Chapter 22 Ash
Through the whole lecture, I felt Ava giving me the side-eye, and I studiously ignored her as Leitch droned on and on about fuck knows what.
When we started our sophomore year, they told me to pick an elective that would challenge me.
Being a computer science major meant programming and tech science, and I did an elective in Economics basically so I could keep Jett awake in class.
This elective caught my attention. Creative writing was an odd choice for me, but I liked the idea of it.
I guess most people looked at me and saw a typical jock, but I liked to write.
I’d kept a journal since I was a young kid, and when I had to attend therapy for the bulimia, they told me that a journal would help me.
Instead of eating my feelings, I was to write them down, something about facing my challenges or whatever.
I shifted in my seat as I thought about my journal.
I didn’t particularly like talking about myself all the time.
I was more of a team player than the star, so focusing all my attention on myself, even in therapy, made me uncomfortable.
Writing about me wasn’t as bad because I was the only one who saw it.
The therapist never asked to read my entries; all she ever asked was if I had made any entries.
Leitch was tormenting some poor bastard on the other side of the room when Ava leaned over and poked me sharply in the side with her pen.
“Jesus!” I whispered as I jumped, making sure Professor Prick hadn’t seen her.
“What did you do to her?” Ava demanded in a fierce whisper.
“Nothing she didn’t want or need.” My eyes flicked to the professor again. “I swear, you make him call me out and you’ll regret it,” I hissed at her.
Ava looked past me, and I saw her own dislike of the professor on her face. “Fine, but you tell me as soon as we’re out of here.”
“Ms. Bryant, do you want to share with the class?”
Her face paled significantly. He hadn’t even been looking at us, and he knew she’d been talking. “No, thank you. I wasn’t saying anything.”
The professor turned to look at us, and with slow, measured steps, he made his way over to stand in front of us both. I was internally cursing Ava because I hadn’t done the reading, and I was screwed if he asked me anything.
“No, thank you,” he repeated. “You wasn’t saying anything.”
God, he was a prick. He was average height, with gray hair and scruff on his face, which I was never sure if he thought looked good or if he was too lazy to shave.
He was a complete and utter asshole, and I would have left this class behind long ago if I didn’t care about Ava.
Every class, he had a snide comment for her, or he roasted her.
At first, I thought it was a coincidence, then I thought he genuinely had a thing for her, but I now knew he was gay, so the reason why he had a vendetta against her was truly unknown to me.
Ava was awesome. She was open, honest, talked about football more than I did, and was also hot.
The girl was every guy’s perfect woman. Which is why my cousin thought he had struck gold with her, because he had.
And this professor pissed me off every time he spoke to her like she was the shit on his shoe.
He stood in front of us both now, looking down his nose at her, and I really wanted to break his face.
“Ms. Bryant, you interrupted my lecture. It was obviously very important, please,” he smiled at her with no friendliness, “share.”
“Why are you such a dick?” I met his affronted stare calmly. “Seriously, does it get you off or something, being such a complete asshole all the time?”
“You cannot talk to me li—”
“Actually, I can,” I spoke over him. “You speak to your class like they’re stupid. You’re condescending, patronizing and quite honestly, a shit teacher. So, when you speak to us with zero respect, tell me, professor, why the fuck should we respect you?”
“You will leave this lecture hall,” he said to me coldly.
“No. I won’t. Because I know my friend will stay here, and I know as soon as I walk out that door, you’re going to make the remainder of this class hell for her.
” I leaned forward in my chair. “I don’t need your class to pass, so you can chuck me out, and I will still come in here every single time with her if I have to. ”
“I will report you to the dean.”
“Go ahead, I have him on speed dial.” I handed him my phone. “Right under the number that says Board.”
“You think because you’re a Santo that this behavior will be excused?” he sneered at me.
“No, I think because you’re an ass, this class will verify that when the board asks questions when Ms. Bryant lodges her formal complaint against you for bullying.”
