Hero's Bride

by C. J. Scarlett

  “The Bill of Protection completely goes against everything outlined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,” said a man in the class whose name was Erik. He had fire in his eyes that Alessia often found hard to meet, blinking her gaze away, pretending she had makeup in her eye that she desperately needed to banish. “Shifter rights are human rights.”

  “Not when lawmakers can make the argument that ‘all men are created equal’ refers only to Nons,” Alessia said. “This is why we need to focus on getting more pro-shifter candidates in the Supreme Court where the debate on the meaning of the Constitution can take a national stage.”

  “Congress knows that, which is why they cockblock our every attempt to do that,” he said.

  “Eloquent way of putting it.”

  The first class was meant to be an introduction, like everything else. But a half hour of discussing the syllabus turned into a full hour of Alessia and Erik going back and forth about how best to take on the bias in the branches of the government.

  “You know you’re both on the same side, right?” said the only other boy in the class, after a while. “Stop yelling at each other.”

  It didn’t stop Alessia from staring down Erik the rest of the class after they were finally forced to let others do the talking. She alternated between crossing her arms and taking feverish, angry notes when others spoke. She couldn’t bring herself to pull her gaze into his eyes, however. They were still a little too intense and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of watching her break eye contact first. Others talked about less fiery topics, discussed the need to bring more shifter involvement and activities to campuses and schools for younger kids.

  When Alessia left, she was in a bad mood. She was surrounded by assholes no matter what day of the week it was. Maybe Erik and Tekkin could get together and talk about how they both loved to hear themselves talk and pretend that they were right about virtually everything they said. They could have a group wank over how impressed they were with themselves and their opinions.

  She ate in silence in one of the school canteens, ripping into her sandwich with her teeth and gnashing it down. She wasn’t even so hungry so much as she wanted to punch the nearest breakable object, preferably Erik’s head.

  The next day brought nothing but the same when she walked into Tekkin’s class and took her seat. She managed to get herself a syllabus from his desk when she marched into office hours, took it, and walked out without a word. Today’s topic began the lecture on the history of the Civil Rights movement in America and how shifters had been both included and barred from the topic and the discussion therein. She knew plenty about this; she’d given a presentation on it in her undergrad classes, years ago.

  “Welcome back to those of you that decided to continue with this class. Welcome period to those of you who are new,” Dr. Tekkin said, walking into the room.

  He was dressed much the same as last time. The difference now was that the white t-shirt was replaced with an AC/DC one, torn in some places, and he wore a leather jacket over his clothes, shaking it off as he got to the podium. He tossed it on a chair and took out stacks of papers and binders from his bag, He dropped them on the wobbly desk next to his podium and put them in separate piles.

  “Take one of each, we’ll be using them today,” he said, turning back around and beginning to write on the board.

  Alessia got up and took each one, looking at the headings: December March, Equal Pay Act, and Is It Enough? She knew all these topics; she’d written about them before. She stood there, mouth opening and closing and debating saying something to him, but she turned away. She’d wait and see, bide her time from her spot in the corner. The less he knew about her plans, the better. This was a way of attacking, plans for a siege. She’d let him continue to think she was some idly child looking at making a difference with hashtags and filtered Instagram photos.

  “The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s United States is largely associated with the topic of race relations. It was, after all, a movement predominantly geared towards the treatment of blacks in America,” he said, writing some dates on the board. “To a lesser extent, gay rights, women’s rights, and even shifter rights were brought to the attention of the masses, but not in any real numbers that mattered.”

  “Actually, sir,” Alessia said before she could stop herself; so much for playing it low and quiet. “It was during this time that the first shifter actor appeared on screen in a Non role and the first time a shifter was elected to public office—Carson City, Utah, Mayor Greta White.”

  “I’m talking about large, bombastic movements here, Miss Monroe; try not to confuse the class,” he said, turning back to the board.

  “Well, not everything has to be a massive protest or a show,” she said. “Some of the greatest strides towards anything happened quietly and slowly. Just look at Harriet Beecher Stowe and her effect on the—”

  “it is easy for those in privileged positions to take the slow and easy route,” he said. “Those miniscule steps towards what some might label as ‘progress’ have served no real purpose as of right now, have they? We have shifter actors, shifter lawmakers, but shifter rights seem to be disappearing every day. Now, back to the lecture.”

  She glared at him after that, not even bothering to pretend to take notes. She could feel the eyes of the students on her. In her periphery she’d seen their heads bouncing back and forth mechanically as they exchanged their arguments. Considering he had yet to introduce that he even had a teaching fellow, they probably thought she was some older, adult student with an attitude.

  She tapped the end of her pen on the edge of her notebook as he rambled on up at the front of the classroom. She bit her lip, watching him color the strides towards progress over the decades as barely consequential blips on a cosmic timeline. He was so pessimistic she almost wanted to scream. How could anyone be so angry all the time? She understood the problems of the shifter culture, she’d lived them and took four years’ worth of courses on them. But this was a man refusing to see hope.

