He was met with silence as his students didn’t know how to react to his sudden outburst. His perfect child, Abby, had long stopped taking notes and stared down at her desktop. Upon seeing her flushed face, Aiden suddenly felt embarrassed. He’d broken his own teaching rule that dictated he never punish an entire class for a few bad apples. He heard the cadence of his own voice and was reminded of his father. It was a brusque tone that told him and his brothers to hop to it. Another rule broken: Never sound like Liam Byrnes, hard-ass sailor who couldn’t hack it at being a father.

“Look,” he said in a softer tone. “I know it’s the end of the semester. We’re all a little knackered, yeah? I need you to last for just ten more minutes so I can get you prepared for the final exam.”

Abby met his gaze. All was forgiven.

“I’ll hand out the study guide and if you have questions, just let me know in an email.”

In the awkwardly quiet classroom, Aiden moved around the rows of students, handing out the carefully crafted study guide he’d created when he should have slept. Students stuffed the papers into their folders or backpacks and waited for him to dismiss them. This was not how he wanted the last class to end. He was hoping he’d get to do his traditional ‘it was wonderful to be a part of your lives for the semester’ speech before releasing them into the world, but today, the moment was ruined. He wanted to be done with them as much as they were done with him. Aiden regretted having an enthusiastic student like Abby think he was an ogre who didn’t care about her ideas. But he was even ready to let her go if it meant getting a break.

“What exactly happened there?” Robert asked after the students left. He closed his portfolio and sat back in his chair with a ghostly smile on his face.

Aiden stood at his lectern, barely making eye contact with his mentor. “Have you ever caught yourself sounding like your father?”

Robert chuckled. “It usually doesn’t happen until you’ve had your own children, but yes.”

“I saw that jack-arse sleeping in the front row and I snapped,” he admitted. “Any other day, I would have ignored it, made a joke about it, but today I just snapped.”

Robert pulled himself from his seat and slowly ambled up to the front of the room. He was getting up in age, close to retirement, but Robert Lewison carried out the duties of a department chair with the mental agility of a young professor. As he adjusted his rumpled corduroy jacket, he cleared his throat. “I’ll say this, your PowerPoint was a tad long for my taste,” he said. “And with the lights off for that long, you can’t expect the whole class to stay awake.”

“But it was the last class,” Aiden objected.

“That’s true, but your little outburst wasn’t really about the sleeping boy, was it?”