The Teaching Assistant

Chapter 30
The Teaching Assistant, Part 30

Part 30

As expected, the math assignment ended up dragging out a lot longer than Amelia would have liked. It didn’t matter that she was decently competent with the subject and only had to reference the book a few times for a few of the things she had forgotten over the years. When a problem had multiple parts to it and all of those parts required working through multiple steps to get to the answer, she could only complete the work so quickly.

It took even longer than usual now that Claire was back. The two of them started gossiping and giggling and talking about everything under the sun as if Amelia wasn’t there. None of it was particularly relevant to her, and it was so cliché ‘teenager’ considering that they were both eighteen. Rumors about teachers and classmates, complaints about classes, and amused stories that involved themselves and other girls Amelia didn’t know. While she was perfectly capable of tuning out white noise in a crowded room, it was something else entirely when it was an isolated conversation complete with piercing girly noises every few minutes while she was trying to concentrate. 

But she persevered. Little by little, Amelia chipped away at the problems. The academy definitely lived up to its reputation. While her own teenage years were a little blurry, she remembered enough to know that the classes then paled in comparison to what she was currently facing in terms of difficulty. The remedial content was more on par with public school material, while the actual classes felt more like they were adding and weaving in stuff from future grades. Kind of like university classes that taught at a graduate level. 

Unable to avoid huffing out a sigh as she placed her pencil down after the last problem, Amelia turned towards the girls. “I’m done,” she said, in case they didn’t pick up on it from the previous gesture. 

“Took you long enough,” Ashley replied. She glanced down at her phone, then back towards Amelia. “Well, it’s after curfew. Looks like you’ll be staying the night.”

“What? No!” Amelia exclaimed, “Ashley, you said-”

“I said that you need to be a good student, Millie. That includes not breaking curfew. If you wanted to leave the building, you should have finished your work more quickly. Now you’ll get in trouble if you go anywhere but your hall. Do you understand?”

Claire jumped in right away. “You don’t want to get in trouble, do you? Especially after all those infractions you’ve already received.”

But, Amelia was an adult. Not a student. It shouldn’t even be possible for her to get in trouble in the first place. “Just give me my ID,” she said. Her attention was fully on Ashley, the girl who started all of this and confiscated her clothes and her possessions earlier. “I can-”

“You can get your driver’s license thrown away,” Ashley interrupted, “Think about it. Do you really think anyone will believe that you’re that old? If you show that to one of the prefects, they’ll just assume it’s a fake ID. A really dumb fake, too. Why would a girl your age pretend to be so much older? They’ll take it away, you’ll get in trouble for wandering about after curfew, and then you’ll be escorted right back here. So, Millie. Is your ID what you really want?”

Amelia hesitated, then said, “I want everything.” Now that Ashley had her thinking about the risks that came with everyone viewing Amelia as a thirteen year old, simply walking out of the building and back to her car seemed slightly less appealing. What if a prefect stopped her halfway? Or a campus security guard outside, as she vaguely recalled the academy staffing people like that. 

And that’s exactly what Ashley and Claire went on to explain as they bounced off each other in terms of why Millie should listen to them and stay put. If she remained in her schoolgirl uniform, then she would be the troublesome new girl that no one believed. Car keys? Stolen from someone. ID? Fake. Credit cards? Given to her for emergencies, perhaps. And, if she changed back into the clothes she had arrived in that morning, there would then be the question of why she was on campus at that hour. It was after curfew, so it’s not like she would be visiting a relative or something. Instead, she would be an adult woman illegally trespassing on private property. The two seniors kept things light as they talked about how Amelia would be a teenager no one believed or an adult who had to explain a pretty ludicrous story if she stuck with the truth, but the weight of the words were impactful nonetheless. 

They didn’t quite hit everything, however. After sitting there and letting even more time slip away in terms of how far past curfew it was, Amelia brought up the one thing that she knew would be most helpful. “My phone.” While it wouldn’t necessarily get her off campus, she could at least call a few friends in the area and explain what was going on. 

“Oh. Hmm,” Ashley mused, with her lips pursed in a small smile, “Oops. I think I left that in the office.”

“Ashley!” Before she knew it, Amelia was standing up. “This isn’t a fucking joke. I can’t just pretend to be a student and stay overnight like this. And you can’t just take all my things. Enough is enough!”

