I nodded. “Okay, yeah.”
Thankfully, my class was well-behaved. Even Brett didn’t make a peep. He was very obedient that day, and I wondered what the principal had said to him…whatever it was had seemed to work. Brett was a model student all day, and I was so relieved when the last bell rang that I gave all the kids a piece of candy from the treat jar on my desk.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Thomas. During planning, I even spaced out and started doodling his name all over my notebook like a little kid. When I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder, I shrieked.
“God, June, calm down,” Ruth said. She sounded exasperated. As she glanced down at my notebook, I grabbed it and tucked it out of sight, blushing furiously.
I narrowed my eyes. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “You just startled me. What’s wrong?”
Ruth cleared her throat nervously. “I…I wanted to speak with you about something.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. “That doesn’t sound good. What’s wrong?”
“Well…” Ruth trailed off, looking anxious. “I don’t know, June. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”
“What?” I stood up. My palms grew cold and damp and I wiped them on my skirt. “What’s going on?”
Ruth looked helpless. “Come with me,” she said. She led me down the hall and into the teacher’s lounge before pointing at the wall. “You might want to take that down,” she added. She pointed to a piece of paper tacked onto the wall.
I gasped. A piece of white copy paper was stuck to the wall, covered in crude drawings of a female stick figure with long black hair. Another stick figure – actually several of them, all male – were surrounding the female and laughing at her. I flushed hotly when I saw that all of the male figures had huge, crudely-drawn penises.
“Oh my god!” I shrieked. “What is this?”
Ruth looked guilty. “This was there, too,” she said. She handed me a crumpled piece of paper and I unfolded it, gasping in shock when I read the words scrawled on the page.
“June Rogers is a fuck slut!! She is a sexual predator!! She will fuck your male students so keep them locked away!! She is a pedophile and should be arrested!!!”
I screamed and grabbed the page with stick figures off the wall, crumpling it and tearing it into a thousand pieces. Tears stung my eyes and I covered my face with my hands before I began to cry.
“Ruth, what’s going on,” I cried, feeling helpless. “Why would someone do this to me?”
Ruth looked nervous. “You probably don’t want to rip that up,” she said. “You probably should want to keep it as…you know, evidence.”
“Evidence?” My jaw dropped. “What’s going on, Ruth? Why is someone trying to sabotage me?” Tears of humiliation and hurt streamed down my face and I wrapped my arms around my body, hugging myself tightly.
Ruth licked her dry lips. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Is someone mad at you, June? Is that what’s going on?”
“I have no idea,” I said. Then, an image of Andy popped into my mind and I shuddered.
“June?” Ruth asked cautiously. “It’s okay – you can tell me.”
I shook my head and bit my lip. “Forget it,” I said. I tried to pull myself together, and wiped the tears from my face with the backs of my hands. “It’s not worth talking about.”
Ruth nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “But if you need to talk, I’m here.”
I set my lips in a thin line. “I’m fine,” I said softly.
At least, I hoped I was fine.
By the time I left school, I was a nervous wreck. All of the happiness and joy that my date with Thomas had brought me over the weekend had vanished. Why was Andy doing this? Why did he hate me? I knew that I shouldn’t have ghosted him, but that didn’t warrant any of this insanity! He was acting like a total crazy person.
I was a few blocks away from school and almost to the subway when someone grabbed me and pulled me into an alley. Before I could scream, a hand clapped over my mouth. Someone’s arms wrapped around my torso, pinning my arms to my sides, and carried me far away from the street.
“Help!” I tried to shriek. It only came out as a muffled grunt. Panic began to race in my belly and a cold sweat broke out over my body. This is it, I thought as my unknown assailant dragged me farther and farther from the safety of the street.
“Shut up, bitch,” a familiar voice hissed. “Did you like my notes?”
When I realized it was Andy who had grabbed me, I twisted and shrieked in fear. Andy gripped me with surprising strength – he was a smaller guy, and I was shocked that he was able to carry me at all.