Page 30 of Working for the Teacher

He turns back.

“Would you be willing to tell Coach Reyes what actually happened yesterday? Only if you're comfortable with it. Just the truth, from your perspective, about what Ryder said to you.”

Something shifts in his eyes and it’s so jarring that it tells me everything before he even opens his mouth.

“I really don't want to talk to Coach Reyes.”

“Why not?”

“You don't know?” He says it like the question itself is naive. “Coach Reyes hates me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before you started teaching here, I tried out for football. Made varsity, even, which never happens for freshmen, and I was good. Like, actually good. Then halfway through the season he kicked me off the team. Told everyone I'd been caught vandalizing the equipment shed. I never touched that shed. I wasn't even at school that weekend, I was at my cousin's in Washington, and I told him that, and he didn't care. Said the evidence was clear enough for him. My mom tried to fight it and he just kept saying his decision was final and that's that. I never got to play again. Nobody believed me over him. Why would they? He's the vice principal.”

Fury settles in my gut. This isn't the first time. This is a pattern. A kid punished for something he didn't do, on nothing but Reyes's word, with no one willing to push back.

“Mason, I believe you.”

He looks at me, startled, like he wasn't expecting that response from anyone, let alone a teacher.

“You don't have to talk to him. I would never ask you to do something that puts you in a bad position, especially with a man who's already shown you he'll use his power against kids he's decided he doesn't like. But thank you for telling me this. It actually helps.”

“Helps how?”

“I'm still figuring that part out. Go on to your next class.”

Something in his expression loosens before he ducks out into the hallway, and I sit there at my desk for a long moment after he's gone, feeling the last of my restraint burn away.

I walk straight down to Reyes’s office, adrenaline carrying me the entire way. I don't bother knocking before I push his door open.

He looks up, annoyance flashing across his face. “Ms. Hayes, I already told you this conversation is over.”

“I don't think you want it to be.”

“Excuse me?”

“You have several sources,” I say, closing the door behind me. “Except you don't, do you? You have security footage, and you're the vice principal, which means you have access to it. You watched exactly what happened yesterday, and you decided to pretend it looked like something else. Why don’t you pull the tapes?”

“This conversation is over, or you're going to have a much bigger problem than a contractor losing his job.”

“Oh, I think you want to listen to what I have to say. Because I know exactly what happened to Mason Delgado last year. Kicked off the football team for a crime he didn't commit, based entirely on your word, with no actual evidence and no real investigation. I'm guessing he's not the only one. I'm guessing if I started asking around, I'd find a pattern. Kids nobody's inclined to believe over a vice principal, getting punished for things they didn't do whenever it's convenient for you.”

His face doesn't move, but something in his eyes does, a flicker of genuine alarm he can't quite smooth over fast enough.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I think you do. It's interesting, actually. The school I taught at in Brooklyn had a situation a lot like this one. An administrator abused his power for years, and everyone was too afraid to say anything. Nothing happened for a long time. Nothing at all. Until a few of us went to the local paper with what we knew.”

“I fail to see how that's relevant.”

“It's relevant because once the story ran, more kids came forward. More parents. Things that had been buried for years came out all at once, because it turns out once one person is brave enough to say something out loud, everybody else who's been sitting on their own version of the same story finally feels safe enough to speak up too. I really don't think you want me to pull that thread here. We're not living in an era where these things get swept under a rug anymore. Kids have social media accounts with more followers than this entire town has residents. Parents talk to each other, and to reporters, and to school boards. You'd be surprised how fast something like this can spiral once it starts. And once it does, there's no controlling how it ends. You could lose a lot more than one contractor's access to a job site.”

The silence that follows stretches long enough that I can hear the clock ticking on his wall.

“Fine. Fine. You want your boyfriend back on this job, fine. I'll call over, get the owner to bring him back on.”

I nod, but not in gratitude so much as satisfaction.