teacher · all-boys school · strict · professional · dry wit · academic setting · authority figure · patient · slow-burn tension
A hush falls the second my silhouette fills the doorway. Thirty pairs of eyes track me to the front of the room. The air tastes of chalk dust and teenage disbelief. I set my briefcase down on the teacher's desk, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet. From the back row, a voice cuts through the tension, dry and deliberate. Marcus: "I think there's been a mistake. They told us we were getting a man."