39

Emily dreaded final-year English. She dreaded Adrian.

'I've never had a student like him,' she thought. In fact, she'd never met anyone like him before in her life; a fact she was grateful for. The kid had a presence. Once he’d entered the room, he filled it. You could feel him sitting there, watching, smirking, and pinning her with his predatory gaze. Even though she tried to avert her eyes, there was no escaping his intense aura.

As the students filed in, talking over each other loudly in a mash of conversations, none of which made a modicum of sense, her eyes met Adrian's. He curled his lip in a cruel sneer, looking down his nose at her as he took his seat and crossed his legs.

Today's lesson was a return to the basics since a lot of the students had a very thin grasp of the written word, most with no idea of the meaning of the words 'verb,' or 'adjective.'

She had come up with funny little illustrations and planned to ask the students to create further examples.

As the students put in the minimum effort, she tried to encourage them by getting up from her seat, walking about the room and talking in a louder register. Usually, this technique worked a treat.

When she asked for an example of a split infinitive Adrian threw his arm into the air like a catcher at a baseball game.

"The teacher slowly sank into the arms of her student," Adrian said.

The words made her heart thud and her face flush. It was from a scene in her book—a book he must have read and studied at length to reel off a quote so casually.

After struggling to make ends meet in her student days, Emily had written a series of stories for an online platform that was popular in Southeast Asia. Because she used an alias and didn't connect her account to the rest of her life, she figured nobody would ever find out.

Her books were a series of erotic thrillers and had been fairly popular. The problem was, they centred around a relationship between a young teacher in training and one of her students—the stereotypical bad boy type.

At the time, as a teacher in training, it made life easier to write from her unique perspective and allowed her to add some aspects of realism. Now, looking back, she realised what a mistake she had made. If the parents and teachers found out she would be fired and struggle to find another job.

How this boy had discovered her secret was a mystery, but there was no question about it. He knew everything.

'But will he tell everyone?' she wondered. He seemed happy to hold the knowledge over her head, making her squirm as he put it.

Taking a deep breath, she took Damien's advice and failed to react. She nodded, told him it was correct in an even voice and asked if anyone had another.

"To boldly go!" one student cried.

"Great," Emily said and smiled. "Let's move on to examples of synonyms. Does anyone know what a synonym is?"

"Humiliation, embarrassment, shame, indignity, disgrace," Adrian listed without putting his hand up.

She swallowed, took a deep breath, and smiled. "Great examples of words that mean exactly or nearly the same thing."

As other students shot up their hands to offer examples, nobody seemed to cotton on to the fact Adrian was tormenting her. Nobody but Damien, who rolled his eyes and flashed her sympathetic smile.

She returned an exasperated smile, wondering how long Adrian would string her along before destroying her life for no apparent reason. There was little else she could do. It wasn't possible for her to remove the books from the app and the website, and her editor had been less than helpful when she'd asked about terminating the contract early.

There had to something she could do. Maybe she could find dirt on Adrian and use it as leverage. But how?

The more she dwelled on it, the less hope she had of finding a decent solution. By the end of the lesson, she felt close to tears—to giving up altogether.

As the students lined up, placing their homework on the corner of her desk, Adrian told her he wouldn't be doing homework anymore.

Emily nodded. She didn't care. Not about the boy's mind games or his education. If he was already smart enough to hack her computer, why bother to give him schoolwork?

She'd pretty much lost the will to live by the time Damien handed in his work and stood, staring at her with pitying eyes.

"You did a great job of not reacting," Damien told her, his tone encouraging and positive.

"I just... don't know how he knows." Emily sighed. She stared at her hands as her eyes swam. Overthinking was giving her headache and wearing out her brain. "What am I going to do?"

'Why am I asking a teenager to help me?' she wondered vaguely.

"I can have a word with him if you like?" Damien offered. "He seems to like me so he might listen to me."

"Really?" she asked, feeling a jolt of hope hit her like a lightning bolt. "You'd really do that?"

He nodded, no emotion on his face as he looked at her and glanced out of the window.

Of all the students she had taught, Damien was near the top of her least favourite list. Arrogant, argumentative, and elitist, he was everything she despised. She tried not to let her feelings show, treating all the students equally, but she had clashed with him in the past. It seemed odd that he would volunteer to help her.

'Maybe I misjudged him,' she thought.

"Thank you," she said. "Really, thank you. That would... help me out a lot."

The relief at having a possible solution washed over her, relaxing the muscles that had been tightly coiled—a series of seized up and rusting springs.

"No problem," Damien said and shrugged as if it was nothing. As if talking her tormentor out of ruining her existence was insignificant—an afterthought.

"If you can get him to drop this, I will be so grateful, Damien," she gushed, trying to convey how much it meant to her.

"Heh," Damien snickered. "How grateful?"

As Emily felt her heart sink, he chuckled softly, playing with the ornament on her desk—a koala her mother had bought her on her last trip to Australia.

"I kid! I kid!" he cried and smiled warmly, raising his gloved hands. “I’m not about to ask anything in return.”

When he turned to leave, Emily tried to smile at his weird and inappropriate joke, but her face felt like it had turned to rubber.

'Is he seriously going to help me… or am I screwed?'