I Should Not Want My Professor

I had never failed anything in my life until Dr. Nuel Pascal wrote 38% on my paper in red ink so hard it tore the page. Thirty-eight. Not a 68 he miswrote. A 38 with a circle around it so thick the paper bled through to the desk. Under it, in his sharp, slanted handwriting that every student in Masters Lit knew: "See me. 6pm. Don't be late". Everyone in Masters Lit knew what 6pm meant. That's when he stops being Professor Pascal and becomes The Executioner. My hand was shaking so hard I almost dropped the paper in the hallway outside Lecture Hall B. The fluorescent lights buzzed. People pushed past me, laughing, holding their own papers with 70s, 80s. Normal scores. Ella Brown found me first. She grabbed my arm. "Valerie? What happened?" I turned the paper around. She stared. Her mouth fell open. "Thirty-eight? Val, you have never gotten below a seventy. Not since undergrad. What did you write?" I didn't answer because I knew exactly what I wrote. Critical Essay was my best subject. I spent three weeks on it. Twenty pages on Chimamanda Adichie and the politics of silence, with footnotes, with primary sources my supervisor said was PhD-level work. I was proud of it. Nuel Pascal gave it a 38 and called it "fundamentally flawed." "I'm going to email the Dean," Ella said immediately, already pulling out her phone. Her voice was loud, like it always is when she is angry for me. "This is personal. He has always been too hard on you. Everyone sees it." "He hasn't," I said quickly. Too quickly. Because that was the lie I told everyone. Dr. Nuel Pascal, 33, tenure-track, coldest man in the Faculty of Arts. He never smiled. Never repeated a question. He wore the same black shirt three days in a row and still looked better than any man on campus. He graded like he wanted us to bleed. Every girl had a crush on him. Every boy wanted to be him. And he ignored all of us equally. Except me. Two years ago, in my first Masters seminar, I argued with him about Achebe. I told him his interpretation of Things Fall Apart was lazy and colonial. The whole class went silent. Twenty-four students holding their breath waiting for him to destroy me. He looked at me for a full ten seconds. His gold-rimmed glasses caught the light. Then he said, "Interesting. Remind me of your name." "Valerie Downs." He wrote it down. In a small black notebook he kept in his breast pocket. No one had ever seen him write a student's name down before. After that, he called on me every single class. "Downs, counter-argument?" "Downs, you disagree?" He wrote more comments on my essays than anyone else's. Pages of red. "Your thesis is weak here." "Expand this, you can do better." "This is lazy, Downs." I thought he was trying to break me. I started staying after class to ask for clarification. I started going to his office hours even when I didn't need to. I told myself it was academic. It wasn't. For two years, I have been in love with the man who just ended my future. If I fail Critical Essay, I don't graduate. If I don't graduate, I lose my scholarship. If I lose my scholarship, I lose my offer for PhD in Canada. Everything my mother worked double shifts for. And now I had to see him at 6pm. The day dragged. I couldn't eat. I sat in the library and stared at the same paragraph for three hours. At 5:30, Ella tried to walk me to his office. I told her no. I needed to do this alone. The Arts building empties after 5pm. The cleaners come at 6. By 5:59, the third floor where his office is was silent except for the humming of the air conditioner. His door was closed. Light came from under it. The nameplate said: DR. N. PASCAL - LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM. OFFICE HOURS: TUES/THURS 4-5PM. It was 5:59. I was technically early. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. "Come in, Downs. I know you're counting." His voice. Low. Calm. Like he knew I had been standing there for a full minute. I pushed the door open. He was at his desk, in his black shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, showing the veins on his forearms. His glasses were low on his nose. My essay was on his desk, right in the center, the 38% on top like an accusation. He had a red pen in his hand. He didn't stand. "Close the door," he said. I did. He looked at me then, really looked at me. Up and down. My old university sweater that had a hole in the sleeve, my backpack that was fraying, my eyes that I knew were red. "You got my note," he said. "You gave me a 38%." "I did." "Why?" He leaned back in his chair. The chair creaked. "Because it was a 38% paper." "It wasn't." My voice cracked. I hated that it cracked. "Professor, I know my work. That was not a 38. That was at least a 70. You have given me 70s before. You gave me a 78 last semester." "I remember what I gave you, Valerie." He never called me Valerie. Always Downs. "Then why?" He stood up slowly. He is tall. Taller than I remembered when he stands. Six foot two at least. The office suddenly felt too small. "Because," he said, walking around the desk until he was right in front of me, too close, close enough that I could smell his cologne and coffee, "if I gave you what you deserved, you would graduate next month and leave. And I am not ready for you to leave." The air left my lungs. "What?" He reached past me and locked the door. The click was loud in the quiet room. "Why did you lock the door, Professor?" He looked down at me. His eyes behind his glasses were not cold anymore. They were something else. Something that made my knees weak. "Because we need to talk about why you really failed, Valerie. And I don't want anyone interrupting us".