“Will you help me?” she asked quietly.
I rolled my chair closer to her. “Let’s do this.” I spent an hour explaining the differences between cosign and tangent, using the walls and equipment as visual aids. Avery worked best with imagery, not rote memory.
“Name one time I’ll actually have to use this when I grow up.”
“I’m going to use it all the time,” I answered.
“Yeah, well I have no intention of majoring in math, or anything of the sort. You’d better get your homework done, too, since you started classes last week.” Her eyes flicked to the clock. “Almost five.”
I’d finished summer term with two A’s. Now it was time to bring home four more before term ended in December. “Grady might be here soon,” I said with a smile.
“Flyboy might be here soon,” she answered with her own.
We both sighed.
“Mail is here!” Maggie called, bringing a stack of envelopes in the door. “I ran into our carrier, so I brought it on in.”
“Hi, Mom.”
Maggie kissed her daughter soundly on the cheek. “How’s your homework?”
“Done!” she replied enthusiastically.
Maggie’s eyebrows rose. “Good job!” Then she came up behind me. “Thank you,” she whispered as she sorted the mail.
I smiled at her and answered the phone and my tenth question that day about our hours.
“Maggie Norman, Advantage University? What the…” She flipped the envelope over, and I snagged it out of her hand.
“Yeah, actually that one is for me. Sorry.” I slipped it into my lap.
“Oh really? What are you up to?”
“I wanted to see my transcript from my college in Colorado. I’m trying to apply for places in the spring, and I wasn’t sure what was on it.” I gave a bright smile. If I finally gave in and read the exact wording of the disciplinary report, I could write an effective application essay that might give me a shot at a North Carolina school.
Just in case.
“Well, it’s good that you’re prepared. Avery, did you want me to carry you home before I headed over to the bar?”
Carry, take, whatever. I was never going to get used to the small southern terms.
She shook her head. “No, I was going to stay with Sam and help out cleaning the equipment, if that’s okay. She said she’d take me.”
I plastered the smile on my face like we’d planned it the whole time.
“Sounds good. Thanks, Sam.” She kissed Avery on the cheek again and headed out.
I smacked Avery’s shoulder with the back of my hand. “How about a little warning.”
“Sorry,” she said, biting her lower lip. Then she looked over my shoulder and her whole expression changed. Her eyes went wide and she started to fidget, suddenly occupied with the paper clips in front of her.
“Hey, Avery, how are you?” Grady asked as he signed in.
She took a minute to answer, but he waited, never looking away. “I’m just fine, thank you.” Her voice was a whisper, but her eyes flicked up at him once.
“Glad to hear it.” He smiled and then headed into the locker room, a black backpack hanging off one shoulder.
“You could, you know, speak to him,” I chastised her.
“He makes me so nervous,” she answered.
“Go clean something, then you can ogle a little less obviously.” I motioned to the gym floor. She giggled and chose something near the desk, no doubt waiting to see where he’d start.
The door opened and Grayson walked in, gym bag in hand. He took off his cover and signed in, but I kept my eyes on the desk. “Samantha.”
I shook my head. There was zero chance of us getting into it here.
He sighed and went to the locker room.
“You could, you know, speak to him,” Avery called out.
“Do you want me to slip a pack of pencils into Grady’s backpack?” I answered quietly enough that only Avery heard me.
Her mouth flopped open.
“I thought not.”
She stuck out her tongue, and then moved on to the next machine a little further away.
I ripped open the envelope as soon as she was out of sight and unfolded my transcript.
What. The. Fuck. My grades freshman year were fine, all normal, but the transcript showed me failing classes in my sophomore year, when I knew for a fact I’d pulled straight A’s until fall of my junior year. Not that all were F’s. Some were D’s, or incompletes. These were wrong.
No wonder I wasn’t getting in.
I flipped the page to see the attachment I’d dreaded. My stomach dropped, and my cheeks burned like everyone in the gym knew what I’d done.
Disciplinary Report: Samantha Fitzgerald.
One count of assault against a teacher, November 2014
One count of misconduct regarding an academic grade, November 2014
One count of plagiarism, September 2014
One count of cheating on a final exam, May 2014.
I blinked. It had been doctored. Altered on purpose.
Roaring filled my ears, and embarrassment was no longer the issue. Oh no, I was going to rip apart the person who did this to me. Harrison. That cheating asswipe. He’d have access to the system to change my grades. He’d told me I’d never be rid of him.
I hopped on the computer and booted up my email, going straight to the spam file. There were four more suspicious emails. All with the subject lines of universities I’d applied to. The first three called me a whore, told me I’d never be rid of the shame of what I’d done.