The Scarlet Letter

Joey stared down at the big red-inked F scrawled across the top of his test paper, the shame of his failure, he was sure, making his cheeks the same colour as the ink. A scarlet letter. At the finish line of his final year, he’d faltered. He’d failed. He didn't know what was worse, the knowledge that he wouldn't be graduating with his peers, or having reinforced his parents opinions of him.

Beneath the blazing letter, in stern, precise printing, was a note:

See me after class.

Even as he was, staring down at the paper atop his desk, Joey knew exactly where Miss Matthews was. Her heels gave her away as she moved around the room handing back the graded tests. The steady click of reminded him of a clock. Tick... tock... tick... tock... a sense of inevitability with each step, a reminder that with his failing grade that his fate was sealed.

Why couldn't he have been more like Juniper? Joey's sister had breezed through school! He still remembered asking her what high school was like back when she lived at home, back when he was younger.

"No sweat," she had said, looking up from her homework, "Just do a bit of work here and there and you'll ace everything. Nothing you can't handle."

How wrong she was. High school had been everything he couldn't handle! If it wasn't the overwhelming scholastic work, it was the intense social pressures. If it wasn't the asshole bullies, it was the hot girls. Well, the girls and his own pubescent hormones. How many nights had he woken up having a dream about one of the girls he'd been lusting after, only to have to quickly change his sheets, shamefully hoping his parents wouldn't notice. There were so many girls, and so many dreams. Not that Joey would ever act on any of it. No way. Maybe when he was older he'd have more guts to put himself out there, right then he was perfectly content to stay in the background, safe, unnoticed.

It wasn’t just classmates invading his dreams. More than once, certain teachers had left him waking with flushed cheeks and a need for fresh sheets. Just two nights prior, when he should have been studying for his history test, he spent half the night thinking about who had taught the class rather than what she had taught. Yes, Miss Matthews, the woman who had just held him back from graduation, the woman who wanted to lecture him after class, had been the source of many a late-night fantasy over the past year.

He looked up from his test and stared at his teacher. As usual, she was standing tall as she moved through the classroom, her spine perfectly straight, posture immaculate. Her red hair was twisted into a tidy bun, but a few rebellious strands had slipped free, curling against the sides of her face. The buzzing fluorescent lights cast a faint glow on her pale skin, making her freckles more pronounced. Her sharp grey eyes flicked over each student, unreadable, as if judging reactions like clues in a puzzle. Her blazer was tailored, fitting close enough to show the curve of her waist, and the crisp white blouse beneath was neatly buttoned, though not quite high enough to prevent him from imagining the breasts it concealed. It didn't matter that her attire concealed almost everything. Joey's imagination excelled in filling in the blanks.

It must have been difficult for her. In Joey's more empathetic times, he thought about her transition into the school, her first full-time teaching job since she graduated from university. Just a few years older than her students, Miss Matthews must have known how the boys in her class looked at her. She had minds to mold, futures to inform, but half the class was held rapt through infatuation rather than information. How must that have felt to the beautiful young teacher?

And it wasn't only that she was beautiful. She was unreachable. Untouchable. She was Mount Everest. She was the moon landing. She was the unattainable goal that so many minds fixated on, fully knowing that what they sought would not be for them, no matter the depth of their desire.

She presented herself with a stern demeanor and a sharp tongue. She carried herself with a confidence that seemed almost weaponized. Did that dissuade Joey's fantasies? Not for a second. It only made her more alluring.

In his dreams, Miss Matthews was never quite so stern. She would come to him, layers of her hardened shell falling away from her as she approached him, melting like frost in the warm spring sun. Her voice would drop, becoming soft, teasing. She’d lean in just close enough for him to catch the faintest scent of her perfume, something floral, clean, maddeningly elusive. And when she spoke his name...

His face grew hot. He shifted in his seat, wrenching his attention back to the humiliating red mark on his paper. He didn’t want to think about her like that. She was his teacher. She was also, God help him, the reason he was in such a mess.

The clicking of her heels suddenly stopped, drawing Joey's eyes to his teacher. Miss Matthews had paused by the window, her gaze sweeping the room like a sentinel on watch. Her cool demeanor didn’t crack. It never did. But there was a certain tension in the set of her shoulders, as if she carried the weight of expectations on her back.

He felt heat creeping up his neck again. He could plead his case. He would worker harder than ever for the rest of the year. She would have to pass him, right? Joey would promise everything, be the perfect student. Only, as he stared at Miss Matthews, the warm sunlight brightening her red hair, he wondered if he'd be able to deliver. He only had his history teacher for one period per day, but she lived rent-free in his imagination all day and all night, and she wasn't there to tutor him.