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Hannah

He doesn’t know I’m alive

For the millionth time in forty-five minutes, I sneak a peek in Justin Kohl’s direction, and he’s so beautiful it h I should probably come up with another adjective— called beautiful

But holy hell, there’s no other way to describe his rugged features and soulful brown eyes He’s wearing a baseball cap today, but I knohat’s beneath it: thick dark hair, the kind that looks silky to the touch and h it

In the five years since the rape, uys

The first one dumped me

This one is just oblivious

At the podium in the lecture hall, Professor Tolbert delivers what I’ve come to refer to as the Disappointment Speech It’s the third one in six weeks

Surprise, surprise, seventy percent of the class got a C-plus or lower on the midterm

Me? I aced it And I’d be lying if I said the big red A! circled on top of my midterm hadn’t come as a co stream of bullshit to try to fill up the booklet

Philosophical Ethics was supposed to be a breeze The prof who used to teach it handed out brainlessof a personal essay that posed a moral dilemma and asked how you’d react to it

But teeks before the semester started, Professor Lane dropped dead fro lady found hiuy

Luckily (and yep, that’s total sarcasm) Pamela Tolbert stepped in to take over Lane’s class She’s new to Briar University, and she’s the kind of prof ants you to e” with the , ambitious teacher who shows up at the inner city school and inspires the fuckups, and suddenly everyone’s putting down their AKs and picking up their pencils, and the end credits scroll up to announce how all the kids got into Harvard or some shit Instant Oscar for Hilary Swank

Except this isn’t aTolbert has inspired in her students is hatred And she honestly can’t see in her class

Here’s a hint—it’s because she asks the types of questions you could write a frickin’ grad school thesis on