CHAPTER THREE
Like her own existence wasn't making life hard enough, her new professed seemed adamant to help dig her grave. People cut lectures all the time. It happened so regularly most professors didn't care.
But he cared.
Thinking that the worst wouldn't be so bad, she found the words to taunt her as she sat before her counselor while the disapproving professor stood in the background with his arms crossed over his chest.
"We've been doing so good
Odette, what happened?" Her counselor asked, disappointment leaking from her voice.
She hadn't been doing good.
She hadn't been doing good at all.
Her mother died. Her brother died. Existing wasn't 'doing good,' she was barely surviving.
"We both know I won't be able to pass, if I need extra help before the-"
He interrupted her.
"I asked if you wanted extra help, not because I thought you needed it, but because I was told you perform better in an environment that's calm and is not filled with students." His voice cut trough the air, his frustration concealed behind his professional tone while his stare betrayed him.
Because I'm not as good as everyone else.
I need adaptions to perform like everyone else.
"Odette, being offered help is not a bad thing. I know that your self confidence can sometimes come in the way, but we both believe that giving up before you've tried is not the right way to go." The counselor spoke, the woman she had begun to trust seeming to turn against her.
She wanted to scream.
She cut one class.
She cut one class and it had turned into a huge thing.
Mr. Giordano had contacted her counselor.
The counselor had called her father.
Her father had been furious.
Mostly because they had called him while he was at work.
Grieving is one thing, but causing enough trouble to disrupt me at work is inexcusable.
His words rung trough her head.
All the hundred things she had done right in her life didn't seem to matter to her father when compared to cutting one class. She often wondered if her father wished she'd died in the accident instead of her brother. It was a thought that plagued her because the truth of it was so bitter, her mind couldn't escape it.
"I won't do it again." She spoke, wanting them both to stop looking at her and stop speaking to her.
She felt like a child being scolded. She was an adult and the fact that they had called her father, her emergency contact, the only one she had left, felt wrong.
Mr. Giordano's presence was insufferable. It felt like he strung out the air, his towering stance looming over her like a threat. It felt like he controlled each word that was spoken, something about it deeply disturbing.
