NINETEEN: He Tried To Have Me Fired Once

Waiting for him to answer feels like it takes forever, and I would be lying if I say I don't check over my shoulder to make sure no one from school – or Dean Vance – is standing there, ready and waiting to rat me out.

My head whips back around to the door when Harlan opens it, and I duck inside faster than I care to admit.

The two of us look at each other silently for a few moments.

"Hi," I breathe when I'm tired of the quiet.

"Hi," he mumbles.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," he says, rubbing the back of his head. He looks stressed. "Sorry about earlier. I thought it would be best if you just... got as far away from me as possible. In case he decided to come back for a follow-up visit." He turns toward the staircase, gesturing for me to follow and giving me a "come here" motion with two fingers without turning back to me.

"So you do think he's suspicious?" I blurt.

"I think there's a few things you should know about Armitage Vance," he says, Vance's name falling off his lips like "Lord Voldemort" off of a wizard's.

I follow him to the living room, both of us sitting down on the royal blue couch. He rests his elbows on his thighs, his frame slightly bent forward, brow indicating that he is deep in thought. I feel a twinge of guilt. I don't want Harlan to lose his job. That is the last thing I want, even if it means I lose him.

"If it were anyone else," he says after a long pause, "I wouldn't be concerned. But Vance is rather hell-bent on my destruction."

"Is there a story behind that that I should know about?"

He leans back, letting his head fall back onto the top of the cushion behind him. "Nothing more than a petty rivalry when we were attending the university."

"Does this school solely employ twenty-somethings into high coveted, senior-level positions of authority?"

"He was in grad school when I was an undergrad. Didn't have anything better to do with his time than create problems with a freshman who was obviously smarter than him." He sighs. "Honestly, the position I have now is probably the poor bastard's dream job. If he catches a whiff of misconduct, he won't stop at anything to take it from me. He's already tried to have me fired once in the past week," Harlan scoffs.

"Wait, what?"

"Oh. I forgot; I didn't tell you. Remember that night you found me in my office before you stormed out?"

"After you'd thrown around so many books that it looked like a bomb had gone off? How could I forget?"

"He'd tried to use my familial problems to make a case that I was unfit to teach."

"That's insane!"

"I know!" he shouts, suddenly sitting upright. "Said my emotional trauma prevented me from being emotionally available and approachable to my students."

"Well," I consider.

"WHAT?!" he bellows, turning to me. “Don't tell me you're taking his side!”

"No!" I scoff. "Of course not." He scoffs at me too, and flops back against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm just saying you're hardly the most approachable nor the most emotionally available person I know. You might actually be the least. But that's not a reason to get fired, and him trying to bring your family into this..." I shake my head. "He has no right."

"Yes, you'd know all about my family, wouldn't you?" he murmurs. I turn to look at him. The lids of his eyes are half-closed, and he side-glances at me devilishly.

I fight to find the words, and I'm not successful.

"I know you have a lot of questions about me. But you're not the only one who's owed some answers," he says. "What do you know?" He doesn't phrase it like a question. He phrases it like it is a direct fact that I'm going to answer him.

I sigh, bringing up my legs to sit criss-crossed on the couch. I fiddle with the edge of my sleeve again. "I found an envelope."

"An envelope," he echoes flatly.

"The day... the first day we..." I clear my throat. "Let's just say a bunch of things got knocked off your desk and when I went to pick them up..." I tilt my head. "It was made out to an Ethan Hale."