Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 1015 : The Only Way

*Bianca*

I jumped when the professor slammed the paper down on my desk, facedown. I gritted my teeth and picked up the sheet, gripping it firmly to my chest and shutting my eyes, exhaling deeply to prepare myself.

It took me another minute to actually convince myself to flip it over so I could read the letter that was scrawled in angry red pen at the top.

My heart plummeted to my toes and tears pricked at the back of my eyes.

A D+.

It wasn’t an F but it was still far from the grade that I wanted. And at this rate, with my last failed test, my final grade was looking pretty dark.

I stood abruptly from my seat and tightened my fingers against the sheet of paper before stalking out of the room quickly. One cursory glance around confirmed that a lot of students didn’t do so hot. Many of them were groaning and running their hands through their hair, their expressions stressed and frustrated.

It didn’t exactly make me feel better that my fellow classmates did poorly as well but it was a bit comforting to know that I wasn’t alone in this struggle.

I could have ran home and locked myself in my room but I wasn’t going to do that this time. I was going to face this head on. I know I studied thoroughly for this exam. I wasn’t going to just stand aside anymore while I was wrongly mistreated.

A handful of guys from my class were standing in the hallway to my great fortune. They were standing in a loose circle, their tests in their hands. I could tell by their confident stances that they had all done at last fairly well.

I took a calming breath before approaching them. “Hey, guys,” I said sweetly.

They all turned their heads, their eyes widening upon seeing me. I got a couple of them giving me a hungry look up and down.

I smirked inwardly. I had heard from both Isabella and Amara that I was getting some attention from multiple guys at this school but I had ignored the comments, assuring them that I wasn’t that pretty and that the guys weren’t actually looking at me. I could see it now though. For some reason, I was attracting them to me.

I decided that it was mostly harmless for me to use that to my advantage this time. I cringed to think how Leo would respond if he knew. He might go into a blind rage and try to send me to an all female college.

It took zero convincing to have the guys follow me to a private study room in the library so that we could compare test answers. Just as I suspected, my answers were marked way down even though I had come up with the right answers for almost all of the questions.

After some quick calculating, I realized that my grade on this test should have been an A minus.

I didn’t show this to the guys. I gave them a grateful smile. “Thank you for taking the time to let me look at your tests,” I told them.

“Anytime,” one said and his voice was low, seductive.

“If you need anyone to help you study,” another said, waggling his eyebrows. “I’ll always be availale to you, baby.”

I cringed but did my best to hide my disgust as I turned and headed out of the library.

I shuddered with discomfort, amazed that those guys were willing to openly flirt with me like that when I was very clearly pregnant.

Guys were so gross.I shook the thought off and went to go find my friends. I meant what I said before. I wasn’t going to just put up with this anymore.

“Hey,” I said into my phone. “Could you come over for a bit? I need your life.”

About an hour later, Isabella and Taylor were sitting in my living room, each of them peering over my shoulder at my laptop.

“This isn’t good,” I said with a heavy sigh. “At this rate, I am definitely going to fail this class. Even if I do well on the final, which I doubt Professor Kramer would let that happen anyway, I’m still going to have a D.”

Isabella patted my arm. “We’ll think of something,” she tried to comfort me. She pressed her lips together in thought and then her eyes lit up. “What if you transfer classes?”

“It’s a little late in the semester for her to transfer,” Taylor pointed out. “And even if it wasn’t, there aren’t any other online professors for this course.” He falls silent and pulls out his own laptop, his eyes intense as he starts typing away and his gaze narrows on something he found.

“What are you doing?” Isabella asked him after a few silent moments, echoing my thoughts.

He didn’t answer for another few seconds but then he turned the screen so that the two of us could see.

I quirked an eyebrow at the house and address he was showing us. “What?” I asked after a long second. “Are you trying to become a real estate agent or something?”

Taylor rolled his eyes but then tapped on the screen. “This is Professor Kramer’s house,” he said, his tone low and dangerous. “I say we march over there so that I can give him a piece of my mind.”

My jaw dropped and then I shook my head slowly. “That wouldn’t exactly be helpful,” I told him, biting back the urge to roll my eyes at one of my oldest friends.

“It’s stupid and reckless,” Isabella added.

