After Class

I'm twenty years old, and I'm about to fail.

Not metaphorically. Not in some existential, quarter-life-crisis kind of way. I'm literally about to fail Victorian Literature—the last class I need to graduate, taught by the one professor on campus who doesn't give a damn about my GPA, my scholarship, or the fact that I've worked my ass off for four years to get this close to the finish line.

Dr. Thomas Callahan.

Forty-four years old, according to the faculty page I've visited more times than I should admit. Distinguished. Silver threading through dark hair that he wears slightly too long, like he stopped caring what the administration thinks a decade ago. Sharp jaw, sharper eyes—grey, the color of storm clouds, and just as unforgiving when they land on a student who hasn't done the reading.

Which is me. Always me.

I watch him from the third row, the same seat I've claimed all semester, telling myself I sit here because of the acoustics. The truth is uglier. I sit here because when he paces in front of the lectern, this is where his eyes tend to land. This is where I can see the flex of his forearms when he rolls up his sleeves, the way his throat moves when he reads passages aloud, his voice turning Victorian prose into something indecent.

I should hate him. He's the reason I'm going to miss graduation. The reason I'll have to explain to my parents why their daughter—the first in our family to go to college—will be walking the stage a semester late.

But I don't hate him.

That's the problem.

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