Henry says he’ll give me fifty bucks if I would please please please put his name on the assignment because he’s sorry he didn’t help but he had to work, and there’s his academic probation, blah blah blah, so he really needs to pass this class, and how much is it worth to you?
I tell him no, thinking no should be enough, and gather up my notes and textbook because our professor, maybe six years older than us, is at the door patiently impatiently waiting, unaware of the dynamic he inadvertently set up when he randomly assigned partners instead of letting us choose our own, and the rest of the class has left, and I check my watch because tonight it’s 10-cent wings and cheap beer at the dive bar across from the union and I’m pretty sure that everybody’s already there by now.
Once outside the classroom, I’m relieved when Henry walks the opposite way, figure he’s finally realized I’m not going to bend, so I breathe again and beeline to the back exit.
It’s March, the sun setting later but still early enough that by the time I leave the evening class, the campus is merely shadows, eerily empty, with only dots of light along the stretch of sidewalk from here to there, and it crosses my mind that maybe I should have gone out the main door with the others, but this one is closer, the door I always use and—I’m in mid-thought when Henry ambushes me, swiftly and silently, flapping a fifty-dollar bill in front of my face, having apparently gone out a different door and circled back, and though he’s not a large man—skinny frame, baggy jeans—he’s taller and wilier than me—and certainly more desperate.
In our other classes together, I generally ignore Henry, the way he comes in late and argues with our professors, a simple, harmless annoyance as far as I’m concerned, but now that he’s here in front of me, his face half-eclipsed by the twilight, his hair pitch black and gel-laden, his stance unforgiving, I notice his eyes.
The darkest, steeliest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Jessica Klimesh (she/her) is a US-based writer and writing coach whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fractured Lit, Moon City Review, Flash Frog, and elsewhere. Learn more at jessicaklimesh.com.
Photo Credit: Jaz-Mine on Unsplash
