By the end of the second week it had become routine.

I walked into math class already wet. The second Mr. Harlan’s eyes landed on me, heat pooled low in my stomach and my thighs pressed together under the desk. I stopped pretending to understand the material. I stopped even looking at the board. I simply sat there, pulse climbing, waiting for the moment he would decide my work was unacceptable enough to send me to his office.

He always did.

That Thursday I barely lasted twenty minutes before he called me to the front, watched me deliberately ruin a problem, and said the words I had started craving.

“Office....