Page 89 of For Your Own Good

LATE AT NIGHT,Fallon sits on her blow-up bed, watching Teddy’s last two classes of the day. So far, that’s all she has. The disadvantage of using a camera with a microphone is that Fallon has to hear Crutcher’s voice. Listening to him talk about Dante—Dante!—brings her right back to high school, when she was one of the students sitting in that classroom.

His voice was annoying then, too.

And arrogant. That’s what she notices now, how arrogant he is. Every single word he says is patronizing, even to the students he seems to like. Though there aren’t many of those.

The camera doesn’t move, so she can only see him when he’s in front of the class, along with a few students sitting in the front row.

When he walks too far away, she can’t see anything but his desk.

Which is the point.

She fast-forwards through his last class, unable to listen any longer, and waits until the students are leaving. When the room is empty, Teddy opens his laptop.

He types in his password.

This is why she needed the zoom feature.

She watches him check his email, though the camera is still too far away to see any details. He opens the Belmont website, easy to recognize from the logo on the screen, but again she can’t read anything.

She slams the laptop closed and throws her one pillow across the room. It knocks over the lamp, pulling the cord out of the wall, and the room goes dark.

Now she’s going to have to get back in his classroom and adjust the camera.

As always, Teddy is a pain in her ass.

55

FALLON NEVER DREAMEDthe answer to her problems would fall right out of the sky. Or walk in the door, as it happened.

Not after she found out about the reference letter Teddy wrote.

It took a lot of begging, and what was left of her money, to get it out of an aide at the admissions department at Columbia. She wasn’t allowed to have a copy of the letter—or even take a picture—but she did get to read it. That’s when she discovered Teddy had accused her of cheating:

It is my belief that the papers Fallon Knight has turned in were not written by her. Not in their entirety. While I was never able to find definitive proof of this, I do not believe she is capable of that level of work. Therefore, I cannot recommend admitting her to your fine institution.

Those words, now permanently etched in her mind, explained all her rejections.

She considered filing a complaint to Belmont, but without a copy of the letter she couldn’t prove anything. It was his word against hers. She knew which way that would go.

That’s when she gave up.

She was no longer in school. After spending two years at State, Fallon applied to transfer to a better school. One with a good name. One that would make her parents happy. She had a 4.0 GPA and a 1590 on her SAT, and still didn’t get in. Not anywhere.

In her third year at State, she flunked out. By choice? Maybe. Because she was depressed? Likely.

Either way, after that she was living in an apartment almost as bad as the one she has now, and bartending to keep it.

Then luck finally turned her way.

She was at work, slinging drinks and collecting tips, when one of the Belmont teachers walked in the door.

Frank Maxwell had never been her teacher, but she knew he taught math. She had seen him around, just as he must have seen her.

She started to say something to him. “Hey, Mr.—”

“Draft beer, please,” he said.

She poured it, looking at him over the tap. He stared at the mirror behind the bar with blank eyes. He didn’t recognize her. Couldn’t blame him, either. She was a cheesier version of herself these days. More makeup, fewer clothes. The tips were higher that way.