by Bee Daniels
“Nothing much," Melanie said as slid the stack of quizzes that had been on the edge of her desk near her. "Just grading some tests."
She decided it would be best not to mention her life plan list, one that she had made when she first entered high school to keep her on the right course in life and to accomplish all her goals.
“Poor kid,” Jessica said, pointedly looking at the big fat D that was written in bright red ink on top of the stack of quizzes.
The sight of the bad grade did not evoke the same sympathy in Melanie as it did for Jessica. Melanie gave her students all the tools they needed to pass her course with flying colors. But, of course, there were those who did not take her class seriously and wound up with grades like these. There was nothing she could do about their lack of ambition.
"I wouldn't say, 'poor kid'," Melanie mimicked. "He's just another student who thinks that because Intro to Psychology is a prerequisite that they can half-ass everything. Not on my watch."
"You know you're known to the students as being the hard professor, right?"
“Let me guess,” Melanie said laughing, not at all surprised by the complaints against her. She had gotten those same complaints at her previous schools. “They told you how hard I was and that they didn’t like me.”
"You have some students coming to me crying, Melanie. They beg me to take them out of your class even though the drop period is over. I feel bad sometimes, but the only thing I can tell them is either they can lose the money they spent, or try to study harder."
“Every semester I give them a syllabus detailing everything that will happen in the class, and it’s as if they don’t believe me. They think it's a joke when I tell them there will be pop quizzes, homework, essays, and deadlines.” Melanie shook her head. Another school, another semester, the same students.
When she had chosen to work at Weston University, a part of her thought it would be different, considering the acceptance rate and how much the Dean had raved to her about the students there when they first recruited her. But she should have known, no matter the reputation of the university, the students would always be the same.
"Forget about my slacker students," Melanie said dismissively, and Jessica laughed. "What are you up to? You were practically skipping in here.”
"It was nothing. I'm just glad to be on break. Oh! I am excited about hockey season coming up though. Actually, the whole town is excited. In a few weeks, every bar on every corner will have nothing but hockey on.”
“I’ve never been to a hockey game,” Melanie said, and Jessica’s eyes widened like balloons.
“Seriously, Melanie?”
Melanie nodded, and Jessica shook her head.
“You're missing out. Hockey is so fun! I wasn’t lying when I said the whole town is excited about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the hockey players were in your class. What are you like a basketball or football fan?”
“I’m a basketball fan,” Melanie said, smiling. “Blame my father. Our whole family only watches basketball.”
“Basketball is okay,” Jessica said, waving her off, and Melanie laughed before taking a sip of her coffee. Sports wars were always too much for her. If her best friend Abigail was here, she would surely be ganging up on Melanie with Jessica. She was a super hockey fan and would always tell her that hockey was better than basketball. “But hockey is great. When they’re skating across the ice, and you’re trying to see which way the puck will go” —Jessica shivered— “it’s nothing like it."
"You must love advising some of these great hockey players."
The smile on her face wiped instantly, and Melanie arched a brow. Or not.
"Don't get me wrong. I love hockey. But those darn hockey players make my job harder than it needs to be. They always have excuses about why they aren't passing their courses, and why they need to change their courses so they won't fail them or mess up their routines. And then exceptions always have to be made for them. Last year was a nightmare. I had to change a few of their courses mid-semester, and some of the professors weren't happy about it."
“I could imagine,” Melanie said, shaking her head. If someone told her she had to suddenly bring a new student halfway in after they missed most of the semester, she would tell them no. There was no way a student could catch up after missing so much work, and Melanie wouldn’t go easy on them because it would be unfair to the other students who worked hard since the beginning of the semester.
“They won’t be able to do that for much longer though,” Jessica said, and then lowered her voice, glancing over her shoulder as if someone else were in the room. Melanie ignored her friend's dramatics, waiting for Jessica to tell her whatever secrets she knew. It was Melanie's first year here, so she wasn't as privy to gossip as Jessica was who had been working at Weston for three years. “Many of the professors complained last year because, apparently, the coaches asked them to give the hockey players passing grades."
Melanie blinked, surprised, though she shouldn't have been. Many players got the privilege of attending colleges they weren't qualified for simply because of their athleticism. It always bothered Melanie to think about the many kids who worked hard to attend a school like Weston only not to get in because those spots were given to some athlete who didn't plan on staying in college any longer than two years with the hopes of being drafted.
"Really?"
"Yes, really," Jessica confirmed. "And some of the professors did it because they were hockey fans. It got out, and it nearly caused an uproar with the students and their parents. People were livid, and protests happened. Now, the players can't get any of the privileges they had before. Well, at least, that's what they're saying."
The air quotes and sarcastic tone Jessica used let Melanie know that as long as the administration could continue to make a profit from hockey or any other sport, athletes would continue to get by only with their athleticism alone.