Ashley just rolled her eyes, then got off the bed and stood up herself. She approached Amelia step by step, easily towering over the girl who had been demoted to flats earlier. And, with no warning, slapped the petite blonde across the face. “Millie!” she snapped, “How many times do we have to go over this? You’re not pretending. You are a student, until you can prove that you’re proper and intelligent enough to be an adult again.”

Slightly staggering from the forceful slap, stunned and shocked at the audacity, Amelia began to say, “You-”

SLAP.

The same hand, cracking across the same cheek. “NO. Failing more than half your aptitude test? All those infractions? We’ve been through this. You literally agreed to it. Promised, even. Are you not a girl of your word, Millie?”

Once again speechless against Ashley’s words, and feeling smaller than ever as she rubbed her cheek with watery eyes, Amelia found the breath to say, “I am, but-” Where to even go from there? She had never been slapped before, and a whole day of being demeaned–intentionally or not–by teachers and these high school seniors–left her with very little fight left. And after the encounter with Summer earlier, there was still the hesitance in terms of how hitting back would be bad thanks to Amelia’s real age. “I’m not- I’m not actually a student.” She didn’t know what else to say. Because she did do poorly on a test designed for younger girls, and she did incur an embarrassing amount of infractions. And at the end of a long and mortifying afternoon, it was impossible to remember how much she had actually agreed to vs. how much of this was Ashley doing the typical teenage thing and twisting a partial ‘yes’ into a promise like she did earlier. So instead of trying to argue through multiple points at the same time, Amelia opted to sound like a broken record and just hit the truth that outweighed the rest of it in her eyes. 

“I know,” Ashley conceded. Of course, there was more to it than that. “You’re really an adult named Amelia, right? You want to be a teacher?”

Somehow, it felt like a trap. And also sounded somewhat foreign, after a full day of Ashley’s insistence to the contrary. Still, it was the truth. Amelia nodded, lamely adding a belated verbal “yes” to the gesture. 

“Okay. But you have to be Millie first, okay? I don’t want someone teaching at my school who can’t follow the basic handbook rules. And until you can show us that you’re competent at intermediate classes, then how can we trust you to teach that material to others?”

It sounded logical, but obviously it was more complicated than that. “But-”

“But nothing, Millie. How about this? Claire was kind enough to bring you down some toiletries. Why don’t you go shower and get ready for bed, and then we can talk about this some more?”

“Umm . . . ” she trailed off. A shower? Amelia had already showered that morning and, more importantly, it was preferable to do that back at her apartment. Even if her private room had a small bathroom attached, saving her the awkwardness of using one of the public ones down the hall, there was no need to shower twice in the same day. Especially not in an unfamiliar environment. 

Her hesitation was enough for Ashley to press the idea. “Come on, Millie. I’m sure you’ll feel better afterwards. And don’t you want to talk some more?”

While Amelia was very much on her back foot, and unable to keep up with everything Ashley was throwing at her, she wasn’t so lost that she had forgotten the main thing that the dark haired deviant had failed to account for beyond where it was inconveniently located. “I want my phone,” she muttered, countering the suggestion that talking was what she wanted. 

Ashley just smiled. “We can talk about that, too. After your shower, okay?”

“But, umm-”

“Listen to your cousin, Millie,” Claire piped up. She looked up from an academy binder similar to Amelia’s that she had been busy with through the back and forth so far. “You’ve had a long day. I’m sure you’ll feel better after rinsing off.”

“That’s right,” Ashley nodded. Like it had already been decided, she said, “Do you need help getting undressed or anything?”

“No!” Amelia blurted out. She blushed a bit at that image as well as the unintentionally shrill tone, and suddenly found herself actually wanting to shower like the girls were suggesting. It’s not the water that would be refreshing; instead, Amelia just desperately wanted the solitude. After half a day of going through orientation without realizing she was unintentionally feeding into what Ashley had set up for her, and half a day playing the role even after learning the truth about how she had been tricked, it was only now dawning on Amelia that she hadn’t truly been alone since driving in her car early that morning. 

Maybe that was what she needed. A bit of privacy and time to herself. It would be easier to talk with Ashley and Claire after having a moment to center and think things through without being turned around again and again through frustrating teenage logic. Also, getting out of the schoolgirl outfit would be nice. Honestly, anything would be better than her current immature getup. And, while wasteful, perhaps a hot shower wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world after such an exhausting and frustrating day. 

Taking a breath and finding her normal voice again, she said, “I mean, no, thank you. I’ll be fine.”

“Whatever you say,” Ashley replied, “Chat after your shower?”

Apparently. Confirming what she had just implied, Amelia mumbled, “After my shower.”