Excerpt: Between the Lines

... But that morning, Robert Keen would learn that perhaps he shouldn’t have silently wished for company from the faculty of the school. Just as he put his second to last paper on the complete pile before him, the door opened without a knock, an action that was usually reserved for fellow members of the English department. He looked up curiously as it opened, expecting to see one of his colleagues cross the threshold and make some offhanded comment about the news or the weather or an inter-department feud. However, it was not a fellow English teacher; it was not even a fellow teacher. It was one of his students: Olivia.

Upon seeing who it was, a flood of memories from the previous evening came back to him, reminding him of what he had exactly done to merit such an early visit from his Creative Writing student. If he had not remembered on his own, however, it would not have been such a bad thing; the moment that Olivia saw that he was in the office – without even bothering to glance around and see if he was alone, even though he was by himself anyway – her face crinkled up into itself. Her eyebrows furrowed, her eyes narrowed, her nose wrinkled and her teeth gritted into each other.

“You,” she hissed, beginning to stomp across the threshold. But then, she was suddenly halted by a noise from behind her because she threw a glance backward, her attention momentarily diverted by something else. “You all stay out here for a moment – Dan, can you stay with them? Thanks – no Megan, you need to wear the nametag,”

Robert could hear a high-pitched voice answer back to her, though the words were lost from out in the hallway. But to her answer, Olivia simply gritted her teeth further, as if trying to rope in her patience. “I don’t care if it doesn’t match, Megan, because the officials at my school do not care if it doesn’t match. It identifies you as a guest to the school, so please just put it on your shirt,” Robert felt a smirk tug at the corners of his lips, but he quickly wiped it off in fear of giving himself away.

The discussion clearly over, Olivia shut the door and rounded on him once more. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and the ultimate expression of anger had fallen across her features once more. Slowly, she lifted a hand at pointed at him with an accusatory pointer finger. “You,” she hissed once more, slowly and dangerously approaching him with stalking steps, “You have a lot of explaining to do, Mr. Keen,” ...