“I wish one of the coaches would ask me," Melanie said, thinking about how humorous it would be to her. "I would simply fail the student if they weren’t passing my course.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. “If they fail the course, they wouldn’t be able to play. It's the new policy they're actually implementing this time because of the protests.”
“I don’t care,” Melanie said. “They should think about that before they take my course.”
She didn't care if Weston had one of the best college hockey teams and that many people invested in this college because of that team alone. College wasn't for sports; it was for education. She couldn't let any of her students skate by because they wanted to slide a puck across the ice.
“Do you have any players?” Jessica asked curiously.
Now that Melanie thought about it, she had a few of them. In one of her classes alone, she had about six athletes from various sports. But for hockey players, there was Dale Miller, Josh Anderson, and Noah Walker. Once Josh realized his sob stories wouldn't work on her, he stopped coming to her with excuses and did the work. He was doing considerably well in her class, though Melanie suspected it had all to do with him sitting next to Julie, one of her top students. Dale was barely passing, but he was much better off than his friend, Noah, who was doing terribly. When Melanie had first met Noah, she had suspected as much. He was arrogant, cocky, and according to his own words, thought he would slide by in her course with smooth words and tales.
When they first met, he had mistaken her for a student, which was more strange than flattering. And what was even stranger was that he might have been flirting with her. But him mistaking her for a student wasn't what made her know that he wouldn't be able to pass her course. It was his dismissive tone. It was the way he clearly showed that he thought her course was a joke. It was the way he had missed two weeks of her class, not because of a legitimate reason like a family death, but because the previous professor before her had been lenient, and he had planned to take advantage of that by not attending the class
at all.
Simply put, Noah was a slacker, and slackers rarely ever succeed because of their lack of ambition. In class, all he did was flirt with the other female students around him, and pretend he was paying attention. Whenever it was time for class participation, he never had anything to contribute. He would always pass on the questions and would never raise his hand. Right now, he had one of the lowest grades in her class and was at the bottom percent. With the way it was going, he would fail her course.
But Melanie did not care if Noah was a hockey player or not. She would fail him without hesitation if he didn't put the work and effort in to pass her course.
CHAPTER
3
NOAH
N
OAH WAS GOING TO FAIL THIS CLASS. He could feel it in his bones. No matter how hard he studied, he couldn't ace any of the work. And he had done more studying for this class than he had ever done in his first year of college, fall and spring semester combined, which had been a year filled with partying, hookups, and hockey. He had put more effort into this course than he had ever done in a class before, but there was nothing to show for it with his Canvas full of failing grades.
Professor Bryant's way of teaching was different from any professor Noah had before. They didn't have multiple-choice questions like normal exams did. They didn't simply have to connect a term to a definition. No. Professor Bryant wanted detailed examples because, in her own words, if they just simply memorized the definitions, then she wasn't doing her job as a teacher. She wanted to make sure they actually knew the material instead of memorizing. When they took an exam, the forty or so written questions made his brain want to explode.
Before an exam or quiz, he would read every word inside of the chapter instead of skimming through it. His textbook was filled with highlighted text from the many hours of cramming psychology in his head, and yet he was still unable to do the work that was given.
If he were all on his own with being unable to do the work, he would just simply write it off as the higher man up there forgetting to give him brains with his looks and athleticism. But that wasn't the case. More than half of the class struggled with the material too and complained about her.
Professor Bryant was a hard-ass who made everything more difficult than it had to be, and now, she stood in front of the class going over a lecture. She wore a baby blue blouse, complementing the dark complexion of her skin, and a long pants leg that draped over her heels. Her hair was pulled back into a slick ponytail, and her glasses hung low on the bridge of her nose. She went over each slide, nearly knocking the class to sleep with her dry monotone, calling out questions here and there, and those who were brave enough raised their hands to get the points they needed for participation.
Sometimes, in this class, Noah felt like an idiot. He wasn’t dumb. He wouldn’t call himself an A-plus student, but he had never been one to skate pass on D’s either; he had his fair share of high grades and even last year because of the great schedule he picked, he was able to maintain a 3.4-grade average even with the hard work he put on the ice.
Only if he had dropped this course while he had the chance, he wouldn't be in this situation. But it was too late now, and with Coach Benson riding him for his poor grade, he would have to find a way to pass this class. It's just that right now, he didn't know how to.
“With this, we learned that the stages of cognitive development are…”
“This class fucking sucks,” Noah muttered to himself as he scribbled down whatever was on the board.
Julie, who sat next to him, giggled softly. Her notebook was filled with notes, and though they had been sitting next to each other since his second day of class, he wasn’t able to pass the work like Julie did. It was clear she was able to get it because whenever their exams or quizzes were returned, she always had A’s. Then again, Julie had always seemed like a smart girl. It was what attracted him to her in the first place. She seemed innocent, and if he were honest, a part of him wanted to see how innocent she would be in his bedroom.
"Just say that you're not as smart as the rest of us, Walker."
