Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
The New England boarding school tucked away just a short distance from Yale has a campus that rivals its Ivy League neighbor in size and prestige. And why shouldn’t it? With tuition fees totaling over sixty thousand a year, this isn’t a boarding school at all. It’s a machine designed to churn out America’s best and brightest. The future one percent. I know because, once upon a time, I was one of them.
Ten years ago, I walked these hallowed halls as a seventeen-year-old with his entire future laid out before him. My goals were lined up in militant fashion with little chance of deviation. AP classes, respectable extracurriculars, advanced standing at Harvard. I was on the fast track and set to graduate with a master’s in four years. Like a puppet, I soldiered on through the plan. I did and accomplished everything I’d been told to. But I’d learned the hard way that life was a fickle bitch, and the end goal crashed and burned the night I graduated. I traded a corporate office on the sixtieth floor for a teacher’s desk. And after three long years, I’m eager to finish what I started.
“Sebastian.” Misty Hargrave’s eyes light up as I enter the mail room. “It’s so good to see you back. How was your summer?”
“Not much to report.” I scan her from head to toe, noting that she’s come back with a tan. Misty is the resident English teacher at Loyola, and the reason hordes of teenage boys suddenly develop an interest in the subject. She’s classically beautiful, graceful, and eloquent. All the signature traits of fine breeding. Yet when she bats her eyelashes in my direction, my dick remains as limp as a noodle in her presence.
“Come now.” She laughs softly. “You must have done something interesting.”
I know how this game works. She wants to ask me about my summer, so that I’ll ask about hers out of politeness. It’s evident she wants to tell me about her days on some cliché of a tropical island. Misty still hasn’t quite figured out that I’m just an asshole who doesn’t care what she has to say.
“I stayed at my cottage in Nantucket,” I inform her as I reach into the wooden box designated with my name.
“That sounds lovely.” She sighs dreamily. “Were you there with family?”
“No.” I tuck the mail into my briefcase and duck through the door before she can ask any more probing questions. I imagine her standing there, mouth agape as I make my way across campus to my living quarters.
Teachers at Loyola Academy live in a separate village on the north side of the campus. Far enough from the dorms to have a reprieve from the endless chatter of students, but close enough that they could still knock on your door if they really want to. Since our job is to act as surrogate parents throughout the school year, we are encouraged to develop bonds with our students. It isn’t uncommon to see them traipsing across the quad in the middle of the night to knock on the math teacher’s door when they have a fight with their boyfriend or a pressing need to discuss some other teenage drama. However, in the three years I’ve resided here, only one visitor has bothered to darken my doorstep. After I’d numbly accepted Misty’s welcome basket of baked goods, she hasn’t bothered to come back, and neither has anyone else.
The house I chose when I moved in happens to be the one that affords the most privacy on campus. Tucked away behind a thicket of New England trees, there is little chance of others accidentally stumbling upon it. And given that most of my students refer to me as some form of Satan, it’s unlikely they would ever bother to seek it out.
I dust off the doorknob and turn the key, hesitating in the entryway as I step inside. There’s a faint note of my cologne along with the musty smell of a house that’s been locked up all summer. Other than that, everything else remains the same.
I drop my mail onto the table and set my briefcase aside as I hit play on the answering machine. The endless reel of voicemails from my father echoes through the space as I discard the letters he’d sent over the summer months. Numb to the pleas to return his calls, I delete his messages and spend the evening unpacking in the tomb of silence that’s become my life.
In my restless state, I consider going out for a run. But when I scoop the necklace from the bottom of my suitcase, I find myself collapsing into the nearest chair instead. In my haphazard packing, I knew it had been stuffed somewhere in the void of my clothes and toiletries, but I’d managed most of the summer without looking at it once. Now, it can’t be avoided.