Letters by Her [Book 2]

Chapter 6

After easily locating her class, Dusty paused outside, reconsidering the plausibility of her excuse that she'd gotten lost. She waited uneasily by the door, palms sweating as she contemplated her options. She knew that she had to go in; she was just terrified of all the eyes that would turn her way when she did.

Finally, an invisible force seemed to propel Dusty forward, and she was within the classroom before she had a chance to consider retreat. The classroom was immensely larger than any she had encountered at West. Instead of individual desks, students sat in tiered rows, almost as if in a theater, with small, fold-out desks to work on.

At the front of the room, a middle-aged man in a camel-colored vest used a pointer to emphasize a point within the presentation he was showing. As the lights dimmed for the presentation, it gave Dusty a slight cloak as she entered the room. She could feel people's eyes upon her as they turned to look and silently judge her lateness.

She forced herself to ignore them and focus solely on the spare seat she had spotted. Once she sat down, she relaxed a little, though still braced for a verbal beating from her professor down below.

In high school when a student was late, the teacher always took the opportunity to publically mock and ridicule them, making an example of them so that other students would think twice about being late. "Oh, Miss Black, too busy doing your hair to attend class?" Miss Davies would say from behind clenched teeth
whenever Dusty was late for Spanish studies. "There's more to life than looks, you know." Dusty would ignore the old woman and just sit down.

But here, things were different. Here, she wanted to be taken seriously, not seen as some dumb blonde who cheers. It felt surreal to be potentially fighting against the persona she had created at West and had assumed it had been left there.

The professor, however, continued to talk to the class, seemingly unaware of Dusty's late arrival. He concluded his presentation and raised the lights, and only then did he glance towards Dusty. "I don't condone late arrivals," he called up simply to her. "Either attend on time or not at all. You get one chance to be late; you've just used yours."

Before Dusty could explain that she'd been fake-lost, he turned away from her and continued to teach. There was no threat of detention, no public shaming. Dusty realized that he didn't really care if Dusty turned up or not, as the only person she was cheating was herself.

Feeling embarrassed, she opened her notebook and did her best to follow the remainder of the lesson. Dusty didn't regret going out the previous night. The party at Brad's friend's house had been a lot of fun. Probably too much fun. Dusty hadn't intended to stay late, but once she'd downed a few beers, time seemed to lose all relevance, and one moment she was dancing along to some song she'd never heard, the next she was waking up in her bed and it was eleven in the morning.

Wearily she rubbed her eyes and continued to make notes. Her head had begun to throb, but she ignored it. Once class was over she could go back to her dorm room and sleep. Sleep away the shame and the fatigue until she felt refreshed again.