He stood there for a few moments, and I waited. I knew right then he was either going to explode or wilt. My money was on the former; he was too far up his own ass to recognize he was in the wrong.
“Both of you, out, before I call campus security.”
Knew it. Dick.
Standing abruptly, I looked at him with the same disdain he had for me. I didn’t need to look at Ava to know she was shell-shocked. “Ava, get your stuff.”
With quick jerky movements, she packed her things and then stood beside me.
I could practically feel her shaking. Unlike me, she did need this class.
Turning to look at the rest of the spellbound class, I considered them.
“You ready?” I asked them, and with satisfaction, I saw more than half of them pack away their laptops and things.
I watched Leitch as he saw the majority of his students stand and simply walk out of the lecture hall.
He looked confused, and leaning down to his height, I spoke softly.
“I think you need a sabbatical or something, because I can’t say it’s going to go down well that your class had a mass walkout because of you.
And so close to finals?” I tsked. “Doesn’t look good.
” Moving past him, I took Ava by her elbow and guided her out of the room.
We were outside with most of the class with us when she turned to me. Her wide smile and incredulous laugh as she launched herself at me was welcome because, with Ava, sometimes she used her fists to communicate, and I hadn’t been too sure which way she would land on this.
“Ash, you are my hero!” she cried out as some of our classmates started calling out their agreement.
“Yeah, well, he had it coming,” I told her as I got my phone out of my pocket. Hitting my dad’s number, I called him. Counting them quickly, I asked Ava to take a note of all the names of the people outside with us.
“What have you done now?” he greeted me, and it was how Dad always greeted me, thinking he was funny. I doubt he’d be laughing today.
“Orchestrated a mass walkout of a class.”
I heard him catch his breath and then clear his throat. “Do I need to know why?”
“Professor’s a dick and has been picking on Ava all semester. I was fed up with it.”
“And walking out in protest was the only way to handle it?” Dad asked me skeptically.
“It was either that or punch him . . . I thought I picked the better option.”
“Smartass. Okay, let me think. Which professor?”
“Leitch.” I heard him shuffling papers and wondered where he was. “You’re at home?”
“Yeah, wait a minute.” I heard his hand cover the phone, and I waited as I watched Ava talk to our classmates. Classmates who had never once spoken up for her or themselves. Christ, getting off with Red in the bathroom was supposed to relax me, not make me even more tense.
“Ash?” my dad asked as he came back onto the line.
“Yeah.”
“I need Ava and at least two others, not you, two others to all make a complaint, right now. Go to the main administration building, report it directly to the dean’s office, and let me know when it’s done.”
“Got it.” I looked around at my classmates again. “They won’t get into trouble for walking out?” I asked Dad quietly.
“No, not if enough people collaborate, but the formal complaint has to be made swiftly.”
“On it.” I said goodbye and thought quickly.
Had it just been me and Ava, I wouldn’t have been too concerned, but as I looked at the students I had encouraged to leave, I felt slightly responsible for their spur-of-the-moment decisions.
“You need to make it formal, Ava,” I told her quietly.
She lost some of her cheer but nodded. “Who out of this bunch can we get to make a complaint as well?”
Wordlessly, she handed me her list. I looked at it and then her. “All of them?”
“He really is a dick,” she said with a bitter smile. “I genuinely thought it was just me being oversensitive, but everyone says the same. He’s cruel, demeaning and a bully. We aren’t learning anything.”
“This will be easier than I thought,” I told her as I looked around at the students milling around. “I need two more people to make the complaint — it can’t be me. Who do you think?”
Ava turned and pointed to a tall, lanky guy and a small blonde who looked like she had been displaced from the 1950s. “Garret and Meg, he seems particularly hateful toward them.”
“Ava, they’re nerds.”
“Don’t be a dick. You do computer science for Christ’s sake, you’re the biggest nerd here.” Ava rolled her eyes at me before she turned to speak to the two people she had singled out. Her words caused me to grin, and when she left, a few of my classmates sidled up to me to talk.
