“You wanted to see me?”
Mr. Jackson looped his fingers together and glanced at the paper at his fingertips. “Yes, in fact. Why don’t you have a seat?”
Seth refused and leaned against one of the tables behind him. Mr. Jackson picked up the paper and skimmed over it.
“This was one of the best papers I’ve ever seen. So well-written, in fact, that I can’t help question whose paper it really is.”
Seth shifted nervously. “It’s my work, sir, every word.”
Mr. Jackson tapped his pencil on the oak grain of his desk. “Yet many of these opinions weren’t the ones you shared in class.”
Seth didn’t respond while he took a hard swallow.
“Where did you get this, Seth? Was it another student? A friend?”
Seth kept a stern eye on Mr. Jackson and answered honestly to the inquiry. “I did all my own work, sir. I have all the soft copies if you wish to see them.”
He raised the lip of his shoulder bag and started to pull his iPad from the pocket, but Mr. Jackson held up his hand for him to stop. “That won’t be necessary. What I would like to know is why the sudden change of heart. In class you supported what Petruchio was doing adamantly, yet this paper is the polar opposite of that opinion. Why?”
Seth tried to form an answer, but all he could think of was, “He broke her. In the end, Petruchio broke Kate.”
“‘What he’s doing to Kate benefits everyone.’ Weren’t those your exact words?”
Seth’s cheeks burned with embarrassment, and he focused his gaze out the window. His mind flashed back to that day. The day he had snapped during class and nearly wrung a fellow student’s neck for her opinions of him. Then he cornered Natti with his charm, and watched her collapse into his arms. It still haunted him. What he had done, or nearly did.
“He shouldn’t have tried to control her.” His thoughts were more on Natti than the report he had turned in. “It was a mistake in judgment. A huge mistake.”
Mr. Jackson exhaled and Seth heard the clatter of a pencil fall onto the desk. “It was Natti, wasn’t it? Was she the girl you made ‘a mistake in judgment’ with?”
Seth’s head whipped back to the teacher, shocked. How could he know? No one saw him that day. They all assumed it was him who stumbled across her unconscious body on the floor.
Mr. Jackson leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He studied Seth’s face for a moment before continuing. “I know it’s not my place, but did something happen between you two?”
Seth released the breath he was holding, relieved to find Mr. Jackson didn’t know what had happened. However, the conversation was taking a twist Seth didn’t like. He stood up, shifted the strap on his shoulder, and started for the door.
“Look, man, I need to get going—”
“I warned you that you would get your fingers burned with her.” Seth froze and listened to Mr. Jackson’s words. “Natti was pretty upset at the festival. You chased after her when she was running.”
Seth slowly backed into the room. “How did you know about that?”
“As impossible as it might seem, Seth, teachers do have lives outside the classroom. I was waiting in line with my three-year-old daughter for the ‘Eye in the Sky.’ She is such an adventurous one. Not afraid of anything.” Mr. Jackson eyed Seth carefully. “I heard you yell Natti’s name just when she ran past me. You were in hot pursuit, still calling her name. And what about the white roses I overheard about on the Monday morning? From my experience, that sounds like an apology to me.”
Seth glared. “Yes, but it’s not what you think.”
“Love never is, is it?”
Seth’s heart began to pick up speed. “We’re . . . We’re not . . . We’re not in love. There’s nothing going on between us, sir. There isn’t even an ‘us.’”
“Seth, I’m not a robot that spits out lectures, here. I listen in the halls with human ears, and I have human eyes. You’re both in here every day, and I know how you feel.” Mr. Jackson smiled. “Ironically, I think Natti’s the one trying the hardest to hide it. Still, I can tell she’s just as confused as you are right now.”
“I don’t think anyone is as confused as I am. I’ve had so many girls in my life, but Natti . . . Natti’s different.”
“A man’s famous last words.” Mr. Jackson laughed.
Seth rolled his eyes. “You won’t understand.”
“Won’t I? This might be hard to believe, Seth, but I was like you. Well, maybe not as lucky as you, but I was young once. I know what it was like to be testing the waters, so to say. But when the right girl comes along, the one that changes your life, you shouldn’t just let that opportunity slip away. And after witnessing what I have, I think you would be a fool not to at least try.”
“Even if it means risking everything?” Seth shot back.
Mr. Jackson rocked back in his chair and grinned. “My dear boy, have you never had something that was worth risking everything for?”