  “That will be it for this week,” Tekkin said when he was done. “Check your calendars, your first essay is due at the end of next week.”

  “Actually, professor, I was wondering if I might have a chance to talk to the class?” she said, feeling herself sweat as she stood, not waiting for his permission. “My name is Alessia Monroe and I’m your teaching fellow for this semester. I’m a PhD candidate in Shifter Culture and Studies. I’m going to hold office hours every week at three p.m. on Tuesdays in the Starbucks on campus. They can be whatever you need them to be—discussion sessions, question and answer, whatever. I hope to see you all there.”

  With that, the students nodded and left the room. She did the same thing, not giving Tekkin the chance to say a word to her as her heels clicked with power against the floor, taking her out the door. She let out her held breath and tried to ignore the obvious pit stains forming under her arms. She actually did that. She hadn’t been planning on it. In fact, she really had no idea how to be a student teacher, but she hoped the look on his face when she stood to interrupt him was reward enough, even if not a single kid showed up to meet her at Starbucks.

  Which, she would now spend her Tuesday afternoons in Starbucks. She’d have to budget that into her time and her wallet since her orders there easily stacked up to almost a hundred dollars a month on their coffee.

  Maybe this semester wouldn’t be so bad after all, however.

  #

  “Get it, girl,” Trish said that night when she told her over that video chat. “Score one for the home team.”

  “It would be an even bigger slap in the face if these kids actually showed up to my meetings but so far I’m not complaining,” she said.

  “Next, we key his car and slash his tires.”

  Alessia rolled her eyes. She was curled up on the couch in sweatpants, tea in her hand, the TV buzzing in the background with the sounds of whatever sitcom was on at eight p.m. on a F
riday. Trish had a day full of callbacks and managed to not get tossed out of a single one by some bigoted director, at least to Alessia’s knowledge. Somehow she was pretty sure that even if it did happen again at this point, Trish wouldn’t tell her.

  So they kept their conversation blissful while Alessia felt like she was on cloud nine. That feeling dissipated, however, when she opened her email to check it habitually for the third time in that hour, as she was always prone to do. There, waiting for her in her inbox, was an email from Professor Tekkin, telling her to meet him after class on Monday and nothing else. No greeting, no goodbye, no trace of friendliness, and it wasn’t a request. She gulped. That was one way a good mood could be ruined. But she kept quiet about it to Trish.

  Chapter 4

  The weekend passed far too quickly; she wanted it to go as slow as possible. She dreaded this meeting with Tekkin on Monday. She did her best to make it last by reverting to her undergraduate habits: bar hopping. She’d gotten more sophisticated with it. She went to bars off campus, away from the sea of early twenty-somethings and fake IDs. She no longer got giant pitches of some concoction that was pure sugar and alcohol. She ordered red wine at every bar and sat alone in the corner, watching everyone out with their work friends or on a date.

  She spent all of Saturday trying to nap, trying to read books, looking up recipes on the internet, trying to keep her mind busy and make the clock move faster. As soon as the clock struck six o’clock, she set out to the bar to make time move even faster as the buzz of alcohol set in her system and went for a swim in her veins. So far off campus she didn’t expect to see anyone she knew, but you couldn’t always get what you wanted.

  “You would be the type to order a glass of wine at a bar,” said a familiar, narcistic voice.

  Erik from her seminar stood there. He was dressed with much more care than he presented in class. Her shirt was ironed and buttoned up to the collar, a faded flannel that was shaped well at all the edges. His deep brown hair was still damp from the obvious shower he’d taken earlier and he put off a scent of aftershave that she didn’t exactly hate. On his wrist was an expensive-looking watch, the hand wearing it tucked into the pocket of his dark jeans that gave way to well-cared-for shoes on his feet.

  “You here on a date?” she asked, running her eyes over him one more time to make sure she got all the assets to his look right. It would probably be the only time she saw him looking so well put together.

  “Meeting some friends at a club downtown,” he said. “You’re clearly having a roaring time here.”

  He nodded to her half-full wine glass and the empty next to it that hadn’t yet been taken away. She blushed, despite herself. She wasn’t ashamed. She could order whatever the hell she wanted from a bar. Her face must have said that because next he said, “You’re not exactly the picture of fun and excitement looking like that. Wine is a couch and Netflix drink, not something to be seen with unless you’re at Martha’s Vineyard.”

  She glared. “Anything else? I come here to avoid your insults.”

  “I can buy your next round if you’d like,” he said, shrugging.

  “And spit in it?”

  “Watch you drink it and come up with all sorts of witty insults,” he said, smirking. “I’m waiting for my asshole friends who are always late.”

  “Maybe they ditched you.”

  He narrowed his eyes, dropping down next to her, perhaps thinking this was his best way of getting revenge on her. His presence was the worst punishment he could inflict on her. She angled herself so that she was turned away from him. Unfortunately for her, the result was a view of the wall inches from her face and her own empty wine glasses. He chuckled behind her.

  “You can handle having me in your peripheral vision,” he said. “I swear, I’ll be quiet.”

