You keep your pencil moving even after the academic assistant appears in the doorway.
That is the first thing you learn about survival in places like this. You do not flinch too early. You do not give people the satisfaction of watching your pulse from across the room. So while the rest of the class goes stiff with curiosity, you keep your eyes on your notebook and write down the date, the chapter title, the key terms on the board, as if your life has not already split into before and after the moment you pressed send.
“Professor Salcedo,” the assistant says again, “the principal needs to see you now.”
Your teacher sets down her marker with more force than necessary.
The little click against the whiteboard tray sounds sharper than it should, a tiny noise that somehow carries embarrassment before she has even stood up. She looks around the room once, and for a second you see something unfamiliar in her expression. Not anger. Not superiority. Calculation.
“I’ll be back,” she says.
Nobody answers. She leaves with the assistant, the door shuts, and then the entire room exhales at once.
The noise comes back in pieces.