When Ava had secured her two people of choice, I was going to tell the rest of them to go to the next class or something, but instead, I considered them. Surely, it would make more of an impression on the dean and the faculty if they all turned up. Strength in numbers, right?
Twenty minutes later, I watched Ava speaking to the vice dean, whose eyes were wide, but it was clear she was paying attention.
When Dean Porter came into the reception area moments later, I saw his eyes narrow on Ava, and then he was looking over the group of students until they rested on me.
I’d been hanging back, letting Ava and the others get things off their chest in a calm and reasonable manner.
Porter started making his way through my classmates until he was in front of me.
I looked at him and waited patiently. I knew exactly where this was going.
“Discord and disruption,” he spoke quietly. “Isn’t that what you Santos like to sew?”
Where did I get to put the complaint in about him? “Sew? Home Ec isn’t my thing,” I told him.
“Is this your Mayhem?” His voice sounded strained, and I assumed he was trying to keep his temper.
“Nope, this is a number of students — in your care, I may add — reporting an abusive, bullying professor, where his behavior is so out of order they would rather walk out and jeopardize their degree than sit in his class one more minute.” My contempt for Dean Prick wasn’t as disguised as it could have been.
“Shouldn’t you be listening to them rather than accusing me of something? ”
He studied me far longer than I would’ve liked without giving him my usual snappy retort, but I kept quiet. Dad told me it couldn’t be me who made the complaint, and standing in front of the dean, I knew he was right.
Abruptly, he turned around, and then within a few minutes, he had control of the room. I feared for Ava when he looked at her, but the vice dean must have had some sixth sense, as she took Ava to give her complaint to her.
It was actually handled really well, and with grudging respect, I recognized what my dad and uncle did.
Dean Porter may never be considered a decent man by me, but he was good at his job, and as he heard the genuine complaints against Professor Leitch, his expression turned stony, but it was clear it was at the professor, not his students.
No one needed me here anymore. I had ten minutes before my next class, and Ava’s next class was with Jett. I left the building and texted my cousins in our group chat to let them know what was happening.
Me: Ava’s going to be late, she’s at the dean’s office lodging an official complaint against Leitch
Jett: . . . ?
Gray: Shit is that you? I just saw a text from a guy in class that said something about a mass walkout
Me: That would be me
Jett: Is this real or is it Mayhem?
I snorted as I thought about what the dean had said.
Me: Real. There’s about twenty students talking to the dean and his staff right now
Jett: Unreal. My girl okay?
I grinned.
Me: I’m her hero — her words, not mine
Jett: Fuck U
Gray: How’s it feel to be ditched bro?
Jett: Fuck U 2
Gray: Hey Ash, what did you do to your roomie? Saw her come running out the bathroom, she looked pissed as fuck
Me: She’ll get over it
Jett: Trouble in paradise?
Me: Wouldn’t know, it’s not my girl throwing herself at another guy
Jett: You’re getting your ass kicked in practice
Me: Bring it loser
Gray: Porter give you shit?
Me: Tried, I handled it. Also told Dad first, so you know, the ’rents will know
Gray: Okay. You have it handled. Don’t leave Ava alone and we’ll see you at practice
Me: Yup.
Me: Fuck, wait! Someone find a freshman to pick up Red, she doesn’t finish until 6, I’ll text you where
Jett: On it
Me: Queeny?
Gray: I’ve got her in between classes
Me: Are we overreacting?
Their answers came in immediately.
Jett: No
Gray: Fuck no!!!
Me: Agreed. Just checking. C U l8r
Turning back to look at the main office building, I thought about Red. Had I been too harsh with her? She’d had Gray and then Jett on her case over the last two days, her home wrecked, and some major upheaval.
I remembered what she said about her mom wanting her to get a job.
It didn’t matter if she had a razor-sharp tongue, a fuck-you attitude, or the body of a stripper — she was facing her fear to sing on stage when it scared the shit out of her so she could pay her way.
She may be pricklier than a bag of nettles, but the woman had guts, and someone with guts, that was something I could admire.