  She sighed, slowly starting to shift back. She kept her eyes and head focused in the other direction, however. She played with her wine glass and took a sip, letting the dry, tart taste settle there and work its way down her throat in warmth.

  “Did you do the reading for class?”

  “I thought you said you’d be quiet.”

  “Well, this is an actual question.”

  “Yes, I did the reading.”

  “Did you think it was bogus too?”

  Her first answer in her own head was yes, absolutely, it was bogus. It was a piece on why shifters should be patient with society, that their place in the public was still somewhat new and everyone was adjusting, that they’d catch up. It was complete garbage. She was pretty sure that was the point. No self-respecting person in the shifter rights field could read it and not cringe. But she didn’t want to agree with Erik on anything.

  “Yeah, that was the idea,” she said like it was obvious.

  “But do you think there’s something to it?” he asked, turning to face her and letting his head cradle in the palm of his hand as his elbow rested on the bar top.

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “Why the hell should shifters have to wait to be considered people?”

  “Well, think about all the small steps towards progress, you know? Like getting the first senator and the first Academy award-winning director. The steps are there,” he said.

  “And what about the people who never get to live to see the full progress because they’re told that they should be grateful for whatever miniscule amount of achievement they get in their lifetime?”

  “It’s bigger than just one person, or a couple people. It sucks to think about some grandma who picketed for years and years dying before she gets to see all that freedom. But this is about an entire group. The individual never matters in a revolution.”

  He didn’t end up meeting his friends that night. Somehow drinks seemed to keep appearing in front of them both and before they knew it, someone flickered the lights for last call, ushering them out the door. They split a ride back to campus and kept their heated debate going before she told him he was wrong, slammed the door behind her, and walked from the car into her apartment building. From the window he rolled down in the cab, he called a good night to her and said he’d see her in class next week.

  #

  She purposely slipped into the lecture hall for class just before it started, preventing him from eying her too much, trying to talk to her before. She shuffled into her normal seat while he answered someone’s question. She took out her notebook and pen and pretended to be busy writing something down to avoid any eye contact, any chance. Maybe he forgot he asked to speak with her after class.

  Fat chance.

  “Miss Monroe,” he said when everyone stood to leave.

  He beckoned her over with a wag of his finger and she imaged herself ripping the digit off and laughing at his pain. He got her so incredibly angry. She didn’t like feeling hateful, but at least her fear was vanishing into something a little more productive. She could use rage a lot more than she could use nervous energy.

  She walked up to him with all the confidence she knew she didn’t have. Her head was held up high, her shoulders rolled back, her hand placed with purpose and care on the edge of her bag.

  “Yes, professor?” she asked with an overly sweet voice. She might need to pull it back; that sounded a little bit like the beginning of an awful porno.

  “You are here as a guest in my class,” he said, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms in the typical I-know-better-than-you teacher pose.

  “Actually, I’m a contributing part of the curriculum,” she said. “I’m a teaching fellow which means I’m meant to serve as an asset to the education of the students taking this course. I have four years of formal education on the matter and several years of experience before that. I’m here to use it.”

  “As I see fit,” he said.

  “Is it that I’m a woman?” she asked. “Because you’re meant to be a color, gender, and orientation-blind individual working for an educational institution. Is it my age? Because twenty-five is a respectable—”

  �
��It has nothing to do with those things, Miss Monroe. I can assure you,” he said. “I am a firm believer that women will take the Earth from men and we’ll all be better for it. Likewise, I put my faith in the generations below me.”

  “What’s the issue then? It’s not fair of you to disrupt my education like this.”

  “Why did you go into this field?”

  He’d switched his position again; now it was the teacher therapist here to tell her all the places she fucked up so far in her life. He was convinced he knew better, she could read that all over his face. He thought the grey stubble on his chin made him look older, made him seem wiser. He thought the build of his body made him seem powerful, the strange sort of energy coming off him made him seem dangerous…

  Wait.

  Oh crap.

  Suddenly, she realized the source of all his frustrating antics with her, all his decided mistrust of her competency. He was a shifter. Of course. He seemed to read her mind on her face because he was nodding.

  “I know why I got into this field,” he said. “It was the only option I had at the time because no one wanted to give me a chance. Now I’m making sure new generations are educated and have chances of their own. Why are you here?”

  “My best friend is—”

  “That, right there. That is your problem.”

  He pushed himself up from his passive position leaning against the desk and moved to collect his things, shoving books and papers back into his bag.

  “You can have empathy, you can have sympathy. You can cry a thousand tears for what your friend is going through and the things she faces, but you can never know what it’s like for her. You will always be an outsider, and that makes you a liability to the education of future generations when you will always be a secondhand source,” he said, slipping his coat on. “You’re here because the administration forced you on me and I cannot reject a student for the practicum portion of your courses. So you will continue to be here, and that is all. I will give you a satisfactory grade to complete what you need to complete and then you will move on to bother the next professor in your list. I’m the only one of my kind on the faculty, however, so you’ll have a breeze with them by comparison.”