The Nix(16)

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

She studies his face for a painfully long moment. The snot pellet from her nose has disappeared. It’s really a remarkable transformation, all evidence of her actually physically crying has vanished. Even her cheeks are dry.

“You laughed at me,” she says.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes I did.”

“Why did you laugh at me?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was wrong. I shouldn’t have.”

“Why do you hate me so much?”

“I don’t hate you. Really, Laura, I don’t.”

“Why does everyone hate me? What did I do?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. It’s not your fault. Everyone likes you.”

“They do not.”

“You’re very likable. Everyone likes you. I like you.”

“You do? You like me?”

“Yes. Very much. I like you very much.”

“You promise?”

“Of course I do. I’m sorry.”

The good news is that Samuel no longer feels in danger of crying, and so his body relaxes and he gives Laura this feeble little smile and he feels so good that the whole situation has calmed down and seems to be at an emotionally even and neutral level now, and he has this feeling that the two of them have just navigated some seriously treacherous shit together, like war buddies or the stranger next to you on an airplane after going through really bad turbulence. He feels that camaraderie with Laura now, so he smiles and nods and maybe winks at her. He feels so free at this moment that he actually winks.

“Oh,” says Laura. “Oh, I get it.” And she crosses her legs and leans back in the leather chair. “You have a crush on me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I should have known. Of course.”

“No. I think you’ve misunderstood—”

“It’s okay. It’s not like the first time a teacher’s fallen in love with me. It’s cute.”

“No, really, you’ve got it wrong.”

“You like me very much. That’s what you just said.”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean it that way,” he says.

“I know what comes next. Either I sleep with you or I fail. Right?”

“That is not at all right,” he says.

“That was the plan from the beginning. This whole thing is just to get into my pants.”

“No!” he says, and he feels the sting of this accusation, how when you’re accused of something it makes you feel—even if you’re innocent—a little bit guilty. He stands up and walks past Laura and opens his office door and says, “It’s time for you to leave. We’re done now.”





STRAW MAN


“You know you can’t fail me,” says Laura, who is definitely not getting up to leave. “You can’t fail me because it’s the law.”

“This meeting is over.”

“You can’t fail me because I have a learning disability.”

“You do not have a learning disability.”

“I do. I have trouble paying attention and keeping deadlines and reading and also I don’t make friends.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. You can check. It’s documented.”

“What is the name of your learning disability?”

“They don’t have a name for it yet.”

“That’s convenient.”

“You are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide special accommodations to all students with documented learning disabilities.”

“You do not have trouble making friends, Laura.”

“I do. I don’t make any friends.”

“I see you with friends all the time.”

“They are not lasting.”

Samuel has to acknowledge this is true. He is right now trying to come up with something mean to say to her. Some insult that would equal in rhetorical weight her accusation that he has a crush on her. If he hurts Laura’s feelings deep enough, if he insults her hard enough, he would be exonerated. It would prove that he does not have a crush on her if he says something really mean, is his logic.

“What accommodations,” he says, “do you feel entitled to?”

“To pass the class.”

“You think the Americans with Disabilities Act was written to protect cheaters?”

“To rewrite the paper then.”

“What specific learning disability do you have?”

“I told you, they haven’t named it yet.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Scientists.”

“And they don’t know what it is.”

“Nope.”

“And what are its symptoms?”

“Oh, they’re really terrible. Every day is, like, a living hell?”

“Specifically, what are its symptoms?”

“Okay, well, I stop paying attention in most of my classes after like three minutes and I usually don’t follow directions at all and I never take notes and I can’t remember people’s names and sometimes I’ll read all the way to the end of a page and have no idea what I just read. I lose my place while reading all the time and skip like four lines and don’t even know it, and most charts and graphs make absolutely no sense to me, and I’m terrible at puzzles, and sometimes I’ll say one thing even though I totally mean something else. Oh, and my handwriting is really sloppy, and I’ve never been able to spell the word aluminum, and sometimes I tell my roommate that I will definitely clean my side of the room even though I have no intention of ever doing this. I have a hard time judging distance when I’m outside. I totally could not tell you where cardinal north is. I hear people say ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’ and I have no idea what that means. I’ve lost my phone like eight times in the last year. I’ve been in ten car accidents. And whenever I play volleyball the ball sometimes hits me in the face even though I totally do not want it to.”