Beyond What is Given(110)

Sam


Six of us stared at each other as we sat around the coffee table, sipping steaming mochas at Montague’s coffee shop in Colorado Springs.

We were all different in some respect. We were blond, brunette, even the lone redhead. We were tall, short, thin, curvy, heads of the class, and…not. Hell, the only thing we all had in common was that we’d all been played by Harrison Proctor.

Well, that and we were all being victimized for it.

“We’re due to see the Dean in an hour. Are you all ready for this?” I asked, and laid my binder-clipped stack of emails on the table with my good arm. Two more weeks and this thing was off. “Everyone is going to know what we did.”

Carrie, a wide-eyed brunette, put her emails next to mine. “He needs to pay.”

There was some mumbled assent.

“No.” I shook my head. “This isn’t about Harrison. What he did to us was wrong, but come on, ladies. Did any of us not know that he was a professor? Were any of us led to think something else?”

They dropped their eyes as I looked around the table.

“This is about Michelle, and what she’s doing to us. If we go in there acting like some spoiled school girls bent on revenge because the guy we were screwing lied to us, we’ll fail.”

“What he did was wrong,” the redhead, Lesley, added.

“Yeah, it was. But we were wrong, too. All of us. If we want our lives, our transcripts, our futures back, we’re going to have to own up to that. Our dirty little secret is about to be exposed to everyone. If you’re not okay with that, it’s time to duck out. We’re stronger together, but I’m not going to ask anyone to wade through their personal hell for me if they’re not willing.”

Thwack. Thwack. One by one, packages of emails landed on the table until all six of us had laid our nightmares bare.

An hour later, we stood outside the Dean of Student’s office, all dressed in varying degrees of business attire. Okay, so maybe Lisa looked a little Legally Blonde, but I think we presented an adult and united front.

We weren’t children to be taken advantage of.

His secretary, a darling silver-haired woman with cat-eye spectacles, assessed us as we waited by her desk. “And you’re all here to see him?’ she asked.

“We are.”

“Okay, then,” she answered with a sweet, tolerant smile and disappeared into Dean Miller’s office.

“Last chance,” I said softly, looking at the girls gathered around me.

They formed a line and stepped forward. When the time came, we walked into Dean Miller’s office with shaking smiles and clutched papers. I took front and center while the girls fanned out behind me.

The Dean sat behind a large mahogany desk framed by a stunning view of the Front Range behind him. “Miss Fitzgerald, I didn’t realize you’d be bringing an army with you,” he said with a furrowed forehead.

“I’m sorry, Dean Miller, but I wasn’t sure who would want to come forward when I made the appointment.”

“When you made the appointment, I thought you’d want to discuss your assault on Professor Proctor last year.” His eyes darted to the other five females. “Now I’m not so sure.”

My face heated, and I took a huge breath. Here we go. “What I did was wrong, and I am willing to answer whatever disciplinary action you require of me in order to finish my degree here.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Miss Fitzgerald.” His smile was tight.

“However, that’s not why we’re here today.” I stepped forward and placed my clipped collection of emails, my original report cards, and the newest transcript on his desk.

“What are these?” he asked as he started to thumb through.

“For the last ten months, I have tried to apply to other schools. I was too embarrassed to come back here after my behavior toward Professor Proctor. No matter what led up to it, I never should have struck him. However, what you have in front of you is evidence of the way I have been systematically bullied and harassed since last year. These include taunting emails as well as my transcript being altered by the registrar’s office.”

His eyebrows drew together as he scanned the pages.

I barreled ahead, needing the momentum to push me through. “If you flip through to the end, my technical investigator printed out the evidence that these email addresses are owned by a member of the UCCS staff in the registrar’s office.”

“Michelle?” He shook his head. “She’s not the kind of woman who would do this, even for hitting Professor Proctor.”

One of the girls placed her hand on my back, and it gave me the little boost I desperately needed. My stomach nearly rebelled, but the truth crept up my throat until I knew it would no longer stay there. “Not because I hit him, but why I hit him. It wasn’t a bad grade.”

“Okay?”

“I was sleeping with him.”

He froze but showed no other outward emotion.

“I didn’t know he was married. That’s why I hit him. I’d just found his wedding ring. None of us knew.” Why was my throat so dry? I couldn’t move past the lump growing there.

Dean Miller looked at each girl in turn as they stepped forward to hand him their own packets of damning proof, laying a collegiate sex scandal on his desk.