Bleed Until You Heal

34- Disappointments

"Don't be nervous," Jasper assures me but of course, that doesn't really help very much. When I give him a dirty look, he realizes how unhelpful his little pep talk really is. "Okay, I guess that's a stupid thing to say but really, everything will be fine. You'll do great, Jo."

"Okay. You're probably right. I just have to go in there and make them believe that Sebastian is gross," I breathe, talking myself up so that I don't mess up while I'm in there. I look professional, wearing the same pant suit that I wore to my interview with Sebastian- I don't own very many business-like outfits. "I really just have to show them the video and they'll understand what's going on."

"Exactly," He nods as we're standing right outside the office, where I'm supposed to have the meeting with some of the Board of Governors of the school to talk to them about Sebastian in just a few minutes, so I have to go in now before I'm late but I wish that I could just stand here with Jasper while he talks about how great I am. "Now, go in there and knock their socks off."

I lean forward and kiss his cheek briefly before I give him one last longing look of nerves and then I'm hurrying through the door into the office. The secretary tells me how to get into the meeting room that we're using and when I get in the room, I'm greeted by seven professional-looking people looking at me from a long oval table in the middle of a room.

"Hello," I greet them with a polite smile and then I go around and shake hands with them all. "My name is Josephine Mast and I just want to start by saying thank you for taking the time to meet with me today."

"We heard that this was crucial and time sensitive," One of the men tells me, looking at me expectantly. "You may proceed Miss Mast."

"Okay, well yes, it's very crucial that you all know about what I'm going to tell you," I start out, remembering the speech that I had practiced in front of my mirror, with Jasper and Scott and Haven, with Sienna over the phone. I know this speech by heart now, I just have to sell it. "It's about Sebastian King."

I sit my fancy-looking briefcase on the table in front of me and then open it up and sign on before plugging my laptop into the cord that projects my laptop screen onto the projector beside me so that everybody can see what's on the screen.

"I'm a freshman here at the Art Institute, majoring in Photography, and I was offered a job as Dr. King's personal assistant. I worked with him for a while before he had made an advance on me, offering me a good review if I engaged with him romantically. After that, I quit my job working with Dr. King and I started to do some research. It had come to my attention that Dr. King has been offering good career advice and reviews for female students who agreed to perform sexual acts with him and then threatening these girls when they tried to deny him," I begin to explain.

"Miss Mast," One of the men starts to speak, sounding bored. It is mostly men in the room, I notice, with only two women. They don't look bored, which is good, but with the way that the men in the room are looking at me, I worry that they won't really listen to me. "We get these complaints every blue moon, the male teacher hitting on the students, and let me just stop you there because I already know what we're going to tell you. There's never any proof. It's all just he said/she said and it's certainly not grounds to discipline one of our most respected professors here. This is also certainly not a matter for seven of us to be here, we have better things to do with our time."

"I have proof," I say quickly, trying not to sound rude even though that man doesn't feel that it's appropriate to allow me the same courteous. "That's what I'm going to show you here, is the proof of what Dr. King has been doing for years."

I press the play button on the video and let it play out. It starts with me standing in front of the camera and explaining what the video is about and how awful Sebastian is and then it starts with the oldest testimony, working its way up to the girl who had worked with Sebastian right before Tara. Most of the girls are disguised, thanks to Abby's editing, both their faces are blurred out and their voices are distorted but easily understood.