11. Evelyn
EVELYN
I ran from his office, scared and confused as to why he was yelling at me. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t even try and stop him. I did everything he told me to, so why was he yelling at me?
I was a big ball of emotion that I didn’t know how to sift through.
On one hand, I was angry and embarrassed.
But on the other, I was excited, and that left me feeling confused.
It was the first time I’d ever let another person touch me like that.
It was the first time someone had made me feel those feelings.
But having it end the way it did was hard to wrap my mind around. Was he mad at me? Was he mad at himself? I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. If I didn’t listen, I was in trouble. If I did, I was in trouble. There was no winning with him. And it made the ground shake beneath my feet.
I didn’t know if I was back to worrying about him turning me in. Would I have the dean show up at my door and tell me never to step foot on campus again?
It felt like my life was spinning out of control, and I had no idea how to steer.
By the time I made it home, I was even considering quitting school and putting an end to all my troubles.
No more bad grades. No more Professor West. No more sleepless nights.
No more stress nightmares. Nothing. I could move back home.
I knew Gabe would let me crash in our childhood home that was left to both of us after our parents passed.
Of course, I’d have to find a way to support myself eventually.
I considered taking a few classes at our local community college to pursue my realtor’s license or something similar.
But then my dad’s face formed in my mind’s eye, and I thought about how I’d be letting him down.
I was the only one in my family who attended college.
If I quit, it would’ve all been for nothing.
All the studying. All the test taking. All the extra credit and volunteer hours.
Half of my life would’ve just been a waste.
I was emotional. I was angry. I was confused. I was stressed out, and I still had a paper to write. It felt like everything in my life was piling up on top of me, weighing me down.
My eyes had started to water, and by the time I made it to my room, I was full-on crying.
I sat on the edge of my bed and unzipped my boot.
Once the zipper was down, I threw it across the room.
I had a jar on my dresser that held pens and highlighters.
The boot struck the jar, causing it to fall to the ground.
Pens and markers were scattered all over the floor, and the jar broke into several large pieces, but I couldn’t be bothered to clean up the mess I’d made.
I pulled off the other boot, and I threw it in the same direction just as carelessly.
The damage had been done, so why be careful at that point?
As I sat there, crying and staring at the busted jar on my floor, I couldn’t help but compare my life to it.
The jar had been sitting there, doing its job since I moved here.
Then I came along, in a fit of rage, and broke it.
I had been doing my job until he came around and hurt me.
I didn’t understand exactly why I was upset.
I had done my job—that’s all I could do—so why did it bother me that he was upset?
I couldn’t explain it. Deep down, it all came back to wanting to be the good girl, wanting to be the one to please everyone, just like when I was a kid trying to outshine my brother’s athletic abilities.
Everything I’d done in my life wasn’t for me.
It was to please others, and I found my worth in that.
If I made my dad proud, then I was happy, and it didn’t matter how much grief I had to go through to achieve that.
If I made my teachers brag about my good grades, then I was happy.
If I made Elliot eat a dozen cookies in one sitting, I was over the moon.
Making others happy or proud is what has shaped me into who I am.
And then out of nowhere, my self-worth was ripped away because no matter what I did, I couldn’t make Professor West proud or happy.
I looked down at myself, suddenly hating the sweater dress I had on.
I stood and ripped off my jacket, then my dress.
I heard the elastic in the material pop and snap from being so rough with it, but I didn’t care.
I threw it on the floor and stomped on it until I didn’t have any energy left.
Finally, I fell onto my bed in a fit of tears.
I curled up in a ball and prayed for someone to tell me what to do.
At some point, I think I fell asleep because when I opened my eyes, the room had become dark.
I pushed myself up enough to reach over and turn on the bedside lamp.
The room was filled with light, showing me the destruction I’d caused with my fit.
The scattered pens and highlighters, the broken jar, the stretched out dress, my boots lying haphazardly on the floor, my jacket half hanging from the laundry basket.
Professor West’s voice echoed through my head.
“I like it when you wear tiny little skirts and dresses. I want you in a dress or a skirt every time you come to my office, understand?”
I didn’t have many skirts and dresses, and one I did own was lying destroyed on the floor.
Panic filled me again, bringing more tears with it.
I leaned over and grabbed it from the floor.
Holding it into the air, I surveyed the damage.
It was definitely stretched out, but I hoped that washing and drying it would cause it to return to its original size.
I held the dress to my chest and fell back into bed.