Taylor gave us both stunned look. “How is it stupid and reckless?” he demanded. “We could just drive over there and I could threaten him a little bit. I wouldn’t beat him up or anything. I’ll even let you two watch if you don’t trust me.”

“I believe you, Taylor,” I said, amazed that we were even having this conversation. I leveled him with a serious look. “I don’t want to do anything drastic.”

“This bastard deserves drastic after what he did to you,” Taylor muttered but he relented, setting his laptop down on the coffee table and crossing his arms in defeat.

“He might actually be right though, Bianca,” Isabella said.

I gave her a wide-eyed look. “Not you too!” I complained. “Guys, we can’t just drive over to a professor’s house and-”

“No, no, not about going over there to threaten the asshole,” Isabella said, waving her arms around. “I just meant that maybe this guy does deserve to pay for what he did.”

I looked between my two friends and realized that they were both right. I had to face the fact that I coudn’t just handle this on my own.

I could still handle this diplomatically however.

“I know that look,” Taylor said and he looked excited. “What are you thinking?”

I opened a new tab on my laptop. “I’m going to take this directly to the headmaster,” I announced.

“Good for you!” Isabella cheered, pumping her fist above her head excitedly.

Taylor grinned widely at me. “It’s about time someone did something to put this guy in his place,” he said. “I hope the bastard gets fired for it.”

Even though Professor Kramer was a definite jerk, I still didn’t care to see him actually punished. I just wanted to get graded fairly for the work I was doing. It was pretty sad that that was something that I had to fight for.

The headmaster didn’t have any openings until a few days later but I waited patiently those next few days, just doing my best in my classes, especially in Kramer’s class. Plus, the few days gave me time to gather my evidence and to form my arguments.

“The headmaster will see you now,” the secretary told me, popping her head around the corner to smile kindly at me.

That tiny, warm smile was just what I needed at the moment to gather my last bit of courage to stand up, clutch my notes in my shaking hands and stride into the headmaster’s office.

The headmaster looked up at me from over his glasses and gestured to the chair across from his large wooden desk. “Please have a seat, Miss Bianca,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, doing as he said and sitting across from him.

This was my first time speaking to the headmaster. He seemed like a kind old man, with wispy white hair and kind blue eyes.

I took a breath and then began the speech that I had prepared in my head. “Well, sir, I hate to be the one to deliver this disturbing news to you but I have reason to believe that Professor Kramer has been grading his students unfairly. More specifically, his female students.” I started to open the folder that I brought with me with my graded papers and pictures of the tests of my male classmates when the headmaster put his hand up.

“I’m going to have to stop you right there, Miss,” he said sternly, his voice hard.

My stomach dropped. “Sir?”

The headmaster shook his head, his eyes darkening and the sides of his mouth drawn down in obvious disappointment. “You aren’t the first young woman to come to me with this tiresome complaint,” he said. “And while I understand that Professor Kramer can be one of the stricter professors, I don’t believe that that calls for this kind of childish whining.”

My jaw dropped. I shook my head, taking a moment to collect myself. “I can assure you that this complaint is a sound one,” I said, pulling my notes fully out of the folder and setting them in front of him. “Please, if you’ll just look at the evidence I’ve brought you-”

“That is quite enough,” the headmaster said, not even bothering to look at the papers. He reached under his desk and pulled out a form. “Now, I’ll have you fill this out so you can make a formal inquiry but I’m afraid that there isn’t anything you’re going to be able to do aside from that.”

I gritted my teeth but grabbed the pen the headmaster held out to me so I could fill out the page, frustrated that he wasn’t even hearing me out. I could barely breathe, I was so angry. I shoved the form across the table at him.

He looked unfazed by my anger, even a little amused. “If I may make a suggestion,” he said. “Perhaps Professor Kramer’s course is too difficult for you. It might benefit you to drop out and change your major to one that is more fitting for a woman like yourself. Perhaps English Literature?” 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

I stared at him in completely disbelief, my blood simmering from his sexist words. I stood abruptly from my chair, nearly causing the piece of furniture to fall backward. I snatched my notes off of the desk and stormed out, slamming the door behind me.

I was too pissed off to drive so I just sat in my car, fuming like a tea kettle. I was beginning to realize why Leo and the other Valentinos chose to go above the law at times.

Sometimes, that was the only way to get things done.