, and I force my mouth to stay shut.
Come on, Amalia. It’s simple, you just have to keep that mouth closed and not make a scene, because it’s a very basic question…and nobody answers.
Without meaning to, I catch my lower lip between my teeth, forcing myself to stay quiet, to not draw attention. I’m not repeating high school, where every classmate resented me for always knowing the answers.
At some point I glance up at him, and I almost forget to breathe when I find his gaze trained directly on me. His eyes are almost black in the dim light of the room, but there’s no question about it. He’s looking at me.
“Miss Sanchez, any ideas?”
No, Amalia. You have zero ideas, your mind is a complete blank. Just stay quiet.
