Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Kyle didn’t make any remarks or jokes that made me feel like he needed to know my wound in any hurry, but I would need to tell him, not only to reciprocate, but to have a chance at the sort of catharsis I watched him experience as he opened up to me.
I took my time crafting my response. There could be no shortcut when it came to allowing myself to be as vulnerable with Kyle as he had allowed himself to be with me.
The following week arrived, and Kyle and I exchanged one of those soulful glances I found we could without anyone realizing what we were doing.
“So now that we’re beginning our descent into Frankenstein, who wants to start off, maybe by giving me their feelings about the first few chapters?”
I searched for hands.
I knew from my chat with Kyle on Saturday that he’d finished the novel already, and was about as much of a fan as I figured most of the other guys in class would be.
No one volunteered right away, so I said, “Any thoughts…?”
Still no one, leading me to fear that perhaps not many of them had made it through the chapters I’d assigned.
“Brian?” I asked, picking someone at random.
I felt bad that I had when I saw the doe-eyed expression on his face as he glanced at me from his desk.
I hadn’t meant to put him on the spot. His responses in class and in assignments led me to believe he typically made time for the readings, even if they weren’t the sort of in-depth analyses I’d come to expect from Kyle. It was, however, the minimum required from someone trying to get by in their high school English class.
Brian hemmed and hawed for a moment before I said, “Who is Victor Frankenstein telling the story to?”
He sighed. “The reader…?”
Admittedly, I was a little unnerved. In a world where these kids could so easily look up synopses online and cheat their way through our entire semester together, he did not even have the respect to use CliffsNotes as kids my age would have done when we were in high school.
“Brian, in the future, you can just tell me you didn’t do the reading. I’ll have to dock your participation grade for the day, but it’s not the end of the world. That said, if you want to do well in my class, particularly when we get to tests, I suggest you crack open the book at some point.”
“Yeah, of course, Mr. Warner. Just been busy with practice.”
I detected a few eye rolls around the room, and I couldn’t let it slide. “I’m sure your peers have equally busy lives, yet they manage to make time for their assignments.”
“Of course, Mr. Warner.” He gave me that ever-obedient expression, the sort I was sure he gave his parents when they told him to behave before he went out and boozed the night away with his friends.
I moved on to Valerie, who, to my relief, offered a competent enough response to get our discussion going. As I turned to jot down a few character names and themes on the board, I heard Brian mutter, “What a fucking asshole.”
I froze mid-word.
It was that perfect volume he’d said it at, enough that everyone in class heard, a test to see if I would pretend not to hear him or if I would challenge him, make him deal with the repercussions of his actions. Expecting the denial and the insistence that he hadn’t said such a thing, creating an investigation out of the classroom, it was the sort of thing a kid like him banked on me avoiding, which was why I had to turn and deal with it.
As soon as I did, I noticed a desk topple over.
A figure dashed across the classroom, at a pace that startled me and earned gasps around the room. I hardly had time to react before Brian shifted in his seat. Kyle grabbed him by his shirt collar and yanked him from his desk, kicking it aside as he moved through the row of seats beside his, and pushed him up against the wall. I jumped into action as quickly as I could, moving over to them as Kyle got in Brian’s face.
“I think you should show Teach a little respect,” Kyle said.
“Fuck are you talking about? Get off me, dude.” Brian pushed, but Kyle firmed his hold, keeping Brian pinned against the wall. “I think you owe him a fucking apology.”
“Mr. Forsythe, this is unnecessary,” I said. “Please let go of Mr. Finnegan. He’s already in trouble, and this is only getting both of you detention.”
“I don’t give a shit about detention,” Kyle said. “He needs to apologize.”
Despite Kyle’s temperament—and he seemed ready to punch someone’s lights out—I stepped up to him to spare Brian, hoping Kyle didn’t lose it and turn his aggression on me. “Mr. Forsythe, this is not how we manage this. Please let him go.”