Monday
The high school Mr. G worked at has a long standing tradition of handing students their actual diploma at graduation and held graduation the weekend before the last day of school. These two factors combined create the unique problem that seniors need their grade finalized before the course is over. The solution was simple; seniors just have to take their finals a week early.
Not that he's complaining. In fact this scenario works out quite well for Mr. G who teaches only senior level classes and therefore gets an easy last week. But then you get students like Maddie, a junior in a senior level class. It's ok when there are a couple of them; it's actually quite fun when it's a couple of them hanging out that last week. They'll play cards, tell stories and generally get to know each other real well, which even benefits them since Mr. G can write them a phenomenal letter of recommendation after that. But this year it was just her. Maddie was the only junior taking AP Calculus which meant the two of them were alone together for 50 minutes a day that last week.
Maddie would have been his last choice of student to be along with. First, he couldn't convince her to take the final early with the seniors, so the stress of the final still hung in the air. Second, Maddie rarely talked. Quiet students are like a quiet date, it's unlikely to be awful but it's hard to make it great. A lot of times they come out of their shell when it's one on one, but if she doesn't then there are going to be a lot of awkward silences this week. Finally, she was a hottie. Normally that is not a negative, especially since she had just turned eighteen less than a month ago. It should be irrelevant. It would be if he was a good teacher, a good man, but he couldn't trick himself into believing that anymore. Not after he fucked 4 students earlier this year.
"Morning Maddie," he said as she walked into his room. She wore a green V neck shirt and these short little black athletic shorts. He saw pale her pale creamy white legs out of the corner of his eye, but he maintained strict control to not look down. That voice in the back of his head never stopped, but he maintained strict control over his body. Not his head, not his pupils, he was not looking.
"Now normally I make the juniors test with the seniors. It's school policy for a junior in a senior class. You were here for the review, you should be just as ready as them only now there's an opportunity for you to question them about the final that gives you an unfair advantage."
"I wouldn't do that Mr. G, I swear. I don't cheat."
"Yea I know. I saw the panic in your eyes last week. That's why I agreed when you asked if you could take it latter."
He sat next to her and got a whiff of her perfume. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He clenched his fists as he fought the urge to move closer to her. Come on don't slip up again, he told himself. Stay focused. "You can do this," he told her. "We did solid AP review for the 4 weeks leading up to the exam. We took practice tests and reviewed them. I had refresher lessons on material from the beginning of the year. Then we had 3 weeks of review for the final where you worked on that massive review packet. And we went over every single one of those questions in class. At this point how much more are you going to master in 5 days? I want you to succeed and I'll give you anything you need to perform your best, but I think you're ready. You just got to believe in yourself."
"I mean I get it when you go over in class, but then on the test the questions are just so different."
Mr. G gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, this time to calm a different emotion swelling inside of him. Students making excuses or accusing him of being unfair was his biggest pet peeve. "It could be nerves and test anxiety, but I assure you that that homework and tests cover the exact same material and if you know the concept then a new wording shouldn't throw you. If you can do the packet on your own without looking at the solution then you should do quite well on the final."
She nodded silently, but she didn't look convinced. "Why don't we do some example problems today and then maybe you'll feel ready tomorrow."
"Ok," she said quietly.
He borrowed a piece of paper from her and wrote down the integral of one over the square root of 4x and then slid the paper back to her. She stared at it for a moment and then wrote ln of the square root of 4x. "That's not right."
"But I thought denominators go to ln."
"That's only one over x. One over anything else is something different. You need to rewrite it using algebra or maybe the substitution rule." He emphasized the last two words and she got the hint, but then she wrote u = x. "That's not a good u."
"I'm sorry. I always have so much trouble figuring out what u should be."
"That's not even a good guess though. If u = x then there's no point to u. You could just use x then." She stared at him blankly, clearly not getting much of what he was saying. "Let's try a different problem." He wrote down the integral of x(x + 5), but then she forgot to distribute before integrating. He then tried giving her an even simpler problem but with bounds. She was actually able to integrate that one, but then as expected she didn't know what to do with the bounds. She plugged them in at the wrong time and added instead of subtracting. This was really bad.
Frustrated he grabbed her book and opened up to the very first problem of chapter 6. "Do this." She tried. She made a small mistake initially but for the most part was doing well, but then about halfway through she second guessed herself. Then she went back, but instead of discovering the mistake she just made it worse. From there the problem spiraled out of control, getting further and further from the answer until finally she hit a wall. "I'm sorry I can't do it."
"That was a homework problem and on the simpler side at that. You should know this." She didn't respond, but just looked down at her lap. "Look I don't mean to berate or belittle you but these are some basic aspects of integrals. You've done this before. You took a test on this and you didn't knock it out of the park but you performed a lot better than this. You can do this. You've done this. You know this. You just have to remain calm and think straight."
"It didn't make a lot of sense then and now it's all so fuzzy," she said as she started to cry.
Uncertain with how to react, he put his hand on her shoulder and rubbed it lightly. He felt her bra strap through the shirt. The bad thoughts rushed to his head. He imaged reaching down her collar and grabbing her bra, her breast. He saw himself lean in and kiss her, fuck her on the table and give her an A like he did for McKenzie.
No he yelled in his head as he pulled his hand back. Never again he told himself. "Look worse case scenario is not that bad. You're grade is pretty decent and the final isn't worth that much. Even if you bomb the final, you won't fail the class."
"I can't get a D Mr. G. My parents would kill me."
"D's are unpleasant, but your grade is a reflection of your knowledge and effort and you're not showing me much at present moment."
"I've been working really hard."
