“Braden, why don’t you hang back,” she called after him.

The young man stopped short and lifted his face to the ceiling for another loud sigh. He made an about-face and returned to the front of the classroom. She waited for the class to empty before gearing herself up for another lecture.

“You were forty-five minutes late to a fifty-five-minute lecture,” she started. “Do I have to remind you that participation is part of your grade?”

He shrugged. “So I was late.” His slouch and lack of eye contact made her grit her teeth. It wasn’t bad enough that he was late, but his apathy was insulting. Had he been one of her father’s enlisted privates, Braden would have been quarterdecked faster than he could give another shrug.

“But it’s a daily occurrence,” Victoria said in a voice edged with iron. “I don’t know what makes it so difficult to get to my class, but you need to get it together and hop to it. Because the next time you arrive late, I will ask you to leave and mark you absent. Enough absences, and I’ll have to dock your grade by a full letter. I only use five letters and you’re already down to four.”

The young man sucked in his cheeks and rolled his eyes. “I get A’s on my papers.”

She breathed through her nose, knowing full well her nostrils were probably flaring. “You earn A’s because you’re smart. But smart isn’t all that’s required in my classroom. The rest is showing up and talking to your classmates. If you think skating by on smart alone is cute, keep it up and see how far it gets you in the real world.” The words felt frighteningly familiar as she said them, but she was already riled up.

Braden finally looked her in the eye only to say, “Man... I thought you were one of the cool ones. Like, there aren’t that many of us and I thought you’d be down.”

Cool ones? What on earth does that mean? “Excuse me?”

“Why are you stressing?” he asked. “I read your stuff; I write your papers. Why do I need to come here and talk about this depressing shit?”