day of class. He’d always seemed like a bit of a loner. While most of the teachers seemed to cluster in packs, their cliques just as apparent as the students’, he spent most of his free time in his office, his nose buried in a book or a stack of papers.
As someone forced into solitude and introspection, I had a certain admiration for someone who chose that path.
On the first day, Mr. Edwards passed out the syllabus, telling us all to be prepared to work hard or to get out of his class, albeit in a much more tactful and British way. The list of books he passed out was the standard classic American literary fare with a focus on New England – The Scarlet Letter , Ethan Frome , The House of the Seven Gables . Winter would be filled with dreary Puritans. It seemed rather fitting.
Mr. Edwards called the roll, reading the list of names in his precise British accent. He reached my name and, of course, called me Katherine. “Ember,” I corrected. “It’s an old family name,” I added at his quizzical look.
“Ember,” he repeated. That was the first time he said my name, and even then there was something in his voice. A spark of recognition of kindred spirits perhaps. A familiarity among strangers. Or maybe just my teenage hormones latching onto someone new and different and interesting.
Whatever it was, it began with a smile and my name.
OPENING PAGES
Adam
I t didn’t happen the way you’re thinking.
She didn’t walk into my office clad in knee-socks and a pleated skirt, nor was I the leering predator I was made out to be when everything blew up in our faces. When our relationship began, it was purely professional.
I shouldn’t be telling anyone this.
The things that I’ve done should be forgotten, lost in the annals of time. I shouldn’t have the luxury of exorcising my demons to a willing listener. Of course, I never really paid attention to what I should do. God knows if I had, none of this would ever have happened.
She was one of my students. She was. . . beautiful and wild and--
No, not innocent, at least not in the puritanical ways most people in our sex-obsessed society think of. Ember was not exactly popular, more like infamous among the faculty and her peers. She was the girl who mouthed off to the teachers and picked fights with the football players because she knew she could get away with it.
Above all, she awakened a passion in me that had been dampened for far too long. Despite the fondness for teaching that had grown in the past three years, I was becoming disheartened by the increasing amount of students that skated through my class, making only the most cursory attempts to really comprehend the material. Was The Scarlet Letter really that complicated of a book? Getting excited about teaching students who didn’t give a damn about the material was a Sisyphean battle that I was beginning to lose.
Ember quickly established herself as one of my top students. Any teacher that said they never played favorites was a liar. Those at the high and low end of the spectrum stood out, but they were few and far between. The rest blended into a blur unless they did something to designate themselves.
Ember stood out. Habits built in university work were hard to break, and I was a harsh grader, wielding my red pen like cudgel. I’d had more than a few of the over-achievers cursing my name after I skewed their perfect record with a B.
She seemed to barely acknowledge the grades. Far from the usual smug grins the future valedictorians wore, she would glance at her paper and then stuff it into her backpack, a faint smile or frown being the only indication if the mark pleased her.
She strolled into my office that day with a level of confidence that would have been impressive on someone decade older. On a girl who had barely turned 18, it was startling. Two sharp raps on my open door startled me from the stack of papers on Ethan Frome . I looked up to see Ember in my doorway. “Hey Mr.
As someone forced into solitude and introspection, I had a certain admiration for someone who chose that path.
On the first day, Mr. Edwards passed out the syllabus, telling us all to be prepared to work hard or to get out of his class, albeit in a much more tactful and British way. The list of books he passed out was the standard classic American literary fare with a focus on New England – The Scarlet Letter , Ethan Frome , The House of the Seven Gables . Winter would be filled with dreary Puritans. It seemed rather fitting.
Mr. Edwards called the roll, reading the list of names in his precise British accent. He reached my name and, of course, called me Katherine. “Ember,” I corrected. “It’s an old family name,” I added at his quizzical look.
“Ember,” he repeated. That was the first time he said my name, and even then there was something in his voice. A spark of recognition of kindred spirits perhaps. A familiarity among strangers. Or maybe just my teenage hormones latching onto someone new and different and interesting.
Whatever it was, it began with a smile and my name.
OPENING PAGES
Adam
I t didn’t happen the way you’re thinking.
She didn’t walk into my office clad in knee-socks and a pleated skirt, nor was I the leering predator I was made out to be when everything blew up in our faces. When our relationship began, it was purely professional.
I shouldn’t be telling anyone this.
The things that I’ve done should be forgotten, lost in the annals of time. I shouldn’t have the luxury of exorcising my demons to a willing listener. Of course, I never really paid attention to what I should do. God knows if I had, none of this would ever have happened.
She was one of my students. She was. . . beautiful and wild and--
No, not innocent, at least not in the puritanical ways most people in our sex-obsessed society think of. Ember was not exactly popular, more like infamous among the faculty and her peers. She was the girl who mouthed off to the teachers and picked fights with the football players because she knew she could get away with it.
Above all, she awakened a passion in me that had been dampened for far too long. Despite the fondness for teaching that had grown in the past three years, I was becoming disheartened by the increasing amount of students that skated through my class, making only the most cursory attempts to really comprehend the material. Was The Scarlet Letter really that complicated of a book? Getting excited about teaching students who didn’t give a damn about the material was a Sisyphean battle that I was beginning to lose.
Ember quickly established herself as one of my top students. Any teacher that said they never played favorites was a liar. Those at the high and low end of the spectrum stood out, but they were few and far between. The rest blended into a blur unless they did something to designate themselves.
Ember stood out. Habits built in university work were hard to break, and I was a harsh grader, wielding my red pen like cudgel. I’d had more than a few of the over-achievers cursing my name after I skewed their perfect record with a B.
She seemed to barely acknowledge the grades. Far from the usual smug grins the future valedictorians wore, she would glance at her paper and then stuff it into her backpack, a faint smile or frown being the only indication if the mark pleased her.
She strolled into my office that day with a level of confidence that would have been impressive on someone decade older. On a girl who had barely turned 18, it was startling. Two sharp raps on my open door startled me from the stack of papers on Ethan Frome . I looked up to see Ember in my doorway. “Hey Mr.
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