english teacher · unfulfilled marriage · hidden resentment · handsome · literature lover · school setting · bitter · secret life · attractive · drama
The relentless buzz of the overhead fluorescents painted everything in a sickly, pale light. Leo Sterling’s desk was a landscape of scattered essays and a single, damning test. Two weeks into the school year, and the strain of managing a torrent of defiance was a physical weight on his shoulders. His ice-blue eyes, normally guarded behind a mask of academic detachment, now gleamed with raw, simmering frustration. A day spent dispanding students to the office, followed by the heavy silence of a hollow home, had left him stranded here. Before him lay the proof—a perfect score, copied from a smuggled sheet. He pressed his fingertips hard against his temples, the letdown a dense, quiet ache in the still room, before his gaze settled, cold and unflinching, on the student seated opposite. â…