Anderson, who sat on the other side of Julie, looked pleased with himself for his little taunt as he copied down the notes Julie wrote. Noah decided not to give into Anderson's goading. He wasn't in the mood, and he would much rather entertain the girl sitting next to him than a jealous idiot.
“It’s not that bad,” she whispered, her blue eyes sparkling as she looked at him. For a long time now, Noah had been able to tell that Julie was interested in him from just those looks alone. Those looks told him exactly what she wanted from him. And though he had told himself this year that he would only focus on hockey, he wouldn't mind making an exception for Julie.
“Says you, smart girl,” he said, tapping the quiz on her desk that had been passed back to them earlier, 98 percent written on top of it.
She blushed, her cheeks splotching with red as she glanced at her paper. Suddenly, she asked, “Are you going to the sorority party this weekend?”
Noah glanced at Professor Bryant to make sure she didn’t notice them talking, and luckily, her attention was focused on the board as she wrote down a slew of information about cognitive development.
“Yeah,” Noah said with a lazy grin. “Why?”
Julie blushed more, biting her lip. “I just wanted to know.”
“You want to party with me, Julie?” Noah whispered, his eyes smiling with amusement. Julie’s eyes flickered back and forth between his blue ones before she slowly nodded.
“Mr. Walker.” Noah stiffened before he turned away from Julie to see everyone’s attention on him. Professor Bryant’s arms were folded on top of each other, her eyes unkind, and her nose wrinkled.
“Yes,” Noah answered, cooly, as he leaned back in his seat.
“Would you like to share with the class what the concrete operational stage consists of, and what's the best example of this stage being achieved with adolescents?”
Professor Bryant had spent the entire lecture going over the concrete operational stage, amongst other things, and though he had written notes in his book, he could not retain any of the information. Honestly, her voice droned in his ears the way a lullaby did for a kid. Eventually, it all became white noise, making him want to sleep. He could rattle off the definition, which he knew because he studied it last night, but the definition alone wouldn't be enough for her. It never was.
“No,” Noah said, and shrugged. “I’m positive that you will be able to give a better example of it than me.”
A few snickers could be heard throughout, but Professor Bryant was not amused. Her brown eyes bored into his own as he stared back at her, not wanting to break contact, not wanting to back down.
There was something about Professor Bryant that annoyed him. She looked at him as if he were a joke or a slacker, and all of his life, Noah had never been any of those things. He worked his ass off to get where he was at now with his own skill. He was a hard worker, diligent in his craft, and a determined winner. So, why was it that every time he stepped in here, under her gaze, he felt like none of those things?
Their eye staring showdown lasted for another beat until Professor Bryant looked away, shaking her head. And though Noah should have felt smug, he didn't. Not when once again, she made him feel like the dirt under her shoe.
“Julie, will you be able to help out your classmate with an example?”
Julie cleared her throat and began to rattle off an example that showed, in between her time of flirting with him, she had actually been paying attention to Professor Bryant's lecture.
"Since it seems that Julie has actually done the readings, I hope that your conversations are more productive than your listening skills, Mr. Walker." And with those words, she walked back to the front and continued with the lecture.
Noah gritted his teeth, trying to tamp down his anger. He shot Julie a nonchalant smile though he did not feel it, and he ignored Anderson's pl
eased grin from his humiliation.
He listened to Professor Bryant go on and on, wishing that he had never picked this class and had never met her.
When class was over, he grabbed his stuff and shot out of his seat. As he walked down the steps, Dale, who had been sitting a row behind him, quickly caught up to him, falling in step with him.
“Damn, man. I thought you two were going to fight,” Dale murmured. Noah was surprised it looked that way.
“Seriously?” Noah asked as they walked past the professor’s desk. He glanced at Professor Bryant in passing as she placed her items into her bag, and when their eyes locked, she once again gave him that look that made him feel useless and dumb.
“Yeah, it looked just like that. I think she doesn’t like you.”
“Yeah,” Noah agreed as he walked out of the classroom. “Trust me, the feeling is mutual.”
CHAPTER
4
MELANIE
W
HEN SOMEONE KNOCKED ON MELANIE’S OFFICE DOOR FRIDAY AFTERNOON, she assumed it would be Jessica. She didn’t have office hours at this time, and usually, Jessica would visit her during her lunch breaks to ask Melanie if she wanted to pick up some food on campus. But when the door opened, and a man Melanie did not recognize entered, she was surprised.
It was rare that she ever got visitors outside of her students, those in her department, and the cleaning crew. Of course, occasionally, there was a lost student who would ask her where a class was because of the unconventional way the classroom order was set up, but this man clearly was not a student. Beneath his cap were a sprinkle of gray hairs threaded throughout his dark brown hair, and there was a slight puff to his jawline that came with old age. If Melanie could guess, he was at least in his forties. He was a fairly handsome man with a tall stature, and a good build. He stood at her door with a touch of surprise in his gaze as he stared at her. It made her wonder if he had stepped into her office by accident.