“Good?”
“You’re telling me what annoys you.”
“That’s therapy?”
“It’s a start.”
He looked toward the window.
“I don’t want everybody treating me like I’m fragile.”
“Do they?”
“Some.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
Dr. Lawson waited.
Marcus sighed.
“I don’t know.”
“That answer’s allowed too.”
He stared at his hands.
The marks had faded completely.
“I keep thinking about everybody before me.”
“The former students?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because there was no video.”
Dr. Lawson nodded.
Marcus continued.
“What if Noah hadn’t recorded it?”
“What do you think would have happened?”
“I’d be suspended.”
“Probably.”
“Gallagher would still be teaching.”
“Possibly.”
“Whitmore would’ve called me a behavior problem.”
“Yes.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You’re supposed to make me feel better.”
“I’m supposed to tell you the truth.”
That made Marcus smile despite himself.
Dr. Lawson leaned forward.
“The video mattered. But it didn’t create what happened.”
Marcus looked confused.
“It revealed it.”
The board hearing was scheduled for a Thursday evening.
Hawthorne’s auditorium held six hundred people.
Every seat was filled.
Parents stood along the walls.
Former students occupied two entire rows.
Reporters waited outside because the board prohibited cameras inside the hearing.
Marcus sat between his mother and Claire.
Noah sat directly behind them with his parents.
Mrs. Gallagher entered through a side door with two attorneys.
She looked smaller than Marcus remembered.
Not weak.
Not broken.
Just human.
That surprised him.
For weeks she had existed in his mind as something larger.
A voice.
A ruler.
A sneer.
Now she was a woman carrying a folder.
Dr. Whitmore entered ten minutes later.
He sat at a separate table.
The board chair opened the meeting.
“This hearing concerns allegations of discriminatory treatment, inappropriate physical discipline, failures of administrative oversight, and irregularities in student disciplinary documentation.”
For two hours, attorneys talked.
Policies were read.
Emails were displayed.
Statistics were summarized.
Former students testified.
Jamal Pierce spoke.
Marcus recognized him from old track photographs.
He was nineteen now.
Tall.
Calm.
He described Mrs. Gallagher telling him that his scholarship was “a privilege, not a license to challenge faculty.”