The tears still hadn’t stopped. They flooded my cheeks so fast that I couldn’t wipe them away quickly enough.
My phone chimed, and I looked around for it. I found it on the floor, partially kicked under my bed. I picked it up to see a few missed calls and one text from Gabe.
GABE: Just checking in to make sure everything is okay. You’re probably busy with studying, so you can continue to excel in all your classes. You don’t have to call me back if you’re busy. You’d better be taking care of yourself. Mom and Dad would kick my butt if I didn’t check. Love ya!
I didn’t have it in me to call him back, but I figured a quick text was the least I could do.
EVELYN: Hey, all is good. I’ve spent the day in class and I’m in the library now, trying to write a paper. I’ll call you this weekend and we can catch up. Hope all is well with you. Love you too!
I tossed the phone onto the bed and rolled to my side.
I didn’t even want to think about rewriting that paper.
I didn’t know how much time I had, but there was no way I was going to be turning it in anytime soon.
I couldn’t even think about pulling myself together for class in the morning.
Instead of thinking about the following day or the upcoming weekend, I kept my focus on the present.
I turned off my light and let sleep take me back under.
I saw nothing but blackness, but I could hear the near-constant sound of someone typing away.
The longer it went on, the louder it got until my eyes opened and I found Professor West sitting behind his desk, working at his laptop.
I was sitting across from him, and his eyes moved from his computer screen to my face.
“It’s about time you came around. I thought you were going to sleep all day.”
“What happened?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. My whole body felt heavy, and confusion was swirling in my brain. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember how I got there, or why I felt drugged almost.
“You took your punishment like a good girl,” he said, a smirk forming on his lips. “Don’t feel bad. A lot of people pass out from pain.”
I passed out? From pain? What pain? I looked down and found myself completely naked.
Not only was I naked, but there were words all over my body.
They weren’t just written there, they were tattooed.
Big, black letters welled up, surrounded in redness.
All of them tender. All of them bleeding.
What was worse was what the words said. I was literally wearing all of my insecurities on my skin for everyone to see.
The top of my right thigh read, ‘Unlovable,’ and the left read, ‘Orphan.’
I looked at my arms. They were covered in tattoos.
Stupid, slut, whore, bitch, worthless, useless, used, plaything, dumb, fat, overly sensitive, cheater, cheater, cheater…
They went on and on and on. They marred my arms, chest, stomach, legs, and judging by the heat escaping my face, they were there too.
“What is this?” I whispered, looking up at him.
“That’s your punishment.”
I sprang from my chair, still taking in my broken body. “You scarred me for life as a punishment for your stupid game?” I yelled.
“See, there you go being overly sensitive again.” He stood and started toward me. “You thought you were unlovable, and now you are. When they see you, nobody will ever want to touch you again. You’ll be all mine.”
From the other side of the door, I heard chanting and cheering.
“It sounds like it’s time,” Professor West said, placing his hand on my shoulder as he led me toward the door.
“Time for what?”
He looked at me with bright eyes and a proud smile. “Time to show them, of course.”
“Show who? I can’t go out there like this.”
He didn’t stop pushing me toward the door.
“Elliot, I’m naked.”
He paused. “I know, and now it’s time for everyone to see the real you, the person you are once everything is stripped away.” He opened the door and pushed me through it.
I wasn’t in the hallway. The door to his office opened up to a stage, and I was front and center with the whole class in the crowd. They all looked at me and laughed. Some booed, some cheered, some threw things.
I tried to cover myself with my arms. Tears formed, and then I made eye contact with Gabe. He was directly in front of the stage, looking at me in total disgust.
My alarm went off and jerked me from one of the worst nightmares I’d ever had. I was quick to silence it, but then I relaxed into the bed as I tried to calm my racing heart. That dream was sticking with me, and I couldn’t help but analyze it.
I knew that Professor West would never strip me naked, tattoo my body, and then throw me out for the entire school to see, but I got the meaning.
I felt naked with him. I felt exposed, as if he could see all my insecurities, like they were words written on my skin.
The funny thing was that he was the only one not judging me for them.
He accepted me, and he still wanted me when everyone else thought I was just a joke.
Even Gabe turned away from me when he saw who I was.
Was that dream meant to tell me that I needed to get away from Professor West as fast as possible before he could use all of my insecurities against me, or was it meant to show me that if I gave myself over to him, there wasn’t anything that would make him see me any differently?
I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t ready to find out.
I rolled over and closed my eyes, opting to stay in bed the